Send boat people staright back - an analysis of the opinion of Australia's asylum seeker issue

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Send Boat People Straight Back

July 6, 2004

The issue of refugees had one that has been lingering in the headlines for some time. The community is split on whether or not it is Australia's responsibility to address the growing issue of allowing refugees into our country. Some say we should simply "send them back", others argue that it is our moral responsibility as a community to care for asylum seekers. However, regardless of how strong the cases put forward are, one thing's for sure, unless we come to some sort of country agreement, the problem of refugees will continue to remain strong.

In the text, "Send Boat people Straight Back", we see the writer, John Vaughan, clearly state his stance on the refugee issue. He believes that we, as a society, should be able to send refugees back home, ensuring that money allocated to this problem is better spent in areas concerned with the people of Australia.

Although only short, the persuasive techniques used throughout the text are successful in manipulating the reader's response to the issue at hand.

One way that the author persuades the reader to agree with his stance is the use of emotive language. In basic terms this is the deliberate use of strong emotive words to play on the reader's feelings. Such examples of words used throughout the piece include, "heartbreaking", "queue jumpers" and "desperately". These words are all intentionally used to stimulate strong emotional reactions that manipulate the reader's response. We feel angry and annoyed at the thourght that "our" money is being used to cater for impatient individuals that want to jump ahead of the system, wasting our money and resources in the process.

Yet another example of a persuasive technique used is the rhetorical question. A rhetorical question is one...