The Language of Persuasion

1.    Persuasion is the process of trying to convince other people of your point of view using manipulation or appealing to the emotions.

2.    It can be found in:

o   Advertising

o   Political Speeches

o   Film Reviews

o   Marketing journals      

ß Look at the ad. on the left.

Who is the target audience? 

How is Michelin trying to persuade them to buy their product?

Ad Slogans: Name the product!

‘Because you’re worth it..’                                   

‘When you care enough to send the very best’

‘The best a man can get’                                        

‘Impossible is nothing’                                         

‘Open happiness’                                                    

Persuasive Techniques

1.    Attention-grabbing opening – you might say something shocking or use a good quotation.

2.    Appeal to the emotions – you want to make your audience feel something. Use of the personal ‘I’ or ‘We’ to include the audience.

3.    Repetition: used to emphasise a point or create drama. Eg ‘I have a dream’ ‘Yes we can’.

4.    Imagery: can help the audience visualise what you are describing. Eg children joining hands in ‘I have a dream speech’.

5.    Contrast: Describing both a pleasant and unpleasant scene can help an audience understand your point.

6.    Humour: can help win an audience over.

7.    Rhetorical questions: a question where the answer is so obvious that there is no need to respond – grabs attention and emphasises a point.

‘How can something that’s so good taste so great?’

8.    Epigrams – short, witty, memorable lines.

Barack Obama’s New Hampshire Primary Speech

For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.

It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.

Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.

Narrative Language

To narrate simply means to tell a story. It can be fiction or non-fiction.

    We find narrative language in:

a.    Autobiographies/Biographies

b.    Travel writing

c.    Diaries

d.    Novels/Short stories.

e.    Plays/Film Scripts

Features of Narrative Writing:

• Narratives generally have a beginning, middle and end. 
• Most are set in the past tense.
• Setting, character and action are all very important.
• Good narration will have lots of descriptive detail

        

     Different types of narrator:  

a.    1^st person (I),

b.    3^rd person Limited,

c.     3^rd person Omniscient – all seeing, all knowing – can give thoughts of multiple characters.

In a first-person story, a character in the story tells the story and in the third-person, an outside narrator tells the story.  Keep in mind that first-person narrators can only tell what they know (which will be limited to what they see firsthand or are told by others), while third-person narrators can either know everything (omniscient) and explore every character’s thoughts, or be limited to only that which can be observed (limited).

Samples:

First person narration:

When I was a child, I believed everything adults told me. I had blind and unquestioning faith in my parents and siblings and took them at their word. I believed my sister when she told me that Chipsticks were addicitive and warily steered clear of them in the shops, running away from anyone who offered me a Chipstick in the school playground…those pushers, I would not succumb.  I’d seen people go to three packets a day and I didn’t have the pocket money to sustain that kind of habit and, before you know it, I would have been raiding the copper box on the mantelpiece for the 8p to buy the bags in secret – that was one slippery slope that I was not prepared to slide down.

By Aoife Duggan from A Page in the Life: True Stories from RTE’s The Marian Finucane Shoe.

Third Person Narration (Limited)

Harry had taken up his place at wizard school, where he and his scar were famous ...but now the school year was over, and he was back with the Dursleys for the summer, back to being treated like a dog that had rolled in something smelly.

The Dursleys hadn't even remembered that today happened to be Harry's twelfth birthday. Of course, his hopes hadn't been high.

Third Person Narration (Omniscient)

Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. Elizabeth, or Beth, as everyone called her, was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression which was seldom disturbed. Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person, in her own opinion at least.

From Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Short Stories

In the composition section there will be an option to demonstrate narrative writing by composing a short story on a given topic.  A quotation from one of the Texts on Paper 1 will inspire it but you must focus on the task given rather than the quotation.

For example in the 2104 paper this featured:

 1. “It is about the ghost-life that hovers over the furniture of our lives...” (TEXT 3)

     Write a short story in which a ghostly presence plays a significant part.

Composing a coherent short story in 70 minutes in an exam is very challenging and I would only recommend students who are enthusiastic creative writers to take it on.  If you do think the short story might be the option for you then you need to practice writing them on a range of topics.

SHOW don’t TELL.

The most important thing to remember is to show your story rather than to tell your story. What’s the difference between the two? Well, "telling" is the reliance on simple exposition: Mary was an old woman. "Showing," on the other hand, is the use of evocative description: Mary moved slowly across the room, her hunched form supported by a polished wooden cane gripped in a gnarled, swollen-jointed hand that was covered by translucent, liver-spotted skin.

Both showing and telling convey the same information — Mary is old — but the former simply states it flat-out, and the latter — well, read the example over again and you'll see it never actually states that fact at all, and yet nonetheless leaves no doubt about it in the reader's mind.

Why is showing better? Two reasons. First, it creates mental pictures for the reader. When reviewers use terms like "vivid," "evocative," or "cinematic" to describe a piece of prose, they really mean the writer has succeeded at showing, rather than merely telling.

Second, showing is interactive and participatory: it forces the reader to become involved in the story, deducing facts (such as Mary's age) for himself or herself, rather than just taking information in passively. Simply – it is more enjoyable for the reader.

Structuring your Short Story

Short Stories generally adhere to the following structure:

Exposition  à Development à Crisis à  Climax à Resolution

1.    Exposition (Introduction):

Establishing setting and characters – create a specific space and time.

a.     Describe the place where your story begins.

b.    What is life like for people there?

c.     Give the year/month/season/time of day or night.

d.    Who are your main characters? Give them names.

e.     Raise questions for your reader.

