Forms of appeal

Forms of appeal are different strategies used to make a speech more convincing and exist in three broad categories. Logos is the appeal to reason, used when the speaker brings up facts, statistics or logical arguments to make a case. Ethos is the appeal to trust or authority, where the speaker tries to seem knowledgeable, trustworthy, qualified or caring in relation to the subject of the speech. Pathos is the appeal to emotions, where the speaker tries to stir the audience’s feelings with the speech.

Donald Trump’s victory speech is mostly dominated by ethos and pathos, as he both speaks highly of himself and attempts to stir emotions in his audience. There are not any clear examples of logos, so we will focus on the ot…

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Ethos

A significant part of Trump’s political campaign was built upon ethos, as he often emphasized his personal abilities as a businessman and in connection with this tried to make his lack of political experience seem like an advantage.

Trump similarly uses his business abilities to build ethos in hi…

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Pathos

Trump uses pathos throughout the speech to stir emotions in his audience. The main emotion he strives to create is a feeling of patriotism, evident in the many positive phrases he uses to describe both the US of the present and his future vision of it: “We must reclaim our country's destiny and dream big …