Reference no: EM131222165

1. "First Inaugural Address" by Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX_v0zxM23Q

2. "Inaugural Address" by John Fitzgerald Kennedy,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmiOEk59n8

3. "First Inaugural Address" by Barack Hussein Obama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1ljmtaibC4

Description

In the Lesson 5 Assignment, you will read and view the inaugural addresses of FDR, JFK, and Barack Obama. You will examine and evaluate their use of reasoning. Additionally, you will be begin mapping the arguments you will make, using the supporting material developed in Lesson 4, in preparation for the Rhetorical Situation speech activity. SEE ABOVE ^

Instructions

This lesson's assignment has two parts. Please be sure to complete both parts in a single Word document and submit it to complete the assignment.

Part I: Reasoning in the Inaugural Address

Read and view the inaugural addresses of FDR, JFK, and Barack Obama. Then, answer the following questions in an essay of 700-900 words:

• Drawing on Chapter 6, what were the general and specific purposes of each of these speeches?

• Drawing on Chapter 8, identify the types of reasoning used in specific claims to achieve the purposes of each speech. Use and cite the additional readings for this Lesson, as needed, and any outside scholarly sources that can help you make your claims.

o Identify the claim. If there is more than one claim, just choose one for this exercise.
o Identify any supporting material used to support the claim.
o Identify the type of reasoning used to justify the claim and explain how it uses the supporting material to make the claim.

You are expected to use scholarly (peer reviewed) sources in your research. These include academic journals and books. Newspapers, available online, can provide supplemental information, particularly with recent speeches that you will analyze, but only use newspaper articles that were written around the time of the speech; articles written much later tend to be historical appreciations. Many government and non-government agencies no longer publish official reports on paper, but their documents are available online as primary sources. Other webpages, especially social media, blogs, and news aggregators, lack the editorial review oversight that makes published information reliable, useful, and acceptable. Wikipedia can help you orient your academic search, but it is not a scholarly source.

Part II: Supporting Material for Your Rhetorical Situation Speech

You have already completed the Rhetorical Situation Research Memo , in which you have identified your purpose, thesis, and supporting evidence. Now, given the claims that you will make in your analysis about the constraints and resources of each element in the Rhetorical Situation, what are the reasoned arguments you can make about the ways the situation shaped the speech that responded to it?

• Occasion: what argument can you make about the way the event, place, timing, or speaking opportunity shaped the speech?

• Audience: what argument can you make about the way the beliefs and values, demographics, or shared experience of the audience shaped the speech?

• Speaker: what argument can you make about the way the reputation, previous statements, background, or social position shaped the speech?

• Speech: what argument can you make about the way the internal dynamics of argumentation, structure, and language shaped the speech?

Lecture notes

Reasoning by Rhetorical Proof

In Lesson 4, we discussed the types of supporting material that speakers use as evidence in their speeches. In this lesson, we learn to use the supporting materials we have gathered to defend claims and support them with reasons. In mathematics or science, such arguments are called proofs. In speeches, however, we have rhetorical proof. Most rhetorical proofs are based in ethos, pathos, and logos. As discussed in Zarefsky's text, rhetorical proofs rely on probabilities rather than certainties, and rhetoric is a particularly useful way of arriving at a decision when we lack scientific proof or when we need to make a decision before all of the evidence is in.

Dr. Zarefsky mentioned ethos as something you establish in your first speech through confident delivery. There is, of course, more to it. Ethos is the rhetorical proof based on the character of the speaker: if we trust the speaker, we are likely to be persuaded by what the speaker says. Not to be confused with the ethos of a passionate speaker,pathos is the proof based on the audience's emotions: how an audience feels about something can be as persuasive as deductive logic, and it is sometimes necessary to motivate us to do the hard work of decision-making. We recognize that the wordlogic is related to logos, but as a rhetorical proof, logos also includes informal logic, the structure of the speech, and the choice of words made by the speaker. (In archaic Greek, logos was the word for word.)

