Metaphorical Critique
Social Movement Critique
Fantasy-Theme Critique

• From Greek:
– meta -“over”
– phereras -- “to carry”
• To
aspects of one thing
to another thing.
• A metaphor joins two symbols normally regarded as belonging to different classes of experience.

•
•
•
•
the topic or subject being explained
the mechanism or lens through which the topic is viewed.
– A new crop of students entered the classroom.
– The teacher planted ideas in their fertile, young minds.
– education, teaching and learning
– farming
I. A. Richards
Philosopher
Language and Literary Theory
(18931979)

• “the transference of a name from the object to which it has a natural application”
(Aristotle)
• Metaphor as a figure of speech
• Decoration or Ornament:
“gives cleverness, charm and distinction to the style”
• “there is no mode of embellishment . . . that throws a greater luster upon language”
(Cicero)
• Metaphors are not necessary, just nice

• Thomas Hobbes
(1588-1679) saw metaphor as frustrating the process of communication.
– One of his four abuses of speech used to
“deceive others.”
• Archbishop of Dublin, Richard Whately
(1787-1863 ) said metaphor departs “from the plain and strictly appropriate Style.”

Michael
Osborn
University of
Memphis biography
Robert L. Ivie
Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture
Department of Communication and Culture
Indiana University, Bloomington.
WEBSITE
George Lakoff professor of linguistics
University of California, Berkeley
Senior Fellow at the Rockridge Institute
WEBSITE
Mark L. Johnson
Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Department of Philosophy
University of Oregon
WEBSITE

• We experience reality through language
• Metaphor is a basic way we construct reality as we trade symbols
– Argument is War
• “He attacked my argument”
• “I demolished her argument”
• “She won the argument”
• “I shot his argument down”
– Argumentation is a Dance
• “Our balanced arguments revealed the truth”

• Burke Metaphor plays a crucial role in the discovery and description of truth.
– “metaphor tells us something about one character as considered from the point-of-view of another character”
• Lakoff & Johnson – Metaphor is instrumental and persuasive in everyday thought.
• Ivie & Osborn – Developed metaphor into a structured method of critique.

• All language has metaphorical aspects
• Select artifacts that contain explicit metaphors
• Symbolism
• Art
Metaphor by Rachael A. Riley

1. Examine artifact for a general sense of its dimensions and context.
– Spend time; get the big picture; know the context
2. Isolate the metaphors in the artifact.
– Explicit and implied metaphors
3. Sort metaphors into groups according to vehicle and tenor.
– Look for patterns; focus; themes. What are the vehicles?
How do they relate?
4. Discover an explanation for the artifact.
– Use the principles of frequency and intensity to discover significance.

Moving Beyond Individuals & Events to History and Groups

• The Rhetoric created by members of social movements
• Analyze multiplicity through space and time
• Leland Griffin (1952)
– The rhetoric moves through phases:
• “Inception,” “development,” & “consummation”
– Two forms:
• “Pro” movements to create a world view or institution.
• “Anti” movements to arouse people to destroy and reject an idea or establishment.

Provides insight into the shared worldview of groups

University of Minnesota
Currently Professor Emeritus
Department of
Speech-Communication
College of Liberal Arts.
Fantasy Theme Analysis is based in
Symbolic Conversion Theory

• The central formula of the Symbolic Conversion
Theory is a process discovered in the study of small group meetings. The discovery occurred as the result of a member making an imaginative comment which suddenly sparked more excited comments, often laughter, and a complete change of the tension and climate in the group. This process resulted in an increase in group cohesion. This process became known as the dynamic sharing of a group

• Individuals’ meanings for symbols converge to create a shared reality, a community consciousness.
• Consensus and agreement occurs on subjective meanings.
• Community is created to share common experience and build mutual understanding.
• They jointly experience the same emotions.
• They begin to interpret their shared experiences in the same way.

• Propaganda campaigns
• Advertising campaigns
• Social, political and religious groups and movements
• Secret societies
• Cultures and sub-cultures
• Cults

• The Fantasy Theme
– “fantasy” is not used here in the popular sense.
– Rather it is “the creative and imaginative interpretation of events.”
– Fantasy themes are words, phrases, and statements that
• interpret the past,
• envision the future,
• Or depict current events that are removed in time and space from the group.

• Characters, actions, and settings removed in space and time from the group.
• Fantasy Themes are dramatic, artistic and organized.
• Fantasy Themes make sense out of chaotic events.
• Shared Fantasies provide good reasons for arguments.

• The themes are the elements of drama:
– Setting themes
• Statements that depict where and describe where the action takes place.
– Character themes
• Describe the actors and agents of the drama and their characteristics.
– Action themes
• Called plotlines that deal with the actions in the drama.
• The motives of a group lie in the Rhetorical Vision created by the Fantasy Themes.

• A “unified putting together of the various shared fantasies.”
• The settings, characters, and actions work together to form a symbolic drama, a coherent interpretation of reality.
• People who share a rhetorical vision constitute a
Rhetorical Community .
– They will cheer and emulate their heroes
– They will react with antipathy and despise their villians.
– They will agree on what is evidence, how to build a case and refute arguments.
– The substance of the vision propels the individuals and their community

• Evidence that Symbolic Convergence has occurred.
• That people have shared fantasy themes and a rhetorical vision.
• An advertisement, song, book, or film may show evidence of symbolic convergence.
• Political speeches, comedy monologues, religious sermons can be fantasy themes that divulge rhetorical visions.

• Code the artifact for fantasy themes:
– Sentence-by-sentence, image-by-image identify setting, character and action.
• Look for patterns
• Construct a rhetorical vision from the patterns that appear.
– There may be more than one.
– Together the visions may reveal additional patterns of a larger vision or reality.
• The construction of a world view.

• Presentation content adapted from:
Sonja Foss Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice,
3rd Ed. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, Illinois: 2004
• Artwork by:
Rachael A. Riley, Metaphor , Elwood Gallery, http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/art/r/a/rachaelar/rachaelar.html