Group items tagged

the manner in which a statement is expressed may be more important

a rhetorical figure occurs when an expression deviates from expectation

With respect to metaphor, for instance, listeners are aware of conventions with respect to the use of words, one of which might be formulated as, words are generally used to convey one of the lead meanings given in their dictionary entry. A metaphor violates that convention, as in this headline for Johnson & Johnson bandaids, "Say hello to your child's new bodyguards," accompanied by a picture of bandaids emblazoned with cartoon characters (from Table 2)

listeners know exactly what to do when a speaker violates a convention: they search for a context that will render the violation intelligible. If context permits an inference that the bandaid is particularly strong, or that the world inhabited by children is particularly threatening, then the consumer will achieve an understanding of the advertiser's statement.

every figure represents a gap. The figure both points to a translation (the impossibility in this context of translating "Say hello to your child's new petunias" is the key to its incomprehensibility), and denies the adequacy of that translation, thus encouraging further interpretation.

metaphors that have become frozen or conventional: e.g., the sports car that "hugs" the road.

an important function of rhetorical figures is to motivate the potential reader.

Berlyne (1971) found incongruity

(deviation) to be among those factors that call to and arrest attention.

"pleasure of the text"--the reward that comes from processing a clever arrangement of signs.

Berlyne's (1971) argument, based on his research in experimental aesthetics, that incongruity (deviation) can produce a pleasurable degree of arousal.

Familiar examples of schematic figures would include rhyme and alliteration, while metaphors and puns would be familiar examples of tropic figures.

Schemes can be understood as deviant combinations, as in the headline, "Now Stouffers makes a real fast real mean Lean Cuisine."

This headline is excessively regular because of its repetition of sounds and words. It violates the convention that sounds are generally irrelevant to the sense of an utterance, i.e., the expectation held by receivers that the distribution of sounds through an utterance will be essentially unordered except by the grammatical and semantic constraints required to make a well-formed sentence. Soundplay can be used to build up meaning in a wide variety of ways (Ross 1989; van Peer 1986).

Many tropes, particularly metaphors and puns effected in a single word, can be understood as deviant selections. Thus, in the Jergens skin care headline (Table 2), "Science you can touch," there is a figurative metaphor, because "touch" does not belong to the set of verbs which can take as their object an abstract collective endeavor such as Science.

For example, a rhyme forges extra phonemic links among the headline elements.

"Performax protects to the max," the consumer has several encoding possibilities available, including the propositional content, the phonemic equivalence (Performax = max), and the syllable node (other words endin

Because they are over-coded, schemes add internal redundancy to advertising messages. Repetition within a text can be expected to enhance recall just as repetition of the entire text does.

The memorability of tropes rests on a different mechanism. Because they are under-coded, tropes are incomplete in the sense of lacking closure. Tropes thus invite elaboration by the reader. For example, consider the Ford ad with the headline "Make fun of the road" (Table 2). "Road" is unexpected as a selection from the set of things to mock or belittle. Via

This level of the framework distinguishes simple from complex schemes and tropes to yield four rhetorical operations--repetition, reversal, substitution, destabilization.

s artful deviation, irregularity, and complexity that explain the effects of a headline such as "Say hello to your child's new bodyguards," and not its assignment to the category 'metaphor.'

The rhetorical operation of repetition combines multiple instances of some element of the expression without changing the meaning of that element. In advertising we find repetition applied to sounds so as to create the figures of rhyme, chime, and alliteration or assonance (Table 2). Repetition applied to words creates the figures known as anaphora (beginning words), epistrophe (ending words), epanalepsis (beginning and ending) and anadiplosis (ending and beginning). Repetition applied to phrase structure yields the figure of parison, as in K Mart's tagline: "The price you want. The quality you need." A limiting condition is that repeated words not shift their meaning with each repetition (such a shift would create the trope known as antanaclasis, as shown further down in Table 2).

the possibility for a second kind of schematic figure, which would be produced via an operation that we have named reversal. Th

rhetorical operation of reversal combines within an expression elements that are mirror images of one another.

The rhetorical operation of destabilization selects an expression such that the initial context renders its meaning indeterminate. By "indeterminate" we mean that multiple co-existing meanings are made available, no one of which is the final word. Whereas in a trope of substitution, one says something other than what is meant, and relies on the recipient to make the necessary correction, in a trope of destabilization one means more than is said, and relies on the recipient to develop the implications. Tropes of substitution make a switch while tropes of destabilization unsettle.

Stern, Barbara B. (1988), "How Does an Ad Mean? Language in Services Advertising," Journal of Advertising, 17 (Summer), 3-14.

"Pleasure and Persuasion in Advertising: Rhetorical Irony as a Humor Technique," Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 12, 25-42.

Tanaka, Keiko (1992), "The Pun in Advertising: A Pragmatic Approach," Lingua, 87, 91-102.

"The Bridge from Text to Mind: Adapting Reader Response Theory to Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research,

Gibbs, Raymond W. (1993), "Process and Products in Making Sense of Tropes," in Metaphor and Thought, 2nd ed

Grice, Herbert P. (1989), Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Leigh, James H. (1994), "The Use of Figures of Speech in Print Ad Headlines," Journal of Advertising, 23(June), 17-34.

Mitchell, Andrew A. (1983), "Cognitive Processes Initiated by Exposure to Advertising," in Information Processing Research in Advertising, ed. Richard J. Harris, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 13-42.

On the other hand, Mr. Springall was working at Cornell when an applicant revealed that while waitressing she got angry at a customer and spit in his food before serving it. “Immediate red flag,” Mr. Springall recalled. “She makes poor choices.

reveal many of their values in the metaphors they use

area of the brain

second language development in Japan.

Broca’s area

native like quality exposure

six year period

how much exposure to a second language should a kindergarten-aged child receive in order to develop native like competency or at least reduce such barriers?

English as a second language in Japan

motivation to continue studying English throughout the secondary school years will be much higher

decline in learning abilities from puberty

critical period for second language learners

it is possible for adult learners to achieve native like performance

alternative to the critical-period hypothesis is that second-language learning becomes compromised with age

children growing up without normal linguistic and social interaction

20 months until age 13

inconceivable mental and physical disabilities

syntactic skills were extremely deficient

Genie used her right hemisphere for both language and non-language functions

particularly good at tasks involving the right hemisphere

46 Chinese and Korean natives living in America

three and seven years of age on arrival did equally as well as the control group of native English speakers. Those between eight and fifteen did less well

regardless of what language is used elevated activity occurs within the same part of Broca’s area

early bilingual subject

For monolingual parents living within their own monolingual society it is possible to raise a child bilingually

95% of people the left hemisphere of our brain is the dominant location of language

two specific areas that divide language by semantics (word meaning)

People with damage to Broca’s area are impaired in the use of grammar with a notable lack of verbs however are still able to understand language

actual development of our language centers begins well before birth

supports the notion of speaking to your child before birth

Japanese babies can detect the difference between the /l/ and /r/ sounds which proves most difficult for their parents

survival of the fittest

critical period of development is when there is an excess of synapses and the brain plasticity remains at a maximum

importance of experience during sensitive period of language development

age related factors may impair our ability in acquiring a second language

child’s parent’s own 2nd language ability