1. The Rhetorical
Triangle

2. What is Rhetoric?
What is said
Who is saying it
Who is listening
Where / when it is being said
Why it is being said
How it is being said

3. What is the Rhetorical
Triangle?
Shows the relationship between
speaker, audience, message, style,
purpose, tone
Understanding these rhetorical
elements makes both writing and
analysis much clearer

4. The Rhetorical Triangle
Message
Tone Style
Purpose
Speaker Audience

5. The Author / Speaker
Gender / racial / geographical
orientation of author
Author Bias / hidden agenda
Other important biographical
information may affect text

6. The Audience
Are they friend or foe? (hostile or
sympathetic)
How will they receive the
message?
How will they affect tone / style?
Who is the intentional audience?
Who is the unintentional audience?

7. The Message
What is the main point being
made? In other words, what is the
writer’s / speaker’s thesis?
Look at the message as an
argument / position being sold to
the audience. What is the author
trying to convince the audience of?

8. The Tone
What is the author’s attitude about
his / her subject / message?
What words in the message let you
know the tone?
How does the selection of the tone
affect the audience’s reception of
the message?

9. The Style
What strategies does the author
employ in order to get his / her
message across?
These strategies may include:
ethos, logos, pathos; organization;
diction; syntax; figurative
language; grammatical structure;
selection of details; imagery

10. The Rhetorical Purpose
Under what circumstances is the
author addressing his/her
audience?
In other words, what is going on in
the world at the time this text was
composed, and how do those
events affect the text?

11. Summary
Remember – it is not one of these
elements of the rhetorical triangle
that can be used to analyze a text;
it is the relationships between
these rhetorical elements that
composes the meaning we get from
a text!
True analysis is not only the what,
but also the why and the how!