2.    Development:

Develop the plot with some of the following options:

a.     A problem to solve

b.    Conflict between characters

c.     A quest

d.    Have your characters grow or develop in some way.

3.    Crisis (Trigger):

Shake-up your story with something surprising…

a.     An event out of the control of the protagonist

b.    Reveal some interesting facts about your characters so the reader cares about them in some way.

4.    Climax

Build up the tension to a dramatic climax

a.     Have main characters have to make a critical choice

b.    This is the highest point of drama in the story

5.    Resolution

Bring the story to an end with a satisfactory resolution:

c.     Have a reversal in the fortune of the main characters

d.    Resolve conflict or problem

e.     Give the reader a sense of a proper ending

f.      Have a surprising twist that catches the reader off guard.

Final Tip

Limit the breadth of your story.

A novel can occur over millions of years and include a multitude of subplots, a variety of locations, and an army of supporting characters. The main events of a short story should occur in a relatively short period of time (days or even minutes), and you typically won’t be able to develop effectively more than one plot, two or three main characters, and one setting.

Suggested Short Story Reading:

·      “The Telltale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe.

·      "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", by Mark Twain.

·      "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", by James Thurber

·      "A Sound of Thunder", by Ray Bradbury

·      “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut

·      "Three Questions", by Leo Tolstoy

·      “Man from the South” by Roald Dahl

·      “The Nightingale and the Rose” by Oscar Wilde.

·      "Brokeback Mountain", by Annie Proulx

·      "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", by Philip K. Dick

·      “I, Robot", by Issac Asimov (collection)

·      "Steps", by Jerzy Kosinski (collection)

  

Some sample openings:

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Harrison Bergeron – Kurt Vonnegut

'She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses,' cried the young Student; 'but in all my garden there is no red rose.' From her nest in the holm-oak tree the Nightingale heard him, and she looked out through the leaves, and wondered.

The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde

“We’re going through!” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. “We can’t make it, sir. It’s spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg,” said the Commander. “Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We’re going through!” The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” he shouted. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” repeated Lieutenant Berg. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” shouted the Commander. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. “The Old Man’ll get us through,” they said to one another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of Hell!” . . .

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber

TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture -- a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.

Ní Chuilleanáin - Themes

Memory

Memory and the process of remembering features in many Ní Chuilleanáin poems including: The Bend in the Road, On Lacking the Killer Instinct and Kilcash.

The Bend in the Road focuses on how memory connects with specific places and how these places can assume personal significance over time.  Every time the poet passes a particular ‘bend in the road’ she remembers her child was ‘sick one day on the way to the lake’ and how the family associated that place with that event ever since.

On Lacking the Killer Instinct demonstrates the process of memory, how one thought can spark off a memory and another and another. A picture in the paper sparks off the memory of the time when her father was dying in hospital and then she thinks of her father as a young man.

Kilcash pays tribute to a heroic figure from Irish history, Lady Iveagh, and places emphasis on the importance of remembering those who have died.

 

Love

To Niall Woods is a vibrant celebration of romantic love that fervently believes in ‘happily ever after’.  In this poem Ní Chuilleanáin depicts an idealised, magical vision of love by referencing traditional folk tales.  She advises her son and his bride to have courage as they start out on the adventure of marriage together:

Leave behind the places that you knew:

All that you leave behind you will find once more.

Street deals with love in a more ambiguous way. In it a man falls in love with the butcher’s daughter who he watches passing by in the street. It appears to be a one sided attraction in that we do not get the butcher’s daughter’s perspective. 

The dark side of love is hinted at when he follows her home one day and sees her bloody footmarks on the stairs.  The reader is left guessing as to the outcome.

History

On Lacking the Killer Instinct deals with a violent period in Irish history which Ní Chuilleanáin’s father took active part – The War of Independence.  She describes how he was chased by ‘a lorry-load of soldiers’, the Black and Tans, a notoriously ruthless force, on one particular occasion and thankful evaded capture. She criticises the need for such violence saying he ‘like the hare should never have been coursed.’

Kilcash details the suffering endured by the Irish people as a consequence of colonialism.  The suppression of religion and theft of natural resources: ‘What will we do now for timber?’ left the people poor and struggling for identity. Leaders were exiled leaving the people unprotected. The poet depicts the scene in apocalyptic terms:

Mist hangs low on the branches

No sunlight can sweep aside,

Darkness falls among daylight

And the streams are all run dry;

Lucina Shynning in the Silence of the Night references Cromwell who was responsible for a violent and chaotic invasion of Ireland in 1649. She describes the dark moments of history as: ‘the waves of darkness’ behind her.

Death

Death and Engines focuses on the inevitability of death in all our lives. Each of us will encounter a moment when we are ‘Cornered’ by death and will have no way to escape.  Some might survive encounters with death and feel ‘relief’ but they cannot escape it forever.  A time will come when it will be ‘too late to stop’.

On Lacking the Killer Instinct deals with the very real death of her father and her struggle to deal with having to watch him die.  She reveals that she ‘ran away’ to avoid the pain of seeing him suffer but felt guilty and eventually returned. She also addresses the thrill experienced by human and animal alike in evading death at the hands of a hunter quoting her father as saying he never felt ‘Such gladness’ as when he escaped the Black and Tans.

Kilcash is an elegy for Lady Iveagh who contributed so much to her local community when alive and whose absence was strongly lamented.