Anthony recently received a promotion in his job at the campus tutoring center. He was hired as a sophomore, and after two years of working as a tutor, he was asked to become the supervisor of a group of students.

At first, his co-workers were excited: Anthony had worked his way up in the organization, and it was nice to be supervised by another student who knew what it was like to balance the demands of working as a tutor while still being a college student. Anthony’s experience in the job gave him insights into changes that he believed could make the job more enjoyable for everyone. On his first day, he changed the schedule for the rest of the month. His peers were confused and frustrated that he would make this change without talking to them. That afternoon, he overheard two of them complaining about him misusing his new power. It bothered him all afternoon. When one finally told him that he should not have made the changes, he angrily snapped “Well, I’m the supervisor. It’s my decision.” 

The following day, Anthony walked in to work to find most of the staff waiting for him. Ellie, a longtime tutor, spoke for the group. “Anthony, we’ve done the schedule this way for years. We’re really frustrated that you would change our hours without talking to us first. Yes, you’re the supervisor, but this isn’t ok.” Anthony was upset. Everyone had always hated the schedule. On his first day, he fixed it, and now everyone was mad at him?

Anthony thought about it and took a breath. “I was trying to help. We have one group of tutors that helps students find information, and another that helps them write their speeches. I thought if I scheduled everyone together for a month, we could teach each other what we do. Then, when the semester gets busy, it would be a lot easier to find someone to cover your shift. We always complain about how hard it is to get time off, and I was trying to fix that.” He noticed Ellie nodding and continued, “I wasn’t trying to use my power to control your schedule, I was trying to give you more power over when you work for the rest of the year. But I should have talked to you first and explained why I think this is a good idea. Sorry; I won’t make that mistake again.”

Persuasion is an important part of our daily lives. We attempt to persuade others every day. In our personal lives, we use persuasion to make decisions such as a group of friends discussing where to eat, to major decisions such as a family deciding which house to buy, persuasion is an essential part of existing alongside other people. In professional settings, persuasion is how groups work together to decide which project to pursue next or convince a potential client to work with them instead of a competitor.

Even the beginning of your career is a test of your persuasive skills: your first task is likely to be crafting a résumé that persuades a perspective employer to want to learn more about you. If you succeed, you move on to a job interview, during which your task is to persuade the interviewer that your skills and attitude make you the best candidate for the job. If you succeed in that task, you will receive a job offer—and an opportunity to persuade your potential employer that your starting salary should be higher than their first offer. As Anthony learned in the opening example, even really good ideas may require you to persuade your audience in order to get them on board.

Beyond being incredibly useful in a wide variety of personal and professional settings, persuasion is an essential part of a healthy democracy. When the first democracy was created in Athens, Greece, it was based on the idea that political decisions should be made by vote of the people rather than by decree of a king or queen. The ancient Greek word for a single ruler is still in use today: tyrant. Although citizenship was restricted to a minority of those living in Athens (free men born in the city), the expansion of political power beyond a small group of elites was revolutionary. Citizens met in a place called the Assembly, where anyone who wished could address the group, and laws were passed and decisions made based on a simple majority vote. In this environment, people quickly realized that becoming better persuasive speakers would allow them more influence on the decisions of the group. Those who could afford it hired teachers to help them become more effective persuaders.

Students often express concerns about persuasion. We have even had students say things in their persuasive presentations like “my goal is just to give you the facts, not to persuade you.” This perspective makes sense if you understand persuasion as manipulating another person. And this perspective is why people have often been conditioned to dislike when someone tries to persuade them—no one wants to be manipulated. However, this way of thinking about persuasion underestimates listeners’ ability to think and make decisions for themselves.

Consider how many times you have seen an advertisement and not bought that product. Consider how many speeches you have heard and not been convinced to do what the speaker said. This is true for all of your audience members as well. As long as your presentation is ethical— providing information that you believe to be true, drawn from high-quality sources, and not misleading your audience or leaving out important information— you can trust your audience to determine if it persuades them. Your goal in a persuasive presentation is to provide information and make arguments in a way that changes how your listeners think and act on a topic. A well-crafted presentation is more likely to be effective at this goal because it prompts your audience to understand the topic in a different way, and to see things the way you do, but the decision to act is ultimately up to them.

Luckily, persuasion is a skill that can be developed. While the next few chapters of this book will provide you with a variety of strategies to become more effective at persuasion, the rest of this chapter focuses on the relationship between language and persuasion by helping you better understand how language affects our perceptions. This knowledge can help you be more intentional and skillful in your own language choices, which is an incredibly valuable skill that can benefit you at work and in your community. It can also to help you recognize the countless ways you are exposed to strategic language that is designed to influence you without you even noticing. As you become more aware of how specific language choices can shape how we think and interact with one another, you will also become better at recognizing others’ attempts to persuade you. This will help you better recognize when someone has made a strong, convincing argument, and when someone is attempting to engage in unethical manipulation.

