Whaling

Whaling has been and will be a very controversial issue, which is debated through out the world and, as a result arises in the media. In relation to the issues, Julian Ryall, Peter Singer and David Hastle all demonstrate their view points against whaling and whaling for food. Singers approach in persuading readers is more of an academic approach as well as emotional which is also taken by Ryall and Hastle. A broad range of persuasive techniques are used by all three writers, however some are repeated by more then one writer, to make their intention clear and powerful.

Ryall in her article �Let us kill and eat whale: Japanese’ (The Age) opens her argument by affectively positioning the reader to believe that not even the Japanese want the whales to be slaughtered for extra food on the menus. “Of the 56% who supported whales being slaughtered for food, the majority were men in their 40s and older.” The statistics (56%) used by Ryall outline the immense amount of people that are over the age of 40 which support the slaughter of whales, however most of these men believe it is part of there “culture” so there is nothing wrong with killing a few (thousand). “Younger Japanese, particularly women, were opposed to the practice.” This fact proves that the younger generation, which includes women, sees beyond the �cultural heritage’ highlighting Ryall’s contention that even the Japanese youth and women are against such a cruel and heartless act, and if they are against it, why should WE be for it?

Ryall backs up her argument with anecdotal evidence. Toshiko Marks, a professor of multicultural understanding said, “I don’t know anyone sensible who honestly says they like to eat whale meat. I hate it because I was forced to eat it as a child immediately after the war because there was not much else.” The use of the word �sensible’ by Marks is extremely powerful as it simply states that no normal human being would like whale meat. So as a reader, you are automatically drawn to his point of view that whales should not be slaughtered for food as you regard yourself as a sensible person. He also uses the word �hate’ and it wakes up the reader by showing them that just because