Rhetorical Discourse In Social Work

Have you ever gone up to your parents and asked them to buy you something really nice and flashy, only to have them retaliate with “if you want that, you’ll have to go out and buy it for yourself”? Or you’ve been in the situation where your family might need a little help paying for all of the expenses throughout the house. Or maybe you 're like me; you 're walking through the mall one day, looking at all of the clothes and other objects you would buy if only you had money to spend, and watching your friends spending all that they 've earned. Well, what 's stopping you from having all that money? What 's stopping you from walking into those stores with a "help wanted" sign and asking the manager what it would take for them to hire you? Would …show more content…
In a rhetorical situation, this would be called your exigence. Exigence is defined by Keith Grant-Davie as “some kind of need or problem that can be addressed and solved through rhetorical discourse”. Rhetorical discourse is basically just a fancy way of saying persuasive discussions. The question you have, or your need that can be addressed and solved, is whether or not you should get a job in high school. Things to consider include why you need the job, or why you want the job, and how responsible you are planning to be with the money you earn. Another question you have to ask yourself is are you looking for something in retail, or in the food service industry, or maybe something else that you find interesting? These are all questions that can be answered once you realize your motivation behind finding a …show more content…
In a rhetorical situation, the one bringing a certain situation to life is called the rhetor. As, the rhetor, you are trying to persuade your audience that getting a job would be the best thing for you to do. The rhetor needs to figure out ways to present the argument clearly and use persuasive language in order to get the audience to agree with whatever he or she has to say. One way to do that is to try to appeal to the audience’s emotions, reasoning, and ethics. These concepts are your rhetorical appeals: pathos, logos, and ethos, respectively. You can appeal to your audience by telling them how a job will benefit your character, why having a job is important to you and why it should be important to them too, and how you having a job will help in the long run by doing some research. By working those concepts into your argument, you will get the audience on your side because they will see you as a rhetor with emotional ties to the situation, a rhetor with reason, and a rhetor with credibility. The audience will be more likely to agree with you in the end and you will get the conclusion you’ve been arguing for, which is how I was able to get my first job during my senior year of high