Analysing Persuasive Language

To persuade means to induce to undertake a course of action or embrace a point of view by means of argument, reasoning, or entreaty. When writing to persuade, there are a number of different techniques writers can use, for example, repetitive structures, collocation or figurative language. The four texts I studied were all written to persuade the reader into believing a certain opinion or to take action against a certain type of behaviour, and were written by four different writers; Ed Miliband, Daisy Buchanan, Melissa Bradshaw and Victoria Coren.

One technique Ed Miliband uses throughout his letter to the Daily Mail is the repetitive use of abstract nouns. By repeating words such as ‘hope’ and ‘comfort’, the mood of the text is instantly transformed into a positive one. This convinces the reader about Ed’s purpose behind writing the letter – which is to prove his dad’s love for England. In comparison to the original text, Ralph Miliband’s diary entries, there is a clear change in emotional dynamics, as his diary uses more negative nouns, such as ‘bitterness’ and ‘ferocity’. In Daisy Buchanan’s comment article on parents banishing relationships between pre-teens, she uses abstract nouns such as ‘love’ and ‘desire’ to interlink the worlds between teenagers and adults. By showing the common factors between the two, Buchanan can persuade parental readers that children ‘need to know they can turn to you and tell you what's going on, whether they feel pressured to do something they're not ready for, have their heart broken or just got bored.’ However both Melissa Brashaw’s article about Sinead O’Connor’s controversial public letter to Miley Cyrus, and Victoria Coren’s commentary  about English Language, or more specifically the recent change in the Brownie Guide promise, lack use of interesting adjectives and abstract nouns. The use of pure facts and opinion influence a more urgent persuasion rather than an emotional persuasion as shown by Ed Miliband.

At the beginning of Miliband’s letter, he uses a series of simple declaratives; ‘It was June 1944 and the Allies were landing in Normandy. A 20-year-old man, who had arrived in Britain as a refugee just four years earlier, was part of that fight. He was my father. Fighting the Nazis and fighting for his adopted country.’ This creates a powerful, effective beginning, as not only does it introduce the continuing story for the reader, but it also induces sympathy and patriotism with ‘fighting for his adopted country.’ Melissa Bradshaw and Daisy Buchanan also opt for simple declaratives as their beginning sentences, stating, ‘Sinéad O'Connor's open letter to Miley Cyrus isn't entirely helpful to women’ and ‘In Nancy Mitford's novel The Pursuit Of Love, the narrator, Fanny, a desperate, lovelorn teenager, fantasises about having an affair with a pig farmer.’  In Bradshaw’s text, by using the general term of ‘women’, female readers are persuaded to carry on reading the article, as the sentence hints it could affect them in some way. However, Coren’s opening sentence reads ‘Which words or phrases would make your top five list of the worst linguistic horrors in modern English?’ By opening her article with an interrogative, the reader is persuaded to question themselves before completing the article. This tends to leave a lasting impression on the reader once they have finished reading the article. As for their concluding sentences, all four writers use simple declaratives. For Bradshaw, Buchanan and Miliband, by finishing their articles the same way they started them, it leaves off with a satisfying ending, as well as a clear conclusion to the points they have both previously made.  

Miliband’s letter itself is written in a formal manner, and uses proven facts mixed with emotional assumptions as evidence for points. For example; ‘He worked as a removal man, passed exams at Acton Technical College and was accepted to university. Then he joined the Royal Navy. He did so because he was determined to be part of the fight against the Nazis and to help his family hidden in Belgium. He was fighting for Britain.’ Informing readers of the Daily Mail of Ralph Miliband’s life story is an effective way to provoke empathy, and therefore persuading their support. Melissa Bradshaw, Victoria Coren and Daisy Buchanan use a more informal approach compared to Ed Miliband. Bradshaw uses pronouns such as ‘you’ and ‘we’ to make the article more personal, whereas Ed mainly uses more direct pronouns, such as ‘I’ and ‘he’.  Although Coren and Buchanan also use ‘I’, their pieces are still informally written, as they both mix the use of ‘I’ with ‘you’, and therefore the articles seem conversational rather than official. The use of ‘you’ is more persuasive than ‘I’, as the reader feels included in the opinions Bradshaw is stating. For example, ‘Perhaps you can already see the problem here.’

Another technique which Coren, Buchanan and Bradshaw use, but is absent in Miliband’s letter is the use of rhetorical questions; ‘Why should this be the case?’ and ‘But even if there is some reason why God must be dropped entirely, was there really no better alternative?’ and ‘So how should we deal with this phenomenon?’ are all examples of rhetorical questions used in the texts. Rhetorical questions are persuasive because they subtly influence a certain response from an audience as they involve the reader within the world of the text. Although the intended effect isn’t to actually be answered, most readers would in fact answer rhetorical questions as they engage their attention, whereas writers use them to emphasize their points and opinions.