In order to establish ethos in his 1970 song "Is it because I'm Black", singer Syl Johnson provides details from his life in order to justify his claim that black people had to work much harder to increase their social status due to prejudices against the color of their skin. He sings "I was raised in the ghetto of the city/ Momma she works so hard to earn every penny". His prior experience lends credibility to his claim, because he actually lived through the hard experiences he writes about, and thus is more likely to have real knowledge of the prejudices against black people in America. He also uses slang and colloquial speech in order to connect with the average listener and bring out raw emotion. People who connect with the song do so because they see Syl Johnson as a reflection of the many African Americans who went through this injustice in the 60s and 70s.
-Daniel Saliunas
When I usually think of ethos, I imagine the speaker making himself or herself seem more reputable. So I like your observation about how slang and colloquial speech, in contrast, can effectively be used to connect with the audience (if that makes sense). I would have liked to know more about the hard experiences that Syl Johnson endured. Perhaps a link to his biography might help in your discussion of extrinsic ethos.
ReplyDelete-Anjali
I agree with Anjali that your view of using slang as a way of connecting to the audience is an interesting idea. Overall I think your analysis is very insightful and well done. I think it's beneficial how you use quotes from the song to explain Sly Johnson's experiences, instead of just describing them yourself. Something I think you could add to your analysis to make it more in depth is maybe examine the counter-ethos of his slang and colloquial speech. Maybe look at parts of the audience that disliked Johnson and how maybe they might have used his way of speaking to discredit him some.
ReplyDelete-Ryan Young
This analysis of ethos was very well written. I like that you started out by explaining Johnson's personal experience with prejudice and included the song lyrics to show this extrinsic ethos. Mentioning the slang and colloquial speech, like Ryan and Anjali mentioned, definitely added to the analysis and could've been furthered analyzed.
ReplyDeleteAs everyone above has stated, I would have definitely liked to have read more about Johnson's experiences. Other than that, this was very well written and you did a wonderful job explaining how vernacular and lyrics can be used to establish ethos.
ReplyDelete