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Do You Speak American Rhetorical Analysis

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In Robert MacNeil’s insightful essay that accompanies his documentary “Do You Speak American,” he discusses the ongoing war on vocal language, and presents his readers with arguments from both a “Prescriptivist” and “Descriptivist” point of view. MacNeil ultimately sides with the latter and persuades his audience of Americans reluctant to language-change to accept, or at least recognize regional dialects other than their own. He uses historical illustrations to show how language has changed in the past, expert opinions to validate his arguments, and appeals to pride to his American audience. MacNeil uses these rhetorical choices to effectively persuade his audience of reluctant Americans to at least acknowledge, if not accept, other ways of speaking English in America.

Since much of MacNeil’s argument is about how language has changed in the past to become more diverse by region, using historical illustrations is an effective way to show how language has always been evolving. By referring to instances in the past where language changed for the better, MacNeil can persuade his reluctant audience to change because it is not a new idea and has worked before and therefore can work again. For example …show more content…
Discussing the ongoing war on spoken language, MacNeil uses historical illustrations to to show how language has evolved and continue to evolve and persuade his audience to follow the path of the past. He uses expert opinions to back up the illustrations and to further validate his argument with ideas presented by other linguists. MacNeil uses appeals to pride to persuade his American audience to take pride in their regional dialect, all while being more accepting of fellow American

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