How can persuasive language be used in a positive and negative way to influence people ?
akannan Teacher Middle School eNotes Editor In its own right, language is a powerful element. History has demonstrated that when words are articulated into certain settings, they can have great impact on individuals, nations, and civilizations. We can see this with great orators and writers. To a large extent, we can also see this with Hitler and the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. Hitler utilized persuasive language as a method to tap into a reservoir of anger and frustration along wit a perceived sense of unfairness that many Germans felt, but could not articulated. Persuasive language attempts to do this, as it hopes to speak a shared or common experience that will build bonds between speaker and audience. In the case of Nazism, this solidarity was formed at the expense of demonizing “the other.” Hitler and the Nazis were able to persuade people by appealing to Germans’ national sense of identity and honor, and articulating a vision of an idyll setting when compared to the dire conditi
