Have we ever considered that even the basic things that we say in our everyday life have an underlying tone? Sure, this can probably exclude 10% of the things we say that might be genuine but for most of the time for example when we are having a conversation with our friends and your friend says to you something along the lines of
“You know, things are going so well for me, school is going wonderful and my relationships are awesome” and you out of formality say that’s pretty cool man but you feel at the bottom of your heart “can you shut up?”. This is one of the things that we convey when we speak to people, we don’t say things explicitly but the tone of how we say such things can give its meaning, a meaning to you and the other person.
One bone to pick is when people for example are passive-aggressive but they don’t realize the way they say things. For example, a person can call you out for being dirty in a passive-aggressive manner by simply suggesting that you should brush your teeth more often or that you should wear more deodorant. Sure, this might not be passive aggressive at first and might come from a place from the heart. For example my mother says this to me often with her fierce and honest way of saying things and not hiding back what she says, something which I don’t take to heart too harshly because it comes from love. However, when a friend says this to me in such a manner that comes from a moral high place and he is not direct with me, it annoys me because to me that’s condensing. I had a friend that when I asked him once if I’m ever too annoying and rough sometimes he would say with a very sarcastic tone “Nah, you are a sweet guy”. It didn’t suit with me that a friend wouldn’t be really direct with me and tell me if I really I am annoying at times, I knew this because his tone when I asked this questions became satirical, almost sarcastic at the time.
While the example above might be rather to simple, I wanted to contrast on how saying things in such a tone can be seen in my country. For example, if I were to say to my friend that his shirt is ugly and that he should get a new one, I wouldn’t sugar coat and tell him “Mano, that shirt is ripped and doesn’t suit you” In my culture, or from the part of Colombia I come from at least, saying things with honesty has such a bigger value of respect rather than just hiding things instead of making things “awkward”. Like if I were to say something like that in the U.S I’d be called a bad person or mean spirited, which is not the intention I have, is just that I say things honestly!
What I’m trying to get with this is that the tone of our language really speaks more volumes to what we might say. We have a saying in Colombia that the color of a tongue is the whip of one’s suffering, a meaning that might be lost in translation but that captures that, that tone is important when we speak or say something . The color of tone can define moments and its something that I have come crossed often in the United States, people not being direct but rather using the color of the tone of how they say things, something far too common in the relationships I encountered.
Analysis of my Own Rhetorical Writing
In my piece about the of language, I decided to express my opinion on how the way we say things can have a color, a color that could hide its true meaning. I made this clear especially with social relationships between friends and how sometimes the way we say things that we truly don’t mean, can be understood when we say otherwise because of how we say such things.
In this brief short essay, I try to use Pathos over Logos since I wanted to make an argument from my personal opinion. I do this by explaining to the reader from my own personal experiences how deceitful sometimes when a friend says something but I can see that through the tone of his voice he feels the opposite or doesn’t care at all. “However, when a friend says this to me in such a manner that comes from a moral high place and he is not direct with me, it annoys me because to me that’s condescending. I had a friend that when I asked him once if I’m ever too annoying and rough sometimes he would say with a very sarcastic tone ‘Nah, you are a sweet guy’.” While I use a simple example, I use my own personal example in order to convey reliability to my argument and cause the reader to sympathize with my experience. I do this through Pathos in order to appeal to the emotional side of the reader.
Another rhetorical device that I used was Metaphor, while not very abundant in my mini essay I do make it important to my final emphasis in the reading: The way we say things and say them can come back and hunt you. I did this through an old saying from my country “We have a saying in Colombia that the color of a tongue is the whip of one’s suffering, a meaning that might be lost in translation but that captures that, that tone is important when we speak or say something” with this meaning I try to convey a figure of speech on how saying things is dangerous but also that it can bite you back. What I hoped to accomplish with this is allowing the audience to feel a sense understanding on my point and how I feel.
