Forms of appeal

Logos

In her Nobel Speech Prize acceptance speech, Malala Yousafzai appeals to logos by including factual information and logical arguments.

Logos can be found in the speech when she points out that world leaders use flawed and hypocritical logic when it comes to education:

The world can no longer accept that basic education is enough. Why do leaders accept that for children in developing countries, only basic literacy is sufficient, when their own children do homework in Algebra, Mathematics, Science and Physics? (p. 485, l. 16-19)

Throughout her speech, Yousafzai mentions the many ways in which children and especially girls are subjected to inequality and violence across the world, briefly telling the audience of some of their struggles (p. 483, ll. 23-32). She also states that 66 million girls around the world are deprived of education (p. 484, l. 1). From these details and statistics, the audience can conclude that a very high number of children are deprived of education, and exposed to violence and prejudice, and that this situation needs to be resolved.

Logos is also used by Yousafzai in the following statements: “I had two options. One was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up.” (p. 483, ll. 3-6) Here, Yousafzai presents her options in a straightforward way, logically relating them to the inevitability of death and suggesting that speaking up was preferable because this way she at lea...