We can connect these proofs to the rhetorical situation-speaker and ethos, speech and logos, and audience and pathos-but the three proofs are fundamentally part of the speech itself, for it is in the speech that these proofs are developed. As you have read in Zarefsky's text, a proof includes three parts: claim, supporting material, and reasoning. Sometimes we can use deductive reasoning in our proofs, but we can also use different kinds of inductive reasoning, which Dr. Zarefsky identifies as reasoning from example, from analogy, from signs, from cause, from testimony, and from narrative. Dr. Zarefsky's discussion of reasoning is very helpful for when you are trying to make an argument as a speaker. As a critic, you can also assess the usefulness of the arguments you see in the speeches you analyze. And, as a citizen-critic, you will be involved in civic discussions in which you assess the validity of the arguments you hear and respond with your own arguments.

In addition to using the different forms of reasoning effectively, you will also need to be able to distinguish logical fallacies when they occur and avoid making them yourself.

Reasoning Fallacies

This chapter also talks about how we test all six types of reasoning and how fallacious reasoning is often used to deceive audiences. A reasoning fallacy is an error in reasoning-a claim based on false or invalid inference. Reasoning fallacies are common and often overlooked. However, by learning to recognize fallacies and using critical thinking, we can spot fallacies and practice sound reasoning.

Dr. Zarefsky lists common fallacies, including non-sequiturs, begging the question (circular reasoning), ignoring the question (red herring), and equivocal language. Here are some additional fallacies we commonly see in public discourse:

• slippery slope: This fallacy assumes that once one thing happens, it willinvariably lead to a cascade effect.

o "Legalizing marijuana will lead to drug addiction and the downfall of American youths and our way of life."

• ad hominem: This fallacy is one in which attacks focus on the person making the argument instead of the argument itself.

o Someone says abortion is morally wrong. In response, another person says, "Of course you believe that. You're a Catholic," without considering why the person thinks abortion is morally wrong.

• post hoc, ergo propter hoc (Latin for "after this, therefore because of this"): This fallacy assumes that if one event happens after another, the first must have caused the second.

o "We have more chronic long-term unemployment than this country has ever seen before-twenty million people out of work, stopped looking for work, or in part-time jobs that need full-time jobs. We've got housing prices continuing to decline, and we have foreclosures at record levels. This president has failed."

• fallacy of exclusion: Important evidence that might undermine the claim is excluded from consideration.

o Someone argues that 21 should be the legal drinking age and supports the material with a statistic that says 60% of underage drinkers drink and drive. However, the person neglects to bring up the fact that the percentage of those over 21 who drink and drive is also close to 60%.

• straw-person fallacy: This fallacy avoids the opposition's best argument to attack an argument that is weaker and thus easier to refute.

o Mr. Politician argues against hiring more teachers because it would be too costly and raise taxes. His opponent responds, "Mr. Politician says there is no need for more teachers. Well, this is absolutely false, because with more teachers we will be able to reduce class size, and all the research shows that smaller class size leads to better test scores."

• bandwagon fallacy: Since everyone is doing it, it must be a good idea. (This one is fairly self-explanatory.)

• hasty generalization: The size of the sample used to reach the conclusion is too small.

o "My roommate and I do not drink. Therefore, underage drinking at Penn State is not that big of a problem."

• false analogy: Things being compared have an important fundamental difference.

o "The state of Oregon does not have a sales tax; therefore, the state of New York should abolish it as well."

• either/or fallacy (false dilemma): In this fallacy, only a limited number of options are presented when more options are available.

o In a news conference in 2001, President Bush indicated to other nations, "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."
It is important to remember that just because there is a fallacy, the claim itself is not necessarily wrong. However, sound reasoning is necessary to validate a claim. And, sometimes, a claim seems to be the result of faulty reasoning until everyone agrees that we don't think the premise is false anymore-for example, people used to think that "a woman's place is in the home," but today most agree that "a woman's place is in the House. . .and Senate."