Rhetorical Analysis Of Ted Talk

The modes of persuasion have long been used by public speakers to effectively deliver a speech. The TED talk “Asia’s Rise -- how and when” by Hans Rosling is no exception to this and Rosling utilizes ethos, pathos and logos in a compelling manner that draws in the attention of the audience. In this TED talk Rosling indicates that after many years of Asia being dominated by the western world, Asia will regain the power it once had in the world. Statistics is used as a visual aide and they show how India and China compares with UK and USA in the last 200 years. Using past statistics to develop a trend, a prediction is made as to when Asia will overtake the Western World. As a Swedish medical doctor and a statistician, Hans Rosling uses his expertise

Throughout the speech the use of humor was prevalent, which helped present the topic as well as inform the audience about many facts. In his anecdote about his time in India he hilariously states that students in India “read the textbook twice or three times or four times, in Sweden we read it once then we went party.” This clearly evokes a positive reaction from the crowd as there is lots of laughter. Humor is a great way of getting your point across as it is a style many people can digest easily. One other interesting choice he made in his delivery was to not use a laser pointer for his graphics, but a large bamboo stick; “And I also bring an innovation here. I have transformed the laser beam into an ecological, recyclable version here, in green India.” This was done as a joke and I thought that this was effective because he actually related the bamboo stick to his audience and it worked well in tandem with his visual

Hans Rosling was successfully able to utilize ethos, pathos, and logos to his advantage in order get his idea across. He uses his knowledge of history and statistics to establish himself as a credible person and creates a good sense of moral character by analysing drawbacks to his prediction. Although Rosling is a Swedish man talking in India, he has lived there before and understands the audience and can relate to them, so he establishes a good rapport with them. He uses his understanding of the audience to appeal to their emotions and uses humor to get his message across. The structure of his speech is clear and discusses reasons throughout his speech to demonstrate how Asia is on the rise. Rosling is a very effective communicator and knows how to use ethos, pathos, and logos in conjunction with each other to have a positive reaction from the audience. Rosling speech is a clear example of how to get a message across and good example of what effective public speaking should be