My Rhetorical Analysis Outline of Malala’s Speech to The UN

Purpose:  Is to inform those people unaware of the situation and the dire need to let boys and girls receive an education without the fear of being attack like Malala was.

Audience: everyone at the UN, the world globally, the people who must raise there voice and fight for education, and the people who can help them in their need of education.

Context: Malala Yousafzai a 16 year old girl spoke at the UN after being shot in the head by a Taliban member. Malala is a believer of free, compulsory education for every child. This was due to the fear of receiving an education in Pakistan due to the Taliban.

Section1: Intro/acknowledgements

Purpose: To address and Thank all of those who have helped her this far and in doing that it helps her ethos.

Appeals: Ethos

Section 2: The real beginning of her speech

Purpose: to turn the subject to what she thinks is important also to set the tone.

Appeals: pathos

Technique: uses a sense of unity=”Dear brothers and Sisters”. Uses poetry and repetition to focus on the main issue= “so here I stand-“.

Effectiveness: its very effective she automatically makes you feel like a brother or sister just because you are listening or reading the speech. And the repetition really makes those points about peace, equality, and education really stand out.

Section 3: Background as to why she is continuing to fight

Purpose: To inform those why she continues to fight even after her ordeals  and encourages other to fight along side her.

Appeals: pathos, sympathy and builds up her ethos

Technique: she continues to use repetition to address the audience as her brother, sisters, or even friends = “Dear ~~” almost like a letter to a friend. She belittles the fact of she got shot and follows it with the fact she is not the only one and that through the death of fear becomes strength and power =illusions. Also there are illisions/refrerences to important people such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.

Section 4: The Call to Arms

Purpose: To reach out and unite everyone similar to her to fight and let their voices out to speak up

Appeals: Pathos and Logos

Technique: illusions = “ we realized the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns”. References to sayings “the pen is mightier than the sword”. Giving the audience a reason why this is happening and what they can do to fight back = Taliban is afraid of books because they cant read them so we pose a threat to them so by using education as our weapon we can defeat them. Calling on past memories = “there was a boy in our school-“.

Effectiveness: it makes those who can relate take up this call to arms and want to fight back with education.

Section 5:

Purpose: to sum up the finally and truly start a revolution

Appeals: Pathos

Technique: a lot of repetition = “we call~”. She tries to unite everyone with using “We”. Builds motivation using lines like= “No one can stop us” “We will bring change” “One Child, one teacher , one pen and one book can change the world. One thing can change everything.

Effectiveness: it varies depending on who you are students such as many American students may not agree with her final sentence “Education First.” But there are many people out there who would agree with her point of view and her solution.

General Evaluation:

 Malala is still a young writer with more to go but she has a good tone and uses many illusions to gain her point. I have much respect for her maybe it is because of the pathos she has built in her speech. Unfortunately she has not persuaded me to fight her cause so the effectiveness of the piece on an audience member such as me did not work in all aspects. She primarily uses pathos and that does not reach to all members of the audience. She does not have much logos to her speech but she attempts to captivate her audience and to motivate them for her cause. To make this speech reach more members of the audience more logos is needed.