Pathos in Speech



Pathos is one of the element of public speaking theory proposed by Aristotle. Generally there are three important parts in public speaking they are logos, etos, pathos. we have talkedbout logos and etos in the previous meeting (post), now let's move on to one of the most essential element, pathos.

what is pathos is an element of emotion that should be attached in public speaking. pathos create an emotional approach to the audience to make them believe on what is delivered. Pathos is an effective approach to attract people's simpathy by touching their heart.

Different from logos where it plays human rationality and logical thought, Pathos play with words and sentences. what word, phrase and sentences we use could easilty determine the people believe on what we are trying to convey. for example,

Instead of saying "If we do not teach our children right, they will know nothing about this topic" we select a sentences/phrase/word that appeals to human emotion as the rhetorical strategy. So the orator who deploy pathos would probably say "if we do not teach our children right, their future will be destroyed, the won't be able to survive in their future" this phrase is emotionally strongger compared to the first sentence.

So, how do we appeal to emotion and what are the kinds of emotion that we can use to make our script/speech/presentation is more compelling to audiences. here is the picture that you can learn further about pathos.




Happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger and suprise are the most common pathos appealed in people's speech. 

Try to use those emotional appeals in your speech script.

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