From empathy to activism

Abstract This paper examines how an adult’s letter to the New South Wales Minister for Disability regarding problems identified within the disability service sector resulted in successful outcomes: that is, the changes asked for were delivered. A range of discourse semantic tools of analysis including appraisal ( Martin and White 2005 ) and connexion ( Martin 1992 ; Rose and Martin 2012 ) were employed in analysing this letter, which can be seen as an example of empathy activism. The analysis identifies how the complex layering of stages and phases that organise the arguments in this letter powerfully drives the point home, which is to convince the Minister to increase the staff ratio at a government-run respite house for children with intellectual disabilities.