Fifty Shades of Fear: Enhancing Persuasion in Sermon Conclusions through Fear Induction
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Pathos, one of the three Aristotelian sources of appeal, is generally mediated via affect and emotions. In religious discourse it is, among other things, effectively reinforced by the intentional juxtaposition of the factual (serious theological content, intertextual references to credible sources) on the one hand, and the affective (both positive and negative emotions) on the other. It follows that a whole scale of emotions may undoubtedly be ignited in religious discourse, including sentiment, compassion, excitement, sadness, guilt, fear, and the like; these are eventually to promote the doctrine, to make the believers to realise and accept spiritual truths, to encourage them to strive for a godly life, etc. The proposed corpus-based paper will examine how negative affect, viz. fear induced deliberately by the preacher, may foster the persuasive effect in sermons. Scrutinizing both rhetorical conventions and language practices of sermons, the paper will demonstrate that owing to the employment of various shades of negative emotions, the message conveyed is more appealing, and thus persuasive, to the audience. |
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