Criticism of Language, Stories,

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Criticism of Language, Stories, Persuasion
Understanding Power and Culture

• John A. Cagle

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Condensation Symbols Ideographs Persuasion to
Culture
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Graber, Doris A. Verbal Behavior and Politics.
Urbana University of Illinois Press, 1976.

• Politics is by definition a social activity which
  involves interaction among people, through
  various forms of communication, to make and
  enforce rules for their social system. . . .
• Through description and analysis of verbal
  behavior studies pertaining to politics, the book
  seeks to show how and why knowledge of verbal
  behavior is important to an understanding of
  politics.
• This endeavor calls for
• a discussion of the function which verbal
  behavior performs in the conduct of politics,
• the manner in which those functions are performed
  under various circumstances, and
• the consequences of verbal behavior, including
  the inferences which may be drawn from it.

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Building Blocks of Political Language

• Referential Symbols. When referential symbols
  are used, the message carries its meaning in a
  given cultural setting through the culturally
  shared denotations of the words in their
  syntactical context.
• Instrumental Symbols. Besides carrying manifest
  meanings, these symbols are instrumental in
  evoking latent meaningsmeaning not readily
  apparent from the denotations of the words.
  Understanding of the latent meaning usually
  requires insight into the context in which the
  verbalization has occurred. An instrumental
  message may also carry attitudinal messages which
  are not apparent from the wording. Social
  relations may also be expressed instrumentally.
  Edward Sapir claimed that one of the really
  important functions of language is to be
  constantly declaring to society the psychological
  place held by all of its members.
• Connotational Symbols. These symbols carry a
  variety of specific cognitive, emotional, and
  evaluative meanings for different audiences and
  individuals. These meanings tend to vary not
  only from audience to audience, but also from
  time to time and place to place. The denotation
  is what the message means generally to audiences
  when symbols have a standardized empirical
  referent. The connotation is what the message
  means to a particular individual or group at a
  particular time when it is placed into the
  context of personal or group predispositions and
  experiences.

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Functions and Effects of Verbal Behavior

• Attention Arousal
• Establishing Political Linkages and Definitions
• Creation of Reality Sleeves The political
  linkages thus far create particular perceptions
  of reality by linking a new event to a familiar
  cause, concept, or analogy, creating new
  perceptual realities for receivers who accept the
  linkages, which in turn become prisms through
  which future information is filtered and shaped.
  Some of these become reality sleevesconceptual
  straightjackets which tightly enclose the minds
  of individuals and groups and prevent them from
  accepting conflicting perceptions.
• Effects of Verbal Commitment In the process of
  creating reality sleeves for others, political
  leaders often create a map of the territory of
  experience and commit themselves to its accuracy
  and to the political course they have charted.
  Commitments often remain binding even if the map
  is later found to be inaccurate.
• Creation of Policy-Relevant Moods
• The Use of Words to Stimulate Action
• The Use of Words as Action
• The Use of Words as Symbolic Rewards

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Condensation Symbols in Politics

• A condensation symbol is a name, word, phrase, or
  maxim which stirs vivid impressions involving the
  listeners basic values. The symbol arouses and
  readies him for mental or physical action.
• Verbal condensation symbols are the most potent,
  versatile, and effective tools available to
  politicians for swaying mass publics. Politics
  abounds in such symbols.
• Democracy, social progress, self-determination,
  socialism, communism, capitalism, imperialism,
  colonialism, exploitation, repressions, racism,
  freedom fightersthe list is ever-changing,
  endless.
• When mass audiences respond strongly and
  uniformly to the appeals of such symbols, the
  symbols become Pavlovian cues the audience
  reacts automatically to the cue, rather than to
  the facts of the situation.

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McGee, Michael Calvin. The Ideograph A Link
between Rhetoric and Ideology. Quarterly
Journal of Speech 66 (1980) 1-16.