Persuasion and the Power of Language

Language is a central part of how we think and how we perceive the world. It’s power to affect our thoughts, feelings, and actions influences almost every aspect of our lives. The words we use impact our individual preferences and actions in ways we may not even recognize. Because of this, marketers trying to sell us products or politicians trying to gain our support often carefully choose language designed to get us to think and act as they want us to.

For over 30 years, U.S. political parties have regularly hired experts in language to help them talk about issues in ways that garner public support for their positions. These experts are not just speechwriters—who have been part of law and politics for thousands of years—they are experts who use focus groups and social media analyses to test different word choices and then decide which words will be used by entire political parties and media outlets. They know that different language choices can make a huge difference in whether a politician, law, or product gains public support.

For example, in a public opinion poll conducted after it was passed, 24 percent of respondents reported having “very negative” feelings about the Affordable Care Act. Interestingly, the same poll found 35 percent of respondents had “very negative” feelings about Obamacare. Meanwhile, the number of respondents with “very positive” feelings about the Obamacare was also substantially than those with “very positive” feelings about Affordable Care Act. Why are these differences interesting? Because the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are two names for the same law. In other words, public opinion of the exact same law changed substantially depending upon which name people were asked about. Though describing the same legislation, the verbal association with President Obama’s name changed many peoples’ perceptions, causing some to oppose the law, others to support it, and fewer people to adopt neutral responses. This example is far from unique. The words we use to communicate about the world affect how we and others see it. But how does this work?

Denotative and Connotative Meanings

We often think of words as having a specific meaning. If we want to know the meaning of a word, we can simply look it up in the dictionary. The reality is that language is more complex, and words have meaning based on how they are used and understood within groups. The same word may have many different meanings and associations beyond what appears in a dictionary. A word may mean different things to different audiences, may be viewed as positive in one context and negative or insulting in another, and may even change meaning over time. Up until the 1920s, English speakers in the United States would describe talking and spending time with friends as having intercourse…. we would strongly recommend choosing a different word to describe those activities now.

One way to think about how words carry meaning is through denotative and connotative meaning. Denotative Meaning is the most widely used, literal, or dictionary definition of a word. The denotative meanings of a word are easily accessible through a dictionary. Connotative Meaning is all of the associations and secondary meanings attached to a word. The connotative meanings of a word are much harder to identify, because they may differ from group to group or even person to person. Despite these difficulties, it is important that you consider the most likely connotative meanings of the words you use when crafting a message.

Imagine you are speaking to a class of aspiring fiction writers. Although both labels might be denotatively accurate, you can probably assume they would rather be called storytellers than liars. When talking to an older audience, it seems a safe bet they would prefer to be called youthful than childish. Most of us would like to be known as confident, but we would not want to be called arrogant. The denotative meanings of these word pairings are all very similar. The connotative meanings are far different. It is the connotative associations that give the words their emotional resonance. These associations can have a substantial impact on how an audience thinks about a topic. If you want to connect with or persuade an audience, or get them to think about a topic favorably or unfavorably, you should think carefully about the likely connotations of the words you choose.

Terministic Screens

The power of language to shape how we interpret the world goes beyond words having multiple meanings. Particular language choices may guide our attention in very different ways. Rhetoric scholar Kenneth Burke (1966) described this phenomenon as terminstic screens. Terministic screens is a name for how the language we use shapes our perceptions by guiding our attention toward certain aspects of the world while simultaneous guiding it away from other aspects. In one of his most famous writings on the topic, Burke argued “even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by its very nature as a terminology, it must be a selection of reality; and to this extent it must function also as a deflection of reality” (p. 45).  What does it mean to say that language reflects, selects, and deflects reality?

• Reflects: By saying language can reflect reality, Burke means that humans use words to make sense of and communicate about the world. The word tree is not the same as the actual object, but the word can help us identify something that exists in the world and communicate with others about it.
• Selects: Language can never objectively and completely represent an object or topic. Because of this, whatever words we choose will select certain aspects of the topic to draw our listeners’ attention toward.
• Deflects: By selecting certain aspects of the topic to draw our listeners’ attention toward, we also deflect their attention away from the many other aspects we did not choose to select.

