Rhetorical Analysis of John Legend Grad Speech

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Rhetorical Analysis: John Legend John Legend, a man of many musical talents, was chosen to give the commencement speech to Kean University’s class of 2011. He did not rely on his musical accomplishments to win over the audience of the graduates and family members, but used his knowledge of problems in the education system to show everyone how lucky they are to receive this gift of tools to succeed in life. Within his speech he effectively encouraged the audience to use their knowledge to make a change by comprising his speech mainly of pathos, to shed light with the troubles in the education system. He used logos to show how these problems happening are real rather than just theories, but stayed away from the appeal of ethos because his message was not to point out all of his achievements. Throughout the speech John Legend did not try to create his ethos through all of his own personal accomplishments in the music world to significantly establish his credibility to the audience. He expressed to the audience that he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. Legend wanted the audience to be aware of this because he did not want people to only think he was credible in the music industry. He did not speak to the audience as a Grammy award winner, but rather as an equal who has also been college educated. He repeatedly expressed how honored he was to be giving the speech, but he did not try to use all of his accomplishments to show the audience that he was credible. Rather than only talking about this Grammy awards, he addressed his credibility by talking about educational issues in our society. John Legend used pathos appeal to intensify the emotions of the crowd. His emotional tones progressed from being celebratory, somber, and then back to congratulating the audience. He started off his speech by talking how this is a celebration for all the hard work

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