ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the central role of emotions in rhetorical persuasion. Theorists and practitioners of rhetoric have long known that emotions play a key part in persuasion. Aristotle discusses emotions in terms of understanding and influencing the audience’s frame of mind. Even if emotions and pathos are a major part of Aristotle, Marcus Tullius Cicero, and Marcus Fabius Quintilian’s teachings on rhetoric, the twentieth-century professionalization of the field of argumentation as an academic discipline had the consequence of marginalizing affective appeals. Kenneth Burke defines rhetoric as “the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols.” Affects may be rhetorically deployed, and rhetoric is inseparable from the social construction of meaning. The study of affective rhetoric is about explaining how social mobilization of affects leads to rhetorical persuasion. With this understanding, researchers may analyze different situations, from interpersonal communication, media communication or advertisement, to emotional argumentation and political speech.