Running head: GENRE ANALISIS – THE BERLIN WALL 1

Genre Analysis – The Berlin Wall

Murari, Yannis

University of Texas at El Paso

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Introduction

The fall of the German Wall after the cold war was a huge milestone in German

history. This event is remembered to date, as the day of German unity. Dating back after

the Second World War, as the Nazi regime had officially lost every chance of victory,

Germany was separated into multiple sectors, by the main countries in power. This

sectorization was deemed to help and improve the situation in Germany, yet only

become more chaotic in the following 40 years. The construction of the German wall in

Berlin was one of these radical decisions deemed by the USSR, to keep the citizens

living in their sector isolated from the other parts of the country. This construction

brought torture and imprisonment to all those living in the western sector of Berlin. Many

genres were used during the time and after the fact, which all had their individual use of

ethos, pathos and logos and all had their select audiences.

In this genre analysis, two types of sources will be explained and compared side

by side to show their differences and similarities. The first chosen genre, a journal article

written by Tzvetan Todorov, “The fall of the Berlin Wall in History” explains the reasons

behind the construction, the time with and after the war, as well as the reasons for its

destruction in the late 90s. The second chosen genre consist of a famous speech by

Ronald Regen on June 12th, 1987, two years before the fall of the wall, in which he

describes the issues within the separated sectors of Germany and asks the leader of

the USSR directly to “tear down this wall” in order to improve the countries situation.

Ethos

Each genre has different ways to apply ethos to earn credibility. Both academic

journal articles and speeches fall under this category. When it comes to the written
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genre, they are mostly used to educate the reader on a certain topic or discussion. This

is especially the case with journal articles. This journal article in particular has a great

load of ethos in its possession. Firstly, every article, that gets published in an academic

journal, is peer reviewed and analyzed, so that all information can be deemed true and

therefore trusted as a reliable source. As “Before the Fall” was published in “The Wilson

Quarterly” (Curry, p. 16) it falls under the same type of ethos as stated above.

Therefore, this article can be used and applied, without the fear of it containing wrong

and un certified information.

Within the oral genre, ethos plays a big part. While anybody can say anything

and claim it as true, one must therefore be particularly careful when evaluating the

source. In the speech presented by Ronald Regan, one can find a large amount of

ethos and credibility. Firstly, one can determine this speech as important by the location

it was relayed at. As this speech was held at a public government event, on the Berlin

wall of the former East German sector (Regan, pre-paragraph), one can simply tell that

this is a very important speech.

Secondly, credibility is created by the person that held the speech. Ronald

Regan, the fourth President of the United States of America to rule during the

separation of Germany (Regan, para. 1), satisfies this certainly well. One can say that

the President is one of the most trusted and influential people in the entire country and

can therefore be seen as a credible source.

Pathos

Pathos, the art of bringing emotions to the reader, is another component often

found within many genres. Within journal articles, pathos is usually not found as often,
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yet this article displays it in certain parts. Any sort of the scholarly written genre normally

deals as an information base on the certain topic, and therefore disregards emotions.

Curry, although, tries to affect the readers emotions in multiple parts of the article. He

often uses quotes by primary eyewitnesses or officials that were involved during the

separation of Germany (Curry, p. 17/18/19/22/24). Here he shoes how the locals felt

(Curry p. 19) and what officials thought about the situation within the eastern sector

(Curry, p. 18). This is used to make the reader better understand the situation and the

struggle that residents had to live through during this period of time.

The speech by Ronald Regan on the other hand, is very pathos heavy. Speeches

are normally made attract the listeners to follow the belief of which is preached during

the speech. During the first parts of the speech, Regan focuses on the beauty and unity

of Berlin and wants to show the audience its true colors (Regan, para. 1-4). He then

follows to speaks heavily about the improvement, to show how the state of Germany

has changed for the better, in some certain parts (Regan, para 5-10). While his speech

wasn’t only focused on telling everybody about the great state of the sectors, he also

addresses the state of East Germany, which is separated by the wall, and states that

the soviets should reconsider the wall and turn the sectors back into one complete

country (Regan, para. 35-43). His goal with this is to reach the higher government

officials of the DDR (name of East Germany sector) and to persuade them to create

unity among the sectors by applying emotions.

Logos

Both sources have a great amount of Logos backing their claim. In order for the

sources to be affective and accurate they must provide statistics and particular
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information, so that the reader can understand and visualize the issue the author is

talking about. Curry’s article uses many facts and statistics to give the reader a

perception of the separation of Germany. He follows the events that lead to the fall of

the German wall in chronological order starting with the first signs (Curry, p. 17-19),

followed by the residential acts lead by the citizens, such as the “Montags-

demonstrationen” (Monday-demonstrations) (Curry, p. 23-24). Here he brings in and

uses statistics, that portray citizen numbers that attended these demonstrations, and

statistics that show the amount of “Stasi” (DDR-Border police) officers were used to stop

these demonstrations (Curry, p. 23). Curry also provides images into his article, that

show situations such as these demonstrations and certain important people during this

period. This gives the reader the possibility to see these events and officials, to get a

better understanding of the situation.

Logos can also be found in great numbers within Regans speech. While

speeches typically feature a lot of pathos, logical arguments must be also used to bring

topic in context. Regan discusses the improvements that the German nation has had,

ever since the Second World War and uses examples such as the “Wirtschaftswunder”

(a economic boom with in the western sector) (Regan, para. 8) and “The Marshall Plan”

(a plan by the British to improve the state of Germany) (Regan, para. 8) to create

awareness among the reader of what has already been done in Germany. Yet, he also

says that he believes the State of Germany is still not at its peak and provides

information about a future of unity. He compares the state of both sides of Germany and

shows that the country would be better of when combined back to one country (Regan,

para. 20-25).
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Audience and Purpose

Each type of genre and source tries to reach certain type of audience and has a

certain type of purpose. Written arguments usually try to inform an audience about a

certain topic or discussion and let them understand the deeper meaning. Curry does

this effectively in his journal article. His main focus is to educate people on the reasons

behind the fall of the German wall and does this so that people become more aware

with the topic. He intends to attract a very broad audience, yet one can say he mainly

focuses on a higher educated audience due to his use of academic English.

While oral arguments focus on the same aspect, informing people about a certain

subject, Regans audience is more precise and narrowed down. His speech is set to

persuade a certain audience, the Soviet Union, to remove the wall and reunite Germany

into one country. He also addresses the citizens of the different sectors, so that they

were aware of the situation.

Conclusion

All in all, one can say that each genre was used for different situations, yet there

are multiple similarities in the use of the rhetorical situations, ethos pathos and logos,

and the selected audience. While the article was a general source of information, the

speech had a bias, that was set to persuade the desired audience into making a drastic

decision. With regards to this evaluation, one needs to play close attention during the

act of researching effective sources for their project.

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References

Curry, Andrew. (2009). Before the Fall. The Wilson Quartelry, Pages 16-25.

Regan, Ronald. Tear down this Wall. Speech presented near Berlin Wall, Berlin.