Persuasive Power of Language

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ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LITERATURE SL WRITTEN TASK 1 The following text is an article for a school magazine PERSUASIVE LANGUAGE USED BY POLITICIANS AND THE POWER IT POSSESES -PARIDHI IB XI A ‘Persuasion is a symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behaviors regarding an issue through the transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free choice.’[1] Language is one of the most effective tools used in persuasion. To understand how, one must explore further. In today’s world of sophisticated communication systems , where anything written by anyone can be uploaded on the internet or published in the newspaper to reach thosands of people all over the world, the power of language plays an interesting role. Language is a means of knowledge and is something that possesses great convincing power. This can be seen in various parts of our life. I will be discussing in detail not all, but those techniques which I found interesting and appealing while researching. I would start with discussing the persuasive language used by politicians and then move on to the rhetorics used in advertisements. Politicians use rhetorics to convince and persuade people and subsequently gain votes. Some important ones are ‘I have a dream’ by Martin Luther King Jr. , George Washington Bush’s speech after 9/11 , and Barack Obama’s inaugural speech. [2] Some of the important devices which really interested me and really wanted to share them with the school are: Positiveness: All politicians have to utilize this tool in order to achieve their persuasing aim . Replacing simple words such as ‘I might’ with ‘ I will’ can make all the difference. Problems could be made oppurtunities, liabilities could be made assets and mistakes something
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