A Rhetorical Analysis Of Malala Yousafzai's Speech

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Malala Yousafzai is a 19 year old Nobel prize winner. She is the survivor of a failed assassination attempt by the Taliban. She is a Pakistani activist, who strongly promulgates her agenda of human rights and education advocacy. She has been named as one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World,” three years in a row. Malala gave this speech on July 12th of 2013, otherwise known as “Malala Day.” In front of the UN General Assembly, she gave this powerful speech, encouraging equality for women and the importance of the right to education for all. Malala Yousafzai’s speech was deeply effective due to its powerful and passionate delivery, relatable and persuasive use of rhetoric, and a loose, yet clear structure which appeals …show more content…

Malala looks down several times within her delivery of the speech, but times these brief moments to fit into her speech smoothly, thus still providing the audience with ample eye contact without detrimentally affecting her performance. She speaks clearly and at an average pace, with her passion for advocacy clearly shining through due to her inflection and tone. Malala’s tone, professional yet passionate, meshed with her content seamlessly, and clearly was very persuasive for her audience; she received multiple standing ovations throughout the less than 18 minutes long speech. Ultimately, Malala’s poise, confidence, and wisdom is blatant in this speech, as evidenced by her tone and stature, and helps to ensure that the speech is deeply effective. Malala relates to her audience throughout her entire speech, but perhaps most effective in doing so is her use of rhetorical devices and persuasive appeals. This speech is littered with ethos, logos, and pathos, as almost all successful speeches are. Malala primarily makes use of pathos in this speech, especially when stating, “This is why they killed 14 innocent students in the recent attack in Quetta. And that is why they kill female teachers. That is why they are blasting schools every day because they were and