Speech Ethos Pathos Logos

Rhetorical Speech Reflection Rhetorical techniques within my speech were subtle yet still managed to enhance the message I was trying to convey; that all firearms should be banned in the United States. I used a combination of rhetorical techniques including; anaphora, hypophora, a mild chiasmus, alliteration, and sententia. Halfway through my speech, I used anaphora when I was describing the different reasons people have for owning guns. This particular method was helpful because I wanted to portray the reasons as ridiculous and repetitive, which paired well with anaphora, since it added to the redundancy with its own repeating sentence beginnings. Another technique I used later on in the speech is hypophora. I used it in the context of asking …show more content…
This technique was particularly useful, because it allowed me to pose the question about our government’s action in a manner that left people expecting a certain answer and then answering the question with a simple one word answer that contradicted the expectations. People would logically think a government would act after several mass shootings, and then the answer really put into perspective our government’s lack of effectiveness on gun control. In the last sentence of my speech, I used both alliteration and sententia. I described what our country should be in regards to firearms, using the words sensible and safe. I used the phrase, “priority above all else”, to say that safety and sensibility on the topic of gun control should be our goal. These techniques were good just by allowing the final sentence to have a ring to it, so that it flowed well, and was memorable. Overall, I used anaphora to emphasize a point, anaphora to describe a situation, and alliteration with sententia to …show more content…
My goal was to get up to the podium, give my speech, and use the inflections and tones I intended for the speech. I would say I was pretty successful in doing so. In a few spots I lacked the tone I wanted, but for the most part, and the important parts, like the sarcastic bits, I did use inflection that was necessary. My pacing was a little off at points, but I expected that to happen sooner or later since I was nervous. I also wanted to incorporate rhetoric, without making it an extremely emotional, more a fact based speech, which I feel accomplished. More or less, I got the reaction I wanted from the audience. I felt like it was not so boring that I lost anyone, and I definitely got a couple laughs at some of the jokes I tried. If I were to rewrite or perform my speech again, I’d probably do a few things differently. The main thing I’d do differently, would be to look up from the paper more. Before giving my speech, I did not think this would be a challenge, but once I was actually up there with all my nerves, I found it pretty difficult, to sustain speaking without looking at my script. I also might make it a tiny bit longer, only because I felt as though I had enough extra time that I could have added another