Emotive language uses words that elicit an emotional response to persuade readers. Descriptive words can carry positive or negative biases that influence how readers view a topic. Writers may use emotive words like "thug" or "sleazy" to create a negative impression. An example contends for harsher youth offender punishments and describes a victim's face being "shredded" by a "drunken idiot," using emotive language to make readers feel sympathetic to the victim and critical of the perpetrator.

1. Emotive Language
Chris Gatt

2. Emotive Language
• Speakers and writers wanting to persuade us
to agree with them often try to engage our
emotions. They can do this by including words
that carry emotional weight.
• This can be persuasive because it encourages
the reader to respond on an emotional level,
rather than considering the facts, or it may
subtly affect the way the reader views the
topic.

3. Critique
• The persuasive technique of ‘Emotive language’
often involves using words that sound like
accurate, descriptive words, but which actually
carry emotional content as well – that is, a bias
towards approval or disapproval.
• For example, a thin person could be described as
slender (positive) or emaciated (negative) to
affect the way the reader views that person.

4. Critique
• The statements below are neutral but you can
easily use emotive (biased) language to create
a negative impression:
• The boy ran past me with the other boy chasing him
• The man stood in the corner talking to the girl

5. Critique
• The statements below are neutral but you can
easily use emotive (biased) language to create
a negative impression:
thug
fled
• The boy ran past me with the other boy chasing him
sleazy
dark
hitting on
young
• The man stood in the corner talking to the girl
^
^
^

6. An example
• Contention: We need harsher punishments for
youth offenders who commit acts of violence.
• “An innocent bystander had his face shredded
by broken glass when the drunken idiot lost
control.”

7. An example
• Contention: We need harsher punishments for
youth offenders who commit acts of violence.
• “An innocent bystander had his face shredded
by broken glass when the drunken idiot lost
control.”
• All of these terms are emotive.

8. Discussion (C-grade)
• The writer uses emotive language to make the
reader feel sorry for the victim and anger
towards the perpetrator. This makes the
reader agree with the contention because we
want to see justice for this shocking crime.

9. Discussion (A-grade)
• The writer uses emotive language to make us feel sympathetic
towards the victim and critical of the perpetrator. Describing the
victim as an ‘innocent bystander’ makes us feel sympathetic
towards them as they didn’t deserve to get injured and we may also
feel fear as it could happen to anyone. Saying that their face was
‘shredded’ is very graphic and shocks the reader. We feel
disapproval and possibly anger towards the perpetrator as they
committed this horrible crime and are nothing more than a
‘drunken idiot’. This makes us agree as the violence was severe and
we can clearly identify a ‘good guy’ and ‘bad guy’. By making us
angry at the outset of the article, we are less inclined to read the
rest of the argument objectively so will be more likely to accept the
call for harsher punishments for youth offenders who commit acts
of violence.