• Engelsk
  • Uddannelse: HHX
  • Karakter: 10 tal
  • Ord: 1099

Indledning
With the brutally mishandled arrest and in extension the death of George Floyd came massive protests all around the world.

These protesters used the now famous words “I can’t breathe” as a metaphor for their feelings and experiences with oppression.

In Ben Okris article “’I can’t breathe’: why George Floyds words reverberate around the world” He sets out to analyze what this exact phrase means to people and what it will mean in the future.

In this analytical essay I will make a rhetorical analysis of the text. Firstly, I will focus on the rhetorical devices used in the text, secondly, the modes of persuasion, and lastly the linguistic features and look on all of these to see how the author gets his message across to the reader.

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Uddrag
In the text we also see some modes of persuasion used. These are used to try and persuade the reader and get his message across in an effective way.
Most of the text uses pathos to argue. For example, we see it in this paragraph: “Maybe when jobs are denied you, deserved promotions elude you, or when the police come to deport you, like the Windrush victims, one should record the moment on one’s phone while saying:

“I can’t breathe.”” . In the example everyday racism is used to show the reader how much this topic means and by using the line “I can’t breathe” it is showning how serious this is.

This also plays on our feeling by showing us how unfair the situation is. Another example of the use of pathos is this: “That police officer who pressed his knee on George Floyd’s neck snuffed out one life but lit a universal fire.”

In this incidence he uses the readers anger and is trying to convert it into the course he is speaking for. He does this by showing how other people used their anger to “lite a universal fire”.

With Ben Okri as the writer, we also have some expected ethos. He has won several awards and has a number of honorary doctorates and with 12 published articles in The Guardian he is an experienced writer. This makes him a credible source because the reader thinks more highly of him.

Another thing to have a look at is the linguistic features of the text. This of course is an article which means it is written language. Let us analyze a few the characteristics we see in the text. The text has a structured composition.