Galilea Suarez Week 12: Analysis Through a Person’s Word
Rhetorical devices: appeals, repetition, and syntax
“What does syntax even mean?”
Syntax: the way in which linguistic elements (such as words) are put together to form constituents (such as phrases or clauses)
“Why does that even matter? The way we form sentences do not mean anything.”
Yes it does. That was the exact dialog that went through my head when I was researching different rhetorical devices to mention for our rhetorical analysis essays.
“How could it possibly make a difference if I change the way we form our sentences?” This was my mindset. However after reading John Ray’s blog from last week, he mentioned all the different ways to use the word “Rizz.” This prompted me to think about how the same words can be used in different ways to mean different things.
“Maybe syntax is important?”
Language: the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture.
Language is such an interesting thing. We all have the same amount of learned words in our storage, yet we choose to. Everyone who speaks English speak differently, we all use different words to construct a sentence. While trying to convey the same idea we can say “I bombed the test,” or “Yeah no, I failed,” or “I don’t want to say.”
The way that we voice our opinions conveys the personality of the person. With the pervious example, “I bombed the test” emphasizes the failure and the person giving up on their gpa. “Yeah no, I failed” convey that the person has accepted failure. “I don’t want to say” reveals that the person is ashamed of their test result.
The fact that we have all the same raw resources- words- and still manage to create different products- sentences- based on our own personality, simply fascinates me. I love being proved wrong and being forced to think about a problem from a different perspective. It reminds me that I should always keep an open mind since I can learn more from being wrong. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.
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| Art by Florencia Del Fabbro |
Hello, Galilea Suarez! I am happy to see another wonderfully developed and thought-provoking blog from such a bubbly ray of sunshine like yourself. I must say that immediately after I read your blog the first thing that it made me think of was the beginning of our junior year in Mrs. Smith’s class. It was the last period of the day, and I was getting used to my new classes when I came in the first thing we did was write two essays, one of them being rhetorical analysis. At the time, I had absolutely no clue what rhetoric was exactly, and while I knew that it was something about the way that sentences were structured, I had absolutely no idea how to analyze that within a piece of text. Now that we are nearing the end of the year, I like to think that I have gotten a little bit better with understanding rhetoric and being sensitive to the nuances of the different ways that things are phrased. Going off that, I understand what you are saying about the power of rhetorical structure. How we phrase things or present our point is severely affected by the way our work is being read by the audience. Oftentimes, I struggle to properly phrase sentences with the correct tone; it can lead to miscommunication within both text and dialogue. Sometimes the smallest nuances in the way that we write things make a big impact on the deeper meanings behind the words. Like with EINTY I spent a good amount of time just going in depth exploring the deeper meaning behind the rhetorical choices that Ng makes and how that affects the entire interpretation of the work
ReplyDeleteHello Galilea! First off, I would like to mention how unique and interesting I find the layout of your blog to be. It is a very interesting stylistic choice that you have made to put the definition of the topic above where you provide your own commentary; it serves as a reminder to the reader about what you are talking about. This has a deeper meaning, I feel, because by calling out exactly what the definition of each term is, you are pointing out exactly how overlooked these rhetorical terms are. The fact that you are having to define each one before you provide commentary proves to the reader exactly your point: that we don't notice them enough. I agree with you, that syntax matters SO MUCH. I learned this because of how I phrased things in our text messages, how much tone would change if I just changed where I put my comma or the period or if I rearranged the sentence how it could shape someone's reaction towards me. Language also comes into play here. What exactly I am rearranging has such a big influence on perception of text. What I'm writing matters so much as well. Syntax would not matter as much if the language was crude in itself. You are right about the fact that language can tell us so much about a person. I did not realize it before, but there is such a thing as confident language and unconfident language. Just as happy language or sad language exists, there so much power that words and punctuation holds. My mom always used to say that a pen can be sharper than a sword. I believe that, now.
ReplyDeleteI love the consistent in-depth nature you always deliver in your blogs. Just like Phyo’s blog, which talked about the power of voice, I commented that voice is one of our greatest tools as human beings. Not only does it unite us all through language, but it also is used for persuasion and various other things, almost like it is a power. I like how you mention example phrases, such as “‘I bombed the test’” and “‘Yeah no, I failed.’” This shows how simple manipulation of words can convey different natures of responses; it is what makes language so powerful. How we’re able to “create different products” also fascinates me. As I watch TV shows, I try to analyze how certain characters carry themselves, and what makes them so powerful as actors. I realized that it all comes down to the simple phrasing of words. Overall, I appreciate the way you construct your blogs, especially since this topic resonated with me well.
ReplyDeleteHey Galilea, syntax is definitely a very interesting construct in our language. Like how you mentioned, the fact that the way we say things can make the way other people perceive what we said differently is really a mind blowing power. The example phrases that you used, being "I bombed the test," "Yeah no I failed," and "I don't want to say" really showed me the power of syntax. I never thought about the power of syntax, but the examples you posed really put it into perspective for me. It is almost as if you can read someone's mind simply by analyzing the way they say things. Tying this back to English, I think reading into someone syntax in a book for example is important in understanding the characters intentions and thoughts. I will definitely try to read into character syntax when reading a new book. Overall, I really liked your blog about syntax.
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