One widely-read use of Burke’s idea of terministic screens occurs in Celeste Condit’s (1990) book Decoding Abortion Rhetoric. In this book, Condit analyzes how both pro-life and pro-choice movements have strategically developed vocabularies for talking about abortion that help frame abortion debates in particular ways. Even the names themselves function as terministic screens. In identifying oneself as “pro-life” or “pro-choice” you have chosen a label that reflects that you have a position on the issue of abortion. However, each label selects and deflects different aspects of the controversy and sets up opposing frames to interpret the issue.

These vocabularies extend well beyond the names each group gives their position on abortion and include very different terms for talking about the issue. For example, consider the person who is pregnant. Within the vocabulary of the pro-life movement, this person is most often referred to as a “mother.” By contrast, within the vocabulary of the pro-choice movement, this person is most often referred to as a “woman.” Both terms reflect the same person, but what they select and deflect is very different. The term mother selects a relationship that implies another person. To many people, the connotation is of a relationship of love, care, and a desire to protect their children. The term woman selects something different: an autonomous individual with the right to make choices for herself.

And what do we say the mother/woman is pregnant with? Again, it depends which vocabulary is being used. Within a pro-life vocabulary, the term used is almost always “child” or “baby.” Within pro-choice vocabulary, you are more likely to see the term “fetus.” Why? Again, consider which aspects of the situation each term draws your attention toward. For many people, the terms “child” or “baby” connote something small, often cute, and in need of care and protection. The term “fetus” by contrast, is a technical, medical term. It not only lacks the positive connotations of baby, but it draws your attention to this not yet having developed into the cute and cuddly thing we associate with the term baby. Neither of these vocabularies is inherently more or less right than the other. But they function to frame a discussion of abortion in very different ways by selecting and deflecting opposing elements of the issue.

Another example of this comes from the language used in discussions of wealth. What do you call a person who has a lot of money? Rich? Wealthy? Over the past decades, this question has become an important part in messaging around public discussions of taxes in the United States. In the aftermath of the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests, a great deal of attention was paid to economic inequality and the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a small percentage of Americans. Activists began calling on lawmakers to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and repeatedly pointing out that the richest 1% of Americans owned as much wealth as the bottom 90% combined. They began referring to the wealthiest Americans as “the one percent.” As calls to raise taxes on the wealthy grew, those who opposed raising those taxes began to more consistently call people with wealth “job creators.” Much like in previous examples, what this term selects and deflects is very different. Both the one percent and job creator are terms that point to a person with lots of wealth. But the phrase the one percent had a clear connotative association with the statistic about them having as much money as 90 percent combined. Every time it was repeated, it drew attention toward the substantial inequality in wealth. It also selected that this was a relatively small group, and thus 99 percent of people would not have their taxes raised. The term job creator, in contrast, draws attention toward the economic contributions of this group. In a time when many people had recently lost their jobs, calling someone a job creator drew attention toward how they might use their wealth in ways that made new jobs (McGeough, & King, 2021).

Once you understand that the same subject can be described with words that have positive or negative connotations, and those words might also draw listeners’ attention towards some aspects of the topic and away from other aspects— often in ways listeners do not even notice—  you can begin to see what a powerful tool language selection can be. Over time, specific language choices may become so commonly used on a subject that people use them without even considering alternatives. This is what communication scholars call a public vocabulary, which is the “terms that compose people’s taken-for-granted understanding of the world” (Lucaites, & Condit, 1990). Even when a term becomes part of the public vocabulary, it still works as a terministic screen. The fact that some words become the seemingly natural, taken-for-granted terms we use to communicate about specific issues makes them particularly powerful in shaping how we understand the world.

Conclusion

Persuasion plays an important role in almost every setting where people have to cooperate with one another. Part of sharing a space—whether a home, a workplace, or a community— is navigating different (and sometimes competing) needs and desires. Where should we go for dinner? Which project should we focus on next? Should our town build a new school?  When navigating these questions, and the many others we face as members of our various groups, we frequently turn to persuasion. This is a good thing; history provides countless examples in which the alternative to persuasion is often force.

Persuasion is all around you. As a listener, you should pay close attention to the language being used to attempt to persuade you. What things is it drawing your attention toward? What things is it drawing your attention away from? Remember that how we understand the world is influenced through the adoption of vocabularies that seem natural to us. Given the countless number of times each day that you are exposed to people and brands attempting to influence or persuade you, paying attention to language is a valuable tool to help you be a more conscious and critical consumer of messages. Building the habit of paying close attention to language can not only help you avoid being manipulated, it can also help you be a better listener. Doing so can give you insight into how other people understands a topic. This might help you understand what is important to others, identify how you might be more persuasive to them, or potentially find common ground with the other people.