Analysis Of Cheryl Critchley's Smacking

The topic being argued is whether or not corporal punishment or smacking children should be made illegal. From the whole issue about the Yea Primary School mother hitting her daughter on the leg with a wooden spoon, has made the party to decided about making corporal punishment illegal or not. This issue has a lot of concern towards parents, children, government, schools and the general society. The government must consider parents on this matter and what they will do about it. Cheryl Critchley ’Smacking is distinct from child abuse’ from Herald Sun advises parents to consider the change in the law because this issue does a lot of harm towards children. While Thomas Hammarbery “Outlaw corporal punishment of children” from the Council of Europe
Commissioner for Human Rights says that the government should consider banning corporal punishment.

Cheryl Critchley persuades her audience through emotive language and inclusive language.
This articles’ main target audience are parents, but it also includes the general public too. Critchley suggests that emotive language is used to touch the heart of the audience which makes them think about their action towards child abuse. She use emotive language throughout the whole article, which appeals to the readers heart and make them “feel awful afterwards” when they abuse their children for misbehaving. Critchley uses inclusive language by including the audience as much as she can since she is trying to reach out to parents out there. She uses words such as ‘we, us and our’, to make the audience feel that they are apart of what she is saying and that she understand them and it would effect them by “If we smack, some accuse us of child abuse and being unable to control our kids”. However, on the other hand, Hammarbery persuades his audience by using less inclusive language and emotive language, since his audiences are not parents who he needs to touch, they are governments that he needs to reason with. Hammarbery does
include some form of inclusive language to persuade his reads that “we should not teach children that it is acceptable to ‘resolve’ disagreements with violence”. However, the way he uses emotive language is by using single words that has strong emotional appeal like “It demonstrates disrespect for their human dignity and teaches them that violence is an appropriate way to resolve conflict”. The strong emotive words in this sentence plays with the readers feeling where as Critchley’s article did not have that much effect because her she does not want to her reader’s feelings but just to make them feel touch and they should think about what they should do. Critchley’s article uses effect emotive and inclusive language since her audiences are parents but Hammarbery did not use it effectively because his contention is more based on reason not emotion.

When it comes to persuade techniques, both writes mention quiet a bit on intellectual techniques that makes the audiences think their actions.
Critchley uses a lot of evidence to support her agreements. When she mentions emotive language, she would use anecdotal evidence or expert opinion afterwards to make the audience think that her argument is agreeable. When Critchley talks about not abusing a child and how wrong it is, she would use anecdotal evidence to persuade her audience because it might be relate to the reader some way where Hammarbery does not use anecdotal evidence but actual argument that supports what he states “it is a human rights and a legal imperative. Council of Europe norms as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child require that the child should be protects from all forms of physical or mental violence”. Critchley also attempts to persuade her audience through reason and logic. She makes them think that “smacking is very different to being abusive” and that “parents I (she) know who smack are usually at the end of their tether and use it as a last resort”. Even though, Critchley attempts to persuade her audience through reason and logic, Hammarbery’s article is based on reason and logic which is why his audience is the government. Throughout the whole of Hammarbery’s article is based on reason that “research shows that children who are smacking more frequently at age three are more likely to be aggressive by age five”. Hammarbery reasons
with audience and makes his statements that are unarguable. While Hammarbery reasons with his audiences, Critchley tries to convince her audience by repetition and cliché. This demonstrates that “parents are damned if they smack and damned if they don’t”. By using repetition it makes the audience think about whether or not to smack their children and if it’s the right thing to do. However, Hammarbery does not use repetition in his statements because her does not repeat and repeat what he says but reason. Critchley uses repetition in her article which makes the reader, parents, remember what she stated and what should be done while Hammarbery reasons and uses evidences to support his claims.

Critchley’s and Hammarbery’s articles are both effect article but you can not say that one is more effect then the other since, different techniques were used in both articles and both articles had different readers as well. The different techniques were used to convince different audiences from parents to governments that’s why different techniques such as emotive language and reason and logic were applied.