Rhetorical Purpose

Rhetorical Purpose

Definition: The specific intention or objective behind a persuasive act. It represents the reason a message is created, conveyed, and delivered to an audience. Rhetorical purpose influences the selection of rhetorical devices, appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), tone, arguments, and evidence used to achieve the desired effect on the audience.

and includes the following aspects:

1. Intent & Objectives: Purpose delineates the goals or aims that a communicator seeks to achieve through their message. These objectives could include informing, persuading, entertaining, motivating, or advocating for a cause.

2. Audience-Centered: The purpose is intricately linked to the audience, considering their characteristics, interests, beliefs, and needs. The communicator tailors the purpose to resonate with and engage the intended audience effectively.

Six Rhetorical Purposes

1. Convey specific information (Inform)

2. Convince the audience of something (Argue) 

3. Call readers to action (Persuade)

4. Translate the characteristics and meaning of a subject (Interpret) 

5. Share emotions about a topic (Express)

6. Tell a story (Narrate)

Types of Rhetorical Purpose

Successful communication is designed to achieve a specific rhetorical purpose. Communicators act to achieve one of the following six goals: express, inform, interpret, argue, persuade, or narrate. The rhetorical purposes most pertinent to rhetorical analysis are listed and explained below.

Informative

(Referential: To report, explain, or inform -- No opinions or judgments!)

The purpose of a referential essay is to explain, analyze, or inform an audience about a specific topic. Referential essays are informative rather than persuasive.

• Referential essays can be developed in many ways, including cause and effect, comparison and contrast, classification, description, definition, exemplification, and process analysis.

• Referential essays are objective in nature. They focus on the topic at hand and contain no opinions, editorial content, persuasion, or personal expressions.

• Referential essays are neutral and non-biased and make no judgments. Referential essays are quite scholarly, often read like textbooks, and are frequently supported with highly credible source material, such as peer-reviewed journal articles.

Persuasive

(Argue, Convince, & Call to action)

The purpose of a persuasive essay is twofold: 1. To convince readers that one side of a particular argument is more true, correct, moral, or sensible than the other (i.e. argumentation). 2. To call readers to action in favor of that chosen side (i.e. persuasion). Persuasive compositions can employ all rhetorical structures (patterns of development). 

1. Argument (argumentative) is rhetoric that makes a claim and defends one side of an issue but does not call on readers to act.

2. Persuasion (persuasive) is rhetoric that argues one side of an issue and ultimately calls upon readers to act.
   Examples of Actions: vote for a specific candidate, sign a petition, contribute money, write a congressman, or go on strike

Interpretive

(To translate, interpret, or decode)

The purpose of an interpretive essay is to translate the characteristics and meaning of a subject into new and perhaps clearer terms.

• Interpretive essays can be developed by a variety of means, including cause and effect, comparison and contrast, classification, description, definition, exemplification, and process analysis.

• Interpretive essays are best employed when a writer seeks to bring further clarity to a complex subject or issue.

Expressive

(To communicate thoughts & feelings)

The purpose of an expressive essay is to communicate one's thoughts, feelings, ideas, or points of view.

• Expressive essays are most often developed with narration, description, and evaluation. 

• Expressive essays are considered less scholarly because they are often subjective in nature, rarely documented with credible sources, and frequently written in the first-person point of view.