One important thing to notice here: the author is responding to something specific--the ideas in a recently published study. He found something so interesting (or troubling or problematic) in this study that he wanted to enter into the conversation. This is the situation--what motivated the author to write. The study he is talking about proposed that English speakers and writers are using instincts rather than logic

Noting Tennyson without context indicates McWhorter believes he is talking to a well-read, cultured audience: he doesn't mention that Tennyson was 19th century American poet: he just assumes the audience will know.

Reference to a scholarly source could be an indication of audience--he's speaking to an educated readership who would respect and take seriously the words of a scholar, but he's putting much of the information into his own words or layman's terms because he can't assume his readers ARE scholars.

More logos here: McWhorter shows an example of how a change in the way we phrase things DOES NOT necessarily indicate a change in how we think about that think. We just use more informal language to discuss the issues now.

However, he disagrees with the author's conclusion. Basically, people speak in a more subjective matter (according to McWhorter) because language is just less formal than it used to be. Informal ways of speaking are more personal. This seems to be McWhorter's main claim--yes, the language we use to convey our thoughts in English is becoming more subjective, but that's because people write and speak far more formally now.

However, he does acknowledge one aspect of the study's argument--this move toward a more subjective way of speaking has increased dramatically in the last 40 years.

More logos here: Here he uses a more recent example of a word that started with an objective meaning and moved to a more objective meaning. Basically, he seems to be building the case that the language does change but it doesn't mean that we're becoming less concerned with reason as a result.

Here McWhorter uses logos (in the form of a historical example) of reasons that language (appears) to become more subjective over time. He uses a specific reference to an older poem when the word rather meant something different than it does today.

Here. McWhorter indicates that he disagrees with the authors conclusion. He basically sees it differently from the authors of the study. Basically, he doesn't see the shift to more subjective language as being an indicator of something terrible or even very bad about society. We can see that in the language he uses.

Here, McWhorter explains why this study and its findings should be important to the reader--that these findings could indicate something important about the general despair society is feeling

Here McWhorter provides more information about the reasoning used by the authors of the study to support their position. He's also kind of framing the topic: subjective (using MY intuition) vs collective/objective (using reason and evidence)

More ethos here--the author shows he is familiar with the ideas of other people who have spoken on the topic of language and thinking. That should indicate to the reader that this is a topic he is familiar with and therefore can talk about knowledgeably

By providing us with how the authors of the study came to their conclusion, it shows us that McWhorter took the time to understand the author's reasoning and their argument. This is a good way to appeal to ethos in it illustrates his understanding of the issue. It also allows him to talk about whether he agrees with the methods, which he might do later in the article.

This paragraph shows how the authors of the study under discussion came to their conclusions--basically, they analyzed the words authors used in their arguments to determine if their arguments/thoughts/positions were based on reason or intuition

Thinking through the context: McWhorter is kind of hard to categorize in terms of political ideology. He claims he's a liberal, but is pretty comfortable criticizing leftist thinking that he disagrees with, and that's largely what he seems to be doing in this essay.

I agree that the conclusion the authors come to in the study McWhorter discusses is probably flawed--it's just a huge generalization (there are probably many reasons language and the ways we use it might change) and unless there's more to the study than JM is letting on, simply noting that there has been a change does not mean we can draw conclusions about what is at the root of the change. That seems more like an anthropological investigation.

Also, I would say there are contextual things to consider when determining why so much language is self-focused; the last forty years has seen a fairly large technological shift which gave many more people the tools to speak for themselves, and social media may have exacerbated this. That this wasn't considered (either by McWhorter or the authors of the study) seems a pretty big over sight.

He is an expert in linguistics, so he is credible on the topic.

McWhorter seems to indicate here that we still speak in a way that considers others and their thoughts--he uses one take on the word "like" as evidence

Here, he basically sums up his position on why language is more self-focused than it used to be--it's just how we talk, it's not how we think

Here he quotes their overall conclusion--people are moving away from reason because the economic system that has been built by reason is not working for many people. He also puts the authors' findings in their own words (uses a direct quote).