• If a mass conscious exists at all, it must be
  empirically present, itself a thing obvious to
  those who participate in it, or, at least,
  empirically manifested in the language which
  communicates it.
• Since the clearest access to persuasion (and
  hence to ideology) is through the discourse used
  to produce it, I will suggest that ideology in
  practice is a political language, preserved in
  rhetorical documents, with the capacity to
  dictate decision and control public belief and
  behavior.
• Further, the political language which manifests
  ideology seems characterized by slogans, a
  vocabulary of ideographs, easily mistaken for the
  technical terminology of political philosophy.
• An analysis of ideographic usages in political
  rhetoric, I believe, reveals the interpenetrating
  systems or structures of public motives. Such
  structures appear to be diachronic and
  synchronic patterns of political consciousness
  which have the capacity both to control power
  and to influence (if not determine) the shape and
  texture of each individuals reality.

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Stories and Culture
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Assumptions of Narrative Analysis

• Humans make sense of their world by the stories
  they tell about it
• Beliefs and behaviors are based on good reasons
• Narrative is a persuasive and vital form of
  interpretive discourse
• Stories are symbolic actions that create social
  reality

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Nature of Stories

• Stories are linked to experience
• Stories are linked to values
• Narratives are based on experience, is a product
  of the memory, has a sense of chronology, is
  coherent, defines a central subject, and has
  closure.

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Chararacteristics of Narrative

• Theme
• Plot
• Structure
• Characters
• Narrator
• Setting
• Time and Causality

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Criticism of Narratives

• Mythic
• Narrative paradigm
• Dramatistic
• Fantasy theme analysis
• Fictitious
• Archetypal
• ETC.

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Dramatism Kenneth Burke

• The range of rhetoric is wide.
• All life is drama.
• Drama features human motives.
• Hierarchy is fundamental to human symbolism.
• Rhetoric promises transcendence.

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Rhetorical Analysis of Narrative

• Kenneth Burkes Pentad act, scene, agent,
  agency, and purpose
• Pentadic ratios can be used to define the central
  relationship of any story
• scene-act,
• scene-agency,
• scene-purpose,
• act-purpose,
• act-agent,

• act-agency,
• agent-purpose,
• agent-agency, and
• agency-purpose.

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Burkean Critical Probes

• Can principles of hierarchy be found in
  discourse?
• What is rhetors vocabulary of motives?
• Who or what is being scapegoated?
• Are strategies of transcendence in evidence?

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Myththe Substance of CultureFerdinand de
Saussure

• Myths are master stories that describe
  exceptional people doing exceptional things and
  that serve as moral guides to proper action.

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Types of Myth

• Cosmological myths why we are here.
• Societal myths the proper way to live.
• Identity myths what makes one cultural grouping
  different from another.
• Eschatological myths quo vadis?

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Why use myth?

• Heightened sense of authority
• Sense of continuity
• Sense of coherence
• Sense of community
• Sense of choice
• Sense of agreement

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Structuralism Claude Levi-Strauss

• Myths worldwide are similar at the structural
  level although content is different
• Critic should track the source of the myth
• Effectiveness is tied to how mythic elements are
  combined
• Task is to discover the unique harmony (of
  emotions, images, ideas, etc.) myth provides

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Fantasy themes Ernest Bormann

• Fantasy themes are mythic shorthand
• Purpose is to dramatize ideas for listeners

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Fantasy Themes Critical Probes

• What are people like?
• What are possibilities for group action?
• On what people can you most depend?
• What is mankinds purpose on earth?
• What are measures of right and wrong?
• How can success be measured?
• What information is most valuable?

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Ideology Criticism
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What is Ideology?

• A system of shared meanings that represents the
  world for us.
• A network of interconnected convictions the
  influence how people see the world, truth and
  reality.
• Politics, science, morality, and religion are
  forms of ideology.

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What does Ideology do?

• Shapes peoples identity by determining how they
  see the world.
• Functions to determine a communitys set of
  beliefs.
• Constrains the emergence of political expression.
• Expresses and defends the interests of the
  powerful.

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Rhetoric and Ideological Criticism

• Rhetoricians seek to
• Understand the integration of power and knowledge
  in society.
• Identify the rhetorical strategies that maintain
  power differences or create unification.
• The study of symbols is often central to this
  work
• Consider what interventionist strategies might be
  appropriate to effect social change.