The people behind Covid-19´s figures: argumentation on the covers of O Globo

Abstract

. This article seeks to reflect on one of the general premises indispensable for those who intend to use persuasion in discourse, known as the person's places. These places give preference to the person, who is emphasized above all things. For this purpose, some speeches about the coronavirus´ pandemic established in the world, Covid-19, are taken as the object of analysis. As a corpus of study of this article, in methodological terms, two covers of the newspaper O Globo, from Rio de Janeiro, are taken into account, specifically the editions that record when Brazil exceeded 10,000 deaths (published on May 19th 2020) and the 100,000 deaths (9th August 2020 edition) from the virus. The objective is to show how the valorization to the human being works, in the speeches about Covid-19, as an efficient argument with strong persuasive appeal, is capable of moving the audience, raising or enhancing dignity, merit and respect. The reflection is based on assumptions of classical Rhetoric (Aristotle, 1983, 2011), a field in which places originated, and New Rhetoric (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1996), specifically with regard to the person's places.