Language Analysis: Response to ‘Killer Cars’
Melanie Masters’ article, ‘Killer Cars – an Assault on Reason’, capitalises on recent findings which indicate that the behaviour of people who drive four-wheel drive vehicles (4WDs) as well as other automobiles, changes according to which car they are in. Bringing a number of related issues to play on these findings, Ms Masters attempts to persuade the reader that 4WDs are an unnecessary danger on the roads. The three principle rhetorical techniques employed to this end – as shall be explored in the following – are: (1) an informed, authoritative understanding of the issue; (2) a down-to-earth, accessible appeal to the reasonableness and humanity of the reader; and (3) the use of exaggerated imagery and metaphor to play on the audience’s sense of fear.
The article, ‘Killer Cars’, although certainly impassioned and committed to a particular position, nonetheless seeks to present itself as well-informed and authoritative. The principal strategy utilised in achieving this effect is found in the numerous references to well-established institutions such as The Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, The Monash University Accident Research Centre, The Australia Institute, and the Pedestrian Council of NSW. By recourse to apparently objective data (statistics, research findings, etc.), the reader is encouraged to regard Ms Masters’ own, further interpretations and opinions as similarly educated and authoritative. However, the cynical reader may feel that the inclusion of certain statistics (for instance, that half of the children killed in driveway deaths were caused by 4WDs) relies too heavily on assumed background knowledge (i.e. the relative proportions of 4WDs backing down family driveways). Similarly, while Ms Masters invokes the findings of a study that indicate 4WD drivers are less likely to be charitable or community-minded, her inference that they would be therefore be less concerned about any deaths or injuries they may actually cause (like the driver pictured in the referred-to-cartoon) is essentially enthymemic, and so, for some readers, may detract from the force of her argument. That said, the strategy of more-than-once referring to the accompanying cartoon is doubtlessly a conscious move by Ms Masters to make her reliance on otherwise potentially alienating data, more accessible and persuasive to the average reader.
The article’s commendable efforts at accessibility are further augmented by Ms Masters’ subtle insistence on being down-to-earth and reasonable. With phrases such as ‘let’s be realistic’, ‘the fact is’, ‘it will come as no surprise’, Ms Masters not only presents herself as level-headed, but, moreover, invites the reader to emulate her own reasonableness by similarly adopting her views regarding 4WDs as their own. Indeed, by the time it is claimed that 4WD drivers are twice as likely to say, ‘I was born to shop’, apparently nothing more needs to be said; the article has already sufficiently appealed to the reader’s wish to be rational (eg. ‘the only reasonable solution’) that the consumerist-mantra inevitably appears vacuous, selfish and utterly irrational. This, contrasted with the real-face-of-tragedy found in the specific story of five-year-old, ‘little’ Bethany Holder, enables Ms Masters to subsequently generalise to such an extent that she can challenge the ‘other’ with the rhetorically loaded question, ‘How many more Bethany Holders do we need…?’
The final persuasive technique employed throughout the article, then, is a play on the fears of the audience. With a plethora of metaphorical language-use (eg. ‘aggression’, ‘a menace’, ‘lethal weapons’, ‘ploughing into’, ‘struck by’, ‘behemoths’, “death machines”, ‘monsters’ , ‘hulking’, etc.), the clearly exaggerated imagery used by the cartoon is perpetuated in the reader’s mind as they subsequently encounter the seemingly objective and unbiased empirical data. Furthermore, by consistently exploiting inclusive/exclusive language of ‘us’ (‘what about the rest of us?’) and ‘them’ (‘they might be right’, ‘watch out for them’), Ms Masters seeks to align the reader with the crushed, helpless victims, threatened by equally aggressive drivers of ‘the most aggressive vehicle type[s]’.
