Rhetorical Modes

Description

Purpose

Descriptive prose is used to express what a thing looks like, smells like or tastes like. In short, it

portrays how we perceive the world through our five senses (Sight, Hearing ,Smell, Touch, and

Taste).

Audience

Reader- to help create a mental picture of what is being written about.

Content

It answers the question ‘what’.

For example: What is it like? What is he/she like?

What does the food taste like?

What did he sound like?

Style

Explicit use of adjectives,

data that appeals to sensory faculties

and descriptive sequence

Voice

Description uses details that appeals to the senses

(sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch).

Organization

The organising principle of description is spatial

as it creates a virtual image in the minds of readers.

Narration

Purpose

It recounts a personal or fictional experience or tells a story. Narration is concerned with actions in a temporal sequence, with life in motion. It seeks to present an event to the reader, a sense of witnessing an action.

Audience

Reader- to recreate an incident for readers rather than to simply tell them about it.

Content

This mode answers the question of what.

For example: what happened?

Style

Apparent use of action or dynamic verbs, dialogue. The point of view if the narrator is usually first or third person narrator. It should include story conventions such as plot, setting, characters, climax and resolution.

Voice

To convey a particular mood (feeling) or to make an incident come alive,

narratives employ the use of the first person or “I” narration

and the third person or he/she/it persona.

Organization

The organization principle of narration is temporal in nature

meaning that its events are sequential.

Exposition

Purpose

This discourse is concerned with making an idea clear, analyzing a situation,

defining a term, giving instructions and the like.

Its primary function is to inform and explain.

Audience

Reader- conveys information to the reader so that a level of understanding can be achieved.

Content

This mode has the types of questions that a piece of expository may answer.

Some of these are: How does it work?

What are the constituent parts? What is its importance?

Style

The distinguishing features and style of exposition incorporates the following functions:

analysis, classification, definition, illustration, cause and effect,

comparison and contrast and analogy

Voice

In exposition, the writing is engaging and reflective of the writer’s

underlying commitment to the topic.

Organization

There is not one single method of organising exposition but rather a variety, with majority being

based on logic: analysis, clarification, definition, illustration, cause and effect, comparison and

contrast and sometimes analogy. The method chosen dictates the organization of the piece as

each method has its own distinguishing characteristics.

Argument

Purpose

An argument is an attempt to convince or persuade an audience that a claim

is true by means of appeals to reason or to emotion

Audience

Reader- It moves the readers to take an action or to form or change an opinion.

Content

Answers the question why is this so?

Style

For the presentation of evidence, arguments use facts, authoritative opinion,

and personal experience for its development whilst the rebuttal

or refuting side uses persuasion in the form of repetition,

rhetorical questions and emotional appeals.

Voice

The voice of argument has a strong and definite position on an

issue from the beginning of the piece and has enthusiasm from start to finish.

Organization

Argument is organized by way of formal elements and logic.

The formal elements include at least two claims, the first of which being the conclusion

and the other, the remaining claim or claims that are the grounds

which support or justify the conclusion