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Ethos, pathos, and logos: Analyzing and visualizing rhetorical structure in discourse

国際文化学研究 : 神戸大学大学院国際文化学研究科紀要

59

1-34

神戸大学大学院国際文化学研究科

2023-03

This article aims to develop a descriptive framework for analyzing and visualizing the rhetorical organization structured by ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is the character the speaker wishes to present, pathos is the mood or tone of the speech that appeals to the passions or the will of the audience, and logos is the argument the speaker is advancing. The effectiveness of these concepts from classical rhetoric in antiquity has been repeatedly shown in the contemporary context as well, though no systematic methodology has been used to apply them to capture rhetorical structure in discourse. This article outlined a conceptual framework for describing how ethos, pathos, and logos work in discourse and developed a visualization method to show how the three rhetorical factors interact and integrate. As a case study, we focused on a narrative from a Japanese TV program in which the teller aimed to entertain the audience by telling a realistic story. The analysis and visualization of its rhetorical structure indicated that, while the narrative of entertainment was primarily oriented toward pathos (i.e., the fun and excitement of the audience), those emotional consequences were connected with ethos and logos. The results illustrated that our framework could provide a detailed rhetorical analysis of narrative data and show how a visualization of analysis helps understand the complicated rhetorical organization of narrative.

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