Analyzing Kings Rhetorical Strategies Essay Examples

Steve King believes that English should be the national language of the United States of America. He advances a number of arguments from a variety of perspectives and considerations that make his case for why English should be the dominant language of the United States. A close analysis shows that even though many of his arguments are compelling, he employs a number of fallacies and oversimplifications in order to convince those reading his article why English should be the official and undisputed national language of the United States.
King begins his article not by advances his argument, but by appealing to the reader’s pathos. He relies upon platitudes, which while conjuring a sense of national pride are nothing more than pathetic fallacies, designed to appeal to the reader’s emotion. He writes, “There is something unique about being an American.” While certainly true, the same could be said of any nationality. There is something unique about being anything. There is certainly something unique about being a Kenyan. Likewise, there is something unique about being human, just as there is something unique about being an Englishman.
Of all the things that unite a people in a country, King writes that there are a number of common denominators, but wants language to be the most important in order to support his argument. He mentions geographical area, sharing a common history, and adhering to the same rule of law, but wants it to be a common language that readers feel is the most powerful binder of people.
He argues, “A common language has defined the boundaries of nation-states throughout history.” He makes the claim that “boundaries around the nation-states from 300 years ago and earlier were often boundaries that were drawn by lines of language” (King, 2). The key term here is “often.” Here King employs the logical fallacy of a false analogy. He is making an analogy as common language as essential to strong state, while ignoring some fairly obvious elephants on the map. India, speaks dozens of different languages. Canada, a strong state also in North America, has two official languages. Like-wise, in China, there are two different languages, Cantonese and Mandarin, which are official languages of the country. So “often” does not mean “necessary,” though for the sake of argument King employs it as such. He even goes further with his false analogy by offering the red-herring argument of naming strong countries that share an official language. He argues that in France they speak French, and in Spain they speak Spanish. He either purposefully ignores, or is unaware of the fact that Spain is a multilingual country with Spanish being only one of several official languages that includes Castellaño, which is identified as a distinct language from Spanish. He appeals to logos with this argument that he has set up using several fallacies and asks the question, “Why does a nation-state have a boundary that is defined by its languages?” That question lends itself to making the case for his argument, but as has been demonstrated by looking at his arguments, that question comes from a simple understanding of what causes countries to become nation states. A counterexample that would easily dismantle this straw man argument would be to show a state like Kenya, which is a country because of arbitrary lines drawn on a map by British government. There are two official languages in Kenya, English and Swahili, as well as 26 different tribal languages, which are spoken by tribes finding themselves part of the same nation not because of a shared language, but because of prevailing political powers of the last century. King’s third argument does appeal to a reader’s logos and makes logical sense. English, he claims, gives a global advantage to its speakers. English, as he points out, is the language of commerce currently in the world. As the world market’s become more globalized, speaking the language of commerce will certainly give anyone wanted to work in an international marketplace an edge over those that either do not speak English, or who learned it as a second language later in life. Since world governments at international summits all speak English, it is the most important language to learn. All of this makes common sense and is an appeal to logic. The argument against this, is that why not have more than one official language in the United States such as English and Spanish? It begs the question of why it would not be more advantageous in addition to speaking English speaking another language. King foresees this argument against his idea, so he develops an argument for “the problem of being multilingual.” He argues that that would lead to those coming to this country not speaking English to continue to not learn English, while official documents are all in English so it creates a difficult problem of citizens of the United States not being able to communicate with the documents of their government. He uses the example of a contract made in two different languages. Since languages each have their own nuance, and translations can be imperfect, it is nearly impossible to do contract legal work in multiple languages.
In the course of developing this argument, King uses both a false dichotomy and oversimplification. The false dichotomy is between one official language and multiple languages being used in contracts. He has already established that while the French speak French, that in international arenas those working in international relations are required to do their business in English. He does not bring to the table the fact that most countries where multiple languages are spoke use a single language, often English, for contractual legal agreements. This is an oversimplification of how language, and multilingual states do business. So his example used, while compelling, is ultimately, irrelevant to the discussion at hand. King’s final argument is one that appeals to logos, but his logic relies on a non sequitur. He sees that language is what unites the culture of the United States. He believes that a difference in language is a divisor of the unity of the United States. He cites no evidence to back up this claim that a difference in language will divide the American culture. He cites no evidence for this claim. As suspect is his appeal to the American culture. He already mentions earlier in his article that the United States is composed of many different cultures. He then mentions a unified culture. He cannot have it both ways, America is either of one similar culture, or a culture composed of many cultures. The latter claim is the obviously true one, a fact that is ignored in most of the article because it is not a convenient fact for the argument King advocates for.