Characteristics of the text
For you to better understand the text “TV, public school and Ryan's fall” by Amelia Hill and Kamal Ahmed, it is also important to analyse the way the senders present their arguments, using some specific techniques.
Hidden argumentation
Though it is quite clear that the authors’ argument is against reality shows using teenagers, they support this idea without clearly assuming credit for it.
There is no use of the first person to designate the authors, normally employed in direct argumentation. Furthermore, the senders use a deductive reasoning. They present the opinion of others on Ryan’s case and only then directly conclude that the reality show experiment was a bad idea.
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Rhetorical devices
By rhetorical devices we refer to several techniques, employed to engage the audience, to catch readers’ attention and emphasise arguments. Here are some of the rhetorical devices used in “TV, public school and Ryan's fall”:
- Analogy
- Hyperboles/ Overstatements
- Irony
- Rhetorical questions
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Forms of appeal
There are three ways through which a sender can appeal to the audience/receiver: ethos, logos and pathos. Ethos implies the sender supports his ideas and arguments by reference to authority, community and collective values. Logos refers to the use of logical arguments to support a line of reasoning and pathos implies the use of feelings and emotional language to appeal to an audience.
Ethos
The main form of appeal in “TV, public school and Ryan's fall” is ethos. In order to support their arguments, the senders resort to the authority of experts, such as psychologists and to the authority of those familiar with Ryan’s case.
They quote Sue Richardson - psychologist, Martin Lawrence - community centre leader, Trevor Phillips - chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Dr Tony Sewell - educationalist and research consultant, and Lee Moore - chair of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers.
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Choice of words
Given the fact that the article abounds in quotes, we can say that the words used by those interviewed differ according to their background. Some use psychological terms, but this does not pose a challenge to the accessibility of the article as something like “emotional damage” (p. 148, ll. 7-9) can be easily understood by the readers.
If you strictly look at the parts of the article without any quotes, you will also notice simple words, common language idioms such as “plucked from” (p. 145, l. 5) and occasionally some strong, empathic words designed to draw readers attention such as “an unmitigated success” (p. 146, ll. 21-22).
