To achieve the desired level of attention to the issue, the author calls on the audience’s feelings of respect towards her and her peers for her effort, which provides ethos. Suzuki calls for the audience’s reason and rationale when she states that “if you don’t know how to fix it, please, stop breaking it” (00:02:33). Suzuki begins her speech with a rhetorical question to put an emphasis on the issue. The author states her adverse personal experiences to appear to be a moral person and to add ethos to her speech (Suzuki 00:01:02).
The primary part highlights the seriousness of the situation and continuously reminds us about the prospects of a bleak future for children. The orator also refers to the listeners directly by their titles in her juxtaposition which shows that they, too, are humans and are not above this issue (Suzuki 00:02:53). Suzuki uses anaphora in several successive sentences that she begins with “I am only a child” to make her opinion more emotionally appealing (00:03:15). In the end, Suzuki calls to the emotions of guilt by stating that “what you do makes me cry at night” (00:06:24). The author appears to rely primarily on ethos in her speech to convince the audience that her cause is right.
Works Cited
Suzuki, Severn. “Severn Cullis-Suzuki at Rio Summit.” YouTube, uploaded by We Canada.