Professor McCloskey discussed rhetoric, how we use rhetoric in terms of persuasion. We live with language, understanding how these words work is important. In class we discussed verbal communication. I want to relate professor McCloskey’s ideas to code switching within language. We use code switching all the time, we switch our communication whether it is language, tone, or subject in order to match our desired outcome in an interaction. This reinforces intimacy, which is important in persuasion, if someone feels a connection with you, they are likely to succumb to your persuasions. I also wanted to connect this idea of language within persuasion to the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis. This is the idea that language impacts how a person understands and behaves in the world. Professor McCloskey talked alot about sweet talk and its important role within persuasion. This hypothesis promotes this idea, if we use sweet talk, this will impact the way a person will behave or what decisions they will make.
This idea of sweet talk and persuasion also relates to framing. We discussed framing as well as salience in class. Framing is selecting certain aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient. Salience is making one piece of information more noticeable or meaningful. In relation to sweet talker, they will frame a situation, and use the positive aspects of that situation to persuade an individual. Persuasion directly relates to framing because you are going to chose the information that is most inciting to the individual you are trying to persuade in attempts to achieve a goal. So all in all someone will frame a situation as beneficial to a certain party in order to persuade them.
Professors McCloskey’s speech also related to perception, in relation to the person who is doing the sweet talking in order to persuade. When the person trying to do the persuasion frames a situation as beneficial by using sweet talk, the person trying to be persuaded will select this as important and likely agree. This next idea goes along with the sweet talker and well as the person that is being persuaded. Perception organization is important because this is when a person categorizes what is important, and uses language as a tool in order to signal the importance of a situation. The sweet talked will organize what is important in a situation and what is likely to have the best result. The sweet talker then uses language as a tool in order to carry out their persuasion, they will also signal importance to further persuade the person. However the person who is being persuaded has a part in this as well, they subconsciously select what is important to them, and the use of sweet talk has alot to do with what appears to be important.
Professor McCloskey’s speech on rhetoric opened my perception of language, and how people use it to their advantage. She used alot of comparisons with the economy, and how economists use their language to persuade people in accepting prediction patterns and just their knowledge in general.
I also watched Prof. McCloskey's lecture and found the topic and examples she used to be interesting. Never did it occur to me that economists and scientists are considered masters of persuasion. It's unfortunate, because as you mention, one's perception of the sweet talker has everything to do with whether what is being said will be believed. This makes economists and scientists major sources of validity, which therefore makes almost all statements that come out of there mouths true, according to most people.
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