Rhetorical Analysis of the Persuasive Letters of Chinese Students

Abstract

This descriptive-qualitative study aimed to analyze the persuasive
letters of the Chinese students who were enrolled in the Bachelor of Science
in Nursing Program of St. Paul University Philippines. The persuasion
letters that were used as the corpus of this study were the outputs of
the Chinese students in their Final Examination for Technical Writing and
Writing in the Disciplines. The Rhetorical Analysis Tool was employed to
investigate the form, content, and rhetoric embedded in the persuasive
letters of the students. The study revealed that the students were able to
establish ethos or personal credibility in their write-ups. Also, this study
showed that the students were able to show persuasion by giving their
personal experiences and factual information and using some Rhetorical
Devices. Among the Rhetorical Devices used, this study revealed that
Epithet and Metonymy were the most commonly used.