Appunti completi Inglese

THEY SHALL RUN AND NOT BE WEARY,

THEY SHALL WALK AND NOT FAINT (Isahia)

WHETHER YOU ARE CITIZENS OF THE AMERICA

OR CITIZENS OF THE WORLD (Kennedy)

5.2 The three part list ( or tricolon)

Like the colon, the tricolon employs parallelism. As the name implies, it

constits of the three parallel items. The simplest kind of three-part list or

tricolon is the repetition of three words or phrases.

MAGGIE MAGGIE MAGGIE, OUT OUT OUT (against M. Thatcher)

… 3 PRIORITIES: EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION (Blair)

AMERICAN CARS WILL TRAVEL THE ROADS, AMERICAN PLANES WILL

SOAR IN THE SKIES, AND AMERICAN SHIPS WILL PATROL THE SEAS

(Trump)

But most tricolons consist of a set of three phrases, each of which has a

similar lexical and syntactic structure but accommodating a degree of

variation, as in the following promise btìy the Us presidential candidate

Trump to bring industry back to America:

Americans cars will travel the roads, American planes will soar in the

skies, and American ships will patrol the seas.

An implicit argument is made that statistics are deliberately misleading,

and are thus evaluated as bad. Professional statistician might not agree.

To surprise: THERE ARE LIES, DAMN LIES AND STATISTICS (M. Twain)

§ Metric pattern of CRESCENDO: FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN

§ (Shakespeare)

5.2.1 Beyond three ( policons )

Sometime one finds longer parallel structures, a kind of elegant variation

of tricolon.

Ex.:

FIRST THEY IGNORE YOU, THEN THEY LAUGH AT YOU, THEN THEY FIGHT

YOU. THEN YOU WIN (Gandhi)

POLITICS IS THE ART OF LOOKING FOR TROUBLE, FINDING IT

EVERYWHERE, DIAGNOSING IT WRONGLY, AND APPLYING UNSUITABLE

REMEDIES. (Sir E. Benn)

5.3 The contrasting pair or antithesis

These are a strcture containing two parts which are parallel in structure

but at the same time somehow opposed in meaning.

The main examples are:

ONE SMALL STEP FOR A MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND (N. Armstrong)

SO THEY GO ON IN STRANGE PARADOX, DECIDED ONLY TO BE UNDECIDED,

RESOLVED TO BE

IRRESOLUTE, ADAMANT FOR DRIFT, SOLID FOR FLUIDITY, ALL-POWERFUL TO BE

IMPOTENT (Churchill)

Trump’s 2017 inauguration speech, elite against “you, the people”

Us/them contrast, Blair : we…..the Tories…..

5.3.1 Chiasmus

The last structure we will look at here is the oxymoron, where two

apparently contradictory elements are combined in a single word, phrase or

epigram. Not how very often, the opposition between the elements is

evaluative.

BITTERSWEET MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

DEAFENING SILENCE RED FASCIST

NOBLE SAVAGE OPEN MARRIAGE

BEING CRUEL TO BE KIND HUMBLE BARRISTER

RADICAL CONSERVATIVE EXTREME MODERATE

The term “oxymoron” is often used to make an argument by negative

evaluating some entity, by suggesting that two components are

incompatible.

THE UNITED KINGDOM IS AN OXYMORON (The New Yorker)

TO SOME THE RADICAL CENTRE MAY SEEM TO BE JUST AN OXYMORON

(Guardian)

THERE MAY BE PEOPLE EVEN IN THIS HOUSE WHO ARE SO CYNICAL TO

SUGGEST THAT BUSINESS

ETHICS IS AN OXYMORON (Borrie, House of Lords)

5.6 The Declaration of Indipendence

Also in unit 2

The declaration is drafted ny Thomas Jefferson, later to be acknowledged as

one of the Founding Fathers of the nation, and subsequently revised by a

drafting committee set up by Congress and ratifies by the same in 1776.

Although Jefferson says he wrote the document using “ neither book nor

pamphlet” it is not entirely original and in particular contains traces of Bill of

rights, composed in England in 1689, which lays out the rights of subjects.

The actual Declaration comes only in the very last paragraph, the previous

twenty-two -some constating of a single sentence- are a long justification for

the act of rebellion. The British government felt the “rebels” wre disloyal,

opportunist and ungrateful, since the British had recently ( 1755-1760 )

fought a bloody and constly war in North America against the French te

defend the colionist. The authors of this document resented the lack of

consultation and outside interference in their affairs. The war itself was

partly one of liberation, partly a civil war, with American colonists fighting on

both sides. This explains why the overall tone of the document is both

accusotary- of the Nikg pf Great Britain- and defensive, a justification of

secssion. When the war was over, however, The Revolution and the

Declaration were soon seen by many Americans as part of the “manifest

destiny” of the moral and material supremacy of the nation.

5.7 the rhetoric of anti-rethoric: “This fourth of July is yours, not mine”

— Frank Douglass, African-American slave escaped from Maryland

1852, Fourth of July celebration

— Contrasting pairs: “The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has

— brought stripes and death to me”, “would you argue more and denounce

less, would you persuade more and rebuke less”

Ethos : “what are my credentials? As long as there are black slaves as a

— black man I have no cause to speak”

Logos and Anti-Logos : “Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that

— a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic…”

“where all is plain there is nothing to be argued”

Pathos: “…beat them with sticks, flay their flesh with the lash…”

—

Irony, sarcasm on the contradictions of the Declaration of Indipendence

Chapter 7:

Metaphors and company: the subtle persuaders

Many persuasive discourse often contains a large number of figures of

speech, because arguments are often made by analogy or comparