20895 ACE Language (Yr 6) Structures and Language Features

The rhetorical triangle
Resource sheet
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle stated that a person’s ability to persuade an
audience depended on how effectively he or she appealed to them at three different levels.
The three levels or elements are:
• ethos, which refers to the credibility and authenticity of the writer.
• pathos, which refers to the emotional response of the audience to the text.
• logos, which refers to the validity of the evidence used to support an opinion and how
effectively the author has argued his or her point.
The rhetorical triangle is an illustration of how these three elements of writing should be
balanced within a text.
Pathos
(about the audience)
Ethos (about the writer)
Logos
(about the text)
Authors strive to balance ethos, pathos and logos within their writing but an author may
alter this balance depending on the purpose of the writing and the audience for whom it is
intended.
It is important to remember that these elements are not separated within a text but blend
together to form a creative, balanced text. Any aspect of a text can include more than
one element; for example, an author can appeal to the values of an audience (pathos) by
giving statistical evidence (logos) of the numbers of people benefitting from the proceeds
of a charity event. If the author also refers to his or her role in organising the event, this
presents him or her as a caring person who is involved in the event (ethos).
Understand how authors often innovate on text structures and play with language features to achieve particular aesthetic, humorous and persuasive purposes and effects (ACELA1518)
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