‘All whites are dumb’ is an example of rhetoric feature in the form of a stereotype. Rhetoric devices are essential in evoking feelings among the audience through the application of language. The primary purpose of rhetoric is to provoke the audience to think while allowing the author to stance in an argument. Rhetoric is essential in constructing arguments or even making the present arguments more enthralling. Along with conveying meaning and provoking certain effects in the readers mind, they serve to persuade individuals during communication. In this context, author one and author two apply rhetoric in arguments about the freedom of speech at workplace. For author one, they apply rhetoric devices as opening statements of their arguments, allowing the reader to preform thoughts of what will be discussed in the article. For author two, they use rhetoric in form of quotations to allow the reader think about the forthcoming thoughts. While author one applies rhetoric in opening statement form, author two uses the structure of people’s quotations to show how workers’ freedom of speech is not applicable at work.
The first target audience for author one includes American citizens as shown by the question-form rhetoric. Author one starts off his first paragraph with the statement, “Americans love their right to speak their mind” (Lisa Nagele-Piazza, 2019). This rhetoric starts from a general viewpoint that focuses on everyone who live within the borders of the US. Based on my thoughts, the inclusion of ‘Americans’ without any specificity is makes me perceive that the author refers all American citizens. The author is targeting this group since they realize everybody in America have a varied views based on the socioeconomic and political issues that affect the country. For instance, the author understands that not citizens host the same political ideology “because you wore a hat supporting a particular political candidate” (Lisa Nagele-Piazza, 2019). With the variation based on different perspectives, the freedom of speech and expression is imperative to allow individuals express themselves effectively, making this the supreme reason behind the author’s target audience. American citizens are a good focus for this argument since many issues arise daily, necessitating their opinions on them.
The first target audience for author two are the employers in private businesses. In the rhetoric, “The First Amendment does not apply to private actors, and employers are private actors,” shows that the author is mainly focusing on entrepreneurs, CEOs and executives from the private sector of business. According to my thoughts, this is the target group since the First Amendment does not prohibit them from limiting the freedom of speech of their workers. The constitutional amendment mostly applies to the government organizations, which many employees think also apply in the private sector. The author targets this particular audience to show the exceptions in the execution of the First Amendment right. Employers from the private sector are significant in this argument since they form the core of why the First Amendment is not applicable to every organization (Spiggle, 2022). They show that that this amendment is viable for particular businesses and for particular circumstances such as when there are state laws, “Employers should be mindful of how social media and policies affecting the use of social media interact with employee rights.” Rhetorical choices used to appeal in this situation is repetition, “private sectors.”
Author one uses pathos as the mode of persuasion to convince the readers on the why freedom of speech fails to apply in the private sector. In the line, “Americans love their right to speak their mind,” the author can be seen to appeal to the audience’s emotions to provoke the feeling that Americans have the freedom of speaking out their mind. This line allows the reader to predict what the author will be highlighting in the rest of the paper, forming an ideal ground where a reader can take position (Lisa Nagele-Piazza, 2019). This persuasion captures the divergence based on the views people hold while in the US. It indicates that there is no uniformity based on thoughts as everyone has their own way of thinking, which requires expression. In the article, the author shows some of the varied views that the American citizens possess. For instance, American citizens, such as American employees might support certain rights in their organization, requiring them to speak them, which sometimes might be opposing their employer’s views.
Author two uses logos to present his argument and to convince the readers why the employees cannot speak freely in their organizations. This author uses facts from attorneys to show the reader that whatever he claims is credible as the people the author involves have been accredited. For instance, the author quotes the words of the Alston &Bird attorney in Los Angeles who says, “The First Amendment does not apply to private actors, and employers are private actors” (Spiggle, 2022). These words add to the authors stance that workers are not guaranteed the freedom of speech while at their workplaces. Additionally, the author uses the attorney with Ogletree Deakins partnership in San Diego explaining that a few employees acknowledge the working of the First Amendment protections. He quotes this attorneys words in, “Employees working in the private sector often [don’t understand] that the constitutional First Amendment right to free speech applies to government employees but not employees working for businesses” (Spiggle, 2022). This quotation supports his argument which in turn convinces the reader that the author is qualified in presenting facts about freedom of speech.
Inconclusively, both author one and two harness the benefits of rhetoric device in showing how workers are not usually guaranteed the freedom of speech in their workplaces. Author one applies rhetoric in the form of opening statement where the rhetoric such as “Americans love their right to speak their mind” provoke the readers to foresee what to expect from the rest of the paper. On the other hand, author two applies rhetoric in the form of quotations to provoke the mind of the reader into thinking how employees in the US are not accorded the full freedom of speech in the working environment. For audience persuasion, author one uses pathos where he induces feelings through words such as the ‘love’ in the statement “Americans love their right to speak their mind” to convince the readers. Conversely, author two uses ethos where he incorporates attorneys who are law experts to aid in his argument. Additionally, author two directly quotes the attorneys to show originality and authenticity of his argument, which further convinces the audience. Generally, it is worthwhile to note speech is not free everywhere as there are certain limitations.
References
Lisa Nagele-Piazza, S. (2019). What employee speech is protected in the workplace? Web.
Spiggle, T. (2022). Your free speech rights (mostly) don’t apply at work. Web.