Rhetoric is the study and practice of how we shape knowledge, which is complicated by the multiple ways we can interpret a text. Is used to study the purpose of a text and can be viewed as performance art where writers persuade readers to take action. Rhetoric is viewed as a form of communication that is situated, motivated, interactional and epistemic. This form of discourse known as rhetoric is both the art of human interaction (including persuasion) through language and other symbols, as well as the study of that interaction. “The major elements of rhetorical theory are the rhetorical situation, the audience, the pisteis or “proofs” (and their subdivisions), and the five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery”. (Covino and Joliffe, p.332). Moreover, according to Bitzer, a situation is rhetorical when three elements are present: an exigence, an audience, and rhetorical constraints. An exigence is a need, a gap, something wanting, that can be met, filled in, or supplied only by a spoken or written text (Covino and Jolliffe, p.332), it is considered as the heart of the rhetorical situation. The purpose of this essay is to analyze two rhetorical situations to determine if they are effective or not according to the criteria of rhetoric. The rhetorical situations are President Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech "Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation" and Coca-Cola’s famous polar bear commercial: “Say Thank you with a Coke”.
Rhetorical situations are defined by the kinds of appeals that may affect an audience, the pistesis. There are three types: the rhetors credibility (ethos), the emotions (pathos), and the systems of reasoning (logos). While both rhetorical situations rely on all three types of pistesis, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech relies more heavily on the “ethos”, whereas Coca-Cola’s relies more heavily on the “pathos”.
The rhetoric of President Franklin D. Roosevelt guided a nation to come together