The Routledge Handbook of Language and Persuasion

by Jeanne Fahnestock (Editor), Randy Allen Harris (editor)

This handbook provides a wide-ranging, authoritative and cutting-edge overview of language and persuasion. Featuring a range of international contributors, the handbook outlines the basic materials of linguistic persuasion--sound, words, syntax, and discourse and the rhetorical basics that they enable, such as appeals, argument schemes, arrangement strategies and accommodation devices.

The handbook is divided into six parts. Part 1 covers the basic rhetorical appeals to character, the emotions, argument schemes, and types of issues that constitute persuasion. Part 2 covers the enduring effects of persuasive language, from humor to polarization, while a special group of chapters in Part 3 examines individual figures of speech and their rhetorical uses. In Part 4, contributors focus on different fields and genres of argument as entry points for research into conventions of arguing. Part 5 examines the evolutionary and developmental roots of persuasive language, and Part 6 concludes by highlighting new computational methods of language analysis.

This handbook is essential reading for those researching and studying persuasive language in the fields of linguistics, communication, rhetoric, discourse studies, political science, digital studies, mass media, and journalism.

584 pages, Paperback

Published March 13, 2025