Rhetorical Analysis, Lecture notes of Design

Download Rhetorical Analysis and more Lecture notes Design in PDF only on Docsity! Rhetorical Analysis Masse 1 Emily Masse Professor Jackman English 503.03 27 September 2017 Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are; A Rhetorical Analysis Everyone has been in a situation where they feel on top of the world, powerful, and unstoppable. Our bodies communicate that feeling by opening up, arms extended and chin high. In contrast, everyone has been in a situation where they feel miserable, powerless, and defeated. Our bodies communicate that feeling by shrinking, wrapping arms and legs together and hunching towards the ground. Science has proven time and time again that our body reflects our emotional status, but what if it can work both ways? Can the way we position our body influence our mind in how powerful we feel? In a 2012 TED Talk by Amy Cuddy, Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are, Cuddy uses strategies such as logos, ethos, pathos, media/design, and purpose to effectively argue that body language and mindset can shape who you are and your outcomes in life. Amy Cuddy is a social psychologist, lecturer, and New York Times bestselling author who studied at Princeton University. She is a professor at Harvard Business School and has focused her research on the power of nonverbal behavior and the ways in which people affect their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Cuddy’s breakthrough achievement in the social sciences was discovering how the concept of “fake it ’till you make it” actually has profound effects on our lives. Several of her experiments involving nonverbal behavior were mentioned in Rhetorical Analysis Masse 2 this TED Talk, where participants utilized powerful body stances and weak body stances in a series of tests to determine how physical assertions affect our mentality. (“Amy Cuddy”) Cuddy noticed that, physiologically, hormones had a great deal to do with our nonverbal expressions of power and dominance. The hormone testosterone relates to feelings of dominance and the hormone cortisol relates to levels of stress. The overwhelmingly clear outcome of this test was that participants in a “high-power” physical pose (shoulders square, arms wide, overall strong stature) had a 20% increase in testosterone and a 25% decrease in cortisol. Participants in “low-power” physical poses (hunched over, arms crossed, curled up) had a 10% decrease in testosterone and a 15% increase in cortisol. In her studies, Cuddy ultimately proved that body language can shape who you are and how you feel at a given time in your life. In delivering her findings and overall argument via TED Talk, Cuddy utilized multiple strategies in persuading her audience to use this potentially life-changing information. Logos, or logic-based reasoning, appears throughout the first two thirds of this speech to give a solid scientific background to Cuddy’s argument that body language and mindset shapes who you are and what you get out of life. The first kinds of logic-based reasoning Cuddy uses are facts and data through examples. She first offers the findings of a Tufts University researcher Nalini Ambady, who studied how people react to body language in patient-physician encounters. Reference to this study is followed by research from Alex Todorov at Princeton, who found that a political candidate’s body language determines the outcome of many U.S. elections. Cuddy expands upon the facts and data with examples which align our behavior with that of the animal kingdom in the following example, “What are nonverbal expressions of power and dominance? So in the animal kingdom, they are about expanding. So you make yourself big…What do we do when we feel powerless? We close up…so again, both animals and humans do the same thing” Rhetorical Analysis Masse 5 helped this student achieve in the classroom simply by changing her mindset. In these stories, she strategically utilizes the “fear of loss” emotion, where many people can relate to feeling lonely, out of place, and vulnerable at some point in their lives. She also demonstrates the “promise of gain” emotion, where the kind of life you want to live can be achieved through mindset and body language. Both kinds of emotional appeals were placed the end of the speech before tying her ideas together in conclusion. This format is particularly powerful because it emphasizes the authenticity of her discoveries through real-life examples by tugging at the audiences’ heartstrings. Media and design played a role in the delivery of the speaker’s argument throughout the TED Talk. At the beginning, imagery on presentation screens helped display some of Cuddy’s main talking points and introduce the topic she was about to delve into. These images were presented in humorous and easy-to-understand ways. She used the screens to demonstrate the body stances often referenced throughout the speech, seen below in Figures 1 and 2. Cuddy also used her own body to demonstrate examples within her argument, seen below in Figures 3 and 4. Figure 1 Figure 2 Rhetorical Analysis Masse 6 Figure 3 Figure 4 Another way in which Cuddy utilized media and design was towards the end to highlight key concepts and takeaways from her argument. She did this by displaying simple words and phrases as a means of concluding her speech, seen below in Figures 5 and 6. Figure 5 Figure 6 When delivering a speech, an author or speaker has a rhetorical choice whether to use some sort of imagery or slides to accompany their arguments. In this case, Cuddy’s use of imagery helps in making her logic-based examples transparent and encourages her audience to take the knowledge they gained with them, apply it in their own lives, and share it with others. Similarly, that rhetorical choice in media design helped her achieve the purpose of her argument. Cuddy’s purpose, which she explicitly stated in her speech was, “I want to ask you first, you know, both try the power posing, and also I want to ask you to share the science, because this is simple. I don’t have ego involved in this. (Laughter) Give it away. Share it with Rhetorical Analysis Masse 7 people, because the people who can use it the most are the ones with no resources and no technology and no status and no power…it can significantly change the outcomes of their life.” Cuddy uses moral ethos in this case as well by saying she wants her studies and hard work in research to be put to good use by the public. Ultimately, that was the purpose of this TED Talk, to spread the word about the power of body language and inspire thought and action. Utilizing both speech and and visuals, her audience is shown and encouraged “what to do next,” in easy steps. This allows them to participate rather than be passive listeners. We are all fascinated with body language. We experience it every second of every day through others and within ourselves. Body language has the power to relay our emotions, many of us understand that. However, it can be even more fascinating and useful to understand your body language can effect your emotions and actions. For many, this realization can be life- changing. Cuddy’s research and assertion that body language can shape mindset, who you are, and your outcomes in life is effective in its structure as a speech and its delivery of a compelling and persuasive argument.