30 Rhetorical Analysis Array – Nikole Meadows

Rhetorical Analysis Array

Rhetorical Analysis:

An explanation of rhetorical analysis, found via the website of the TAMU Writing Center, states that “A rhetorical analysis is an essay that breaks a work of non-fiction into parts and then explains how the parts work together to create a certain effect—whether to persuade, entertain or inform.” This process breaks down a work and takes specific aspects of the work to explain what and how it affected the reader/watcher/listener, along with how it affected the work itself.

A rhetorical analysis is useful for putting a text into context, and to gain a better understanding of what exactly the message is behind the piece of media we’re analyzing. In the future if you struggle to understand a piece of media, whether this be a movie, an essay, or almost anything in between, try analyzing it using the following examples.

For the first example, a movie clip was used for the rhetorical analysis to put it into perspective as to why it was included in the movie:

Movie Clip Example: Titanic Clip

Movie Background: Titanic is an American romance and disaster film following the leads Rose and Jack. It follows their relationship that grows while they are on board the Titanic. It shows the difference between their family life and their overall experiences in life, and how they bond despite these.

Clip Explained: Rose and Jack meet at the front of the ship with a sunset behind them. Jack tells Rose to close her eyes and join him on the front railing so she can experience a small amount of freedom, Rose’s life is often controlled by her family; they often present her as nothing more than a pretty face or a decoration, rather than a person of her own. He then has Rose raise her arms with Jack making sure they stay steady. In the scene, she states, “I’m flying” and then they kiss.

Take Away: The scene was to show a major point in their relationship. It is a touching and romantic moment between the two main characters. This scene is put there to show the chemistry between the two lead characters and to make the watchers root for their relationship.

What Was Noticed: At the beginning of the scene, we see Jack who has a frown and creased eyebrows while staring down towards the water. When he sees Rose, however, he starts smiling at her. Throughout the scene he always has his hands touching her in some way, along with always looking at her.

Regarding Rose’s body language, at the beginning of her entering the scene, she has her hands together and is slowly approaching Jack. She seems timid to approach him but eventually becomes more relaxed as they interact, and the more they touch. This shows that she is gradually becoming more comfortable with him throughout the scene.

There are also a lot of soft oranges and yellows being cast on the characters throughout the clip, this gives off a happy, positive, and an even intimate feel to the scene. At the end of the scene, however, the camera angle stays focused on the front railing while transitioning from the two kissing to the submerged Titanic. It shows a dramatic difference from the bright oranges to the dark blues of the ocean. This change gives a sad and eerie feeling to the scene, illustrating that this happy feeling will eventually end in tragedy, foreshadowing the movie’s ending which is the eventual heartbreaking separation of our two lead characters.

One of the major points of dialogue in this scene is when Rose is on the railing and proclaims, “I’m flying.” As mentioned earlier, so far Rose has been a very “kept under thumb” individual. She does not often speak up about how she feels or thinks around others, however, Jack is always someone who encourages her to do so throughout the movie, pushing her to be herself.

A Minor Explanation:

This method of analyzing a movie clip is slightly different from how you analyze a text in that you are looking at the physical qualities of the piece of media, body language, background, color, etc., rather than with text where you look at the major parts of the media and certain patterns to gain an understanding.

For the next example the text that is the focus of this rhetorical analysis was three paragraphs of a nonfiction work:

Non-fiction Text Example: Mother Tongue by Amy Tan

The paragraphs used for the rhetorical analysis were paragraphs seven through nine. For paragraph seven the first use of rhetorical strategy noticed were the comparisons Ms. Tan made between her mother’s English and a physical object “as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed…” This is used as a reflection on Ms. Tan’s previous description of her mother’s English being “broken” and why describing it this way has always bothered her. The negative connotations behind the descriptive words such as damaged and broken reinforced the idea that the way her mother spoke English was wrong in some way. This backs up the main message of the passage that there are diverse types of English, and that speaking English in a unique style does not make you any less of an English speaker.

At the end of paragraph seven and the beginning of paragraph eight there is a repeated usage of the word ‘limited.’ This repetition of the word is put there to connect the two paragraphs while also building a connection between the description of her mother’s English to the verb form of the word limited. This is also a form of word positioning in a sentence and making sure to put emphasis on this perceived limitation in her mother’s English. This emphasis once again brings us back to the main idea of the text, that there is not just one way to speak English.

The beginning of paragraph nine once more uses the word ‘limit’ “My mother has long realized the limitations of her English as well.” It uses this to then pull the focus onto some examples Ms. Tan gives on how her mother has realized her limitations in English. It talks about some events she has experienced in having to pretend to be her mother because she wanted the listener to properly understand what she wanted to say without this “limitation.” One of the instances Ms. Tan talked about referenced when she was fifteen and had to pretend to be her mother in order to get information or to “complain and yell at people who had been rude to her.”

These three paragraphs give good insight into the different types of English speakers there are and how speaking English in a different style will often bring upon negative attention, though the same language and words are still being spoken. The text brings to light an incorrect assumption that one’s ability to speak affluently directly ties to, and reflects, one’s intelligence. This text also reflected on Ms. Tan and her mother’s different ways of effectively communicating in English along with how these methods were viewed by other English speakers.

Intermission:

Now we will be moving onto our final situation of using a rhetorical analysis to get an understanding, this analysis is done on an academic article:

Academic Article Example: Living Through College Literacy by Ilona Leki

The full title of the academic article is Living Through College Literacy-Nursing in a Second Language. Before reading the article, the first clue into what the article will be about is the term literacy being used in the title, it is likely the text will be talking about writing classes. Because the title also mentions a second language there is also likely going to be talk about one’s literacy when being multilingual. There is also the term nursing being used so perhaps it will be focused on nursing majors in college.

This academic article is what is called a research article in the researching field. Some hints given that denote it is such is Leki’s ‘Research Participant’ section in their article, and before that Leki also makes a list of the studies and prior research she’s decided to reference. Another hint that this is a research article is that it contains a research participant, Yang, and it delves into the author’s decided case study. Were this article a theoretical article, it would not contain these things.

Leki’s reasoning for writing this article, demonstrated in the introduction, is to focus on the L2 students who struggle with writing informal works, especially focusing on the medical field aspect of these struggles and miscommunications. The purpose of this article is to bring to light the added complications of literacy for students whose native language is not English, especially when it comes to non-academic or informal pieces of writing. For the case study person Yang, the area they widely struggled in was writing up NCPs, nursing care plans. The author states that while Yangs native English-speaking peers began to understand the process of writing these NCPs quickly and would be able to produce them in one to two hours, while she struggled with completing them over a span of multiple hours, these were spent revising and rechecking for grammatical errors so as to not be shunned by her professors. It also wants to bring to light the distinct cultural influence between methods of learning and writing and how that also throws a hurdle at these students. The author mentions in the ‘Confronting the Double Edge’ section that “If [Yang] had spent more time in English classes… she might have developed more fluency in writing but probably not much in speaking because credit-bearing L2 writing courses of necessity mirror freshman composition… and consequently focus very little on speaking.”

One of the sources Leki sites in her article is at the top of page 87, Leki points out Table 1 in her article. Table 1 is included in the paper to give a visual as to just how many papers Yang had to write, so that the author would not be forced to list number after number of papers per class in the middle of their article. They also use this Tabel to ease the means of communication by showing an easy-to-read table for the readers or review.

One thing that stood out was the first paragraph in the section ‘Confronting the Double Edge,’ in which the author is seemingly enticing the reader to be on Yang, and in turn the writer’s, side of the idea that the method with which L2 students are forced to learn creates an added obstacle when trying to express their ability. Leki is doing this by stating “With greater fluency in writing, Yang’s task would have been made much easier and less traumatic.” The usage of the word traumatic to describe Yang’s experience with her struggles of writing are putting on an extra layer of empathy to be felt for her, in that the reader would not want this feeling to be repeated in other persons’.

In the final three paragraphs Leki writes out her conclusion and what she hopes to occur now that she’s presented her findings. These paragraphs give a short explanation of the article’s findings and purpose. The final sentence is an important and key part of the overall purpose of the article: “Getting a sense of the complexity of the literacy experiences L2 students such as Yang encounter outside of English classes may help to suggest the kinds of openings that might become desirable and feasible.” Leki is inviting more case studies to be performed in order to find other instances in which multilingual students are struggling with types of writing that a native English speaker may find trivial. If the time is taken to understand the difficulties these students face than perhaps a work-around for these issues can be found.

Final Notes:

Writing a rhetorical analysis may seem complicated and dense when you first start, but over time you will find their existence helpful. Giving an overview of what you read and what you observed from whatever you are analyzing will also help you as a reader/watcher/listener process and take in the piece of media. If you still struggle for a while about how to analyze a piece of media, you aren’t alone, and there are plenty of places online or in-person you can look, libraries, English teachers, and Google are great tools for tying up any misunderstandings.