Persuasive language

Techniques > Use of language > Persuasive language

All use of language can act to persuade, and there are many other pages in the language section of this site that include persuasive elements. This page adds more focused and specific techniques to change the minds of other people.

• Final impact: Put the impact at the end of the sentence.
• Hidden commands: Burying commands in sentences.
• Intensifiers: increasing the emotional impact of a statement.
• Object focus: Focus on the object and let the subject slip by.
• Power words: Words that have special meaning.
• Pronoun language: I, you and so on add power.
• Sensory language: Language that evokes senses.
• Short sentences: Like this. That work. Of course.
• Temporal language: Changing time and hence meaning.
• Trivializing words: Deflating what others say.
• Using pauses: Adding power with very largely nothing.

See also

Modifying meaning

King Richard walked and talked. Ten minutes after, he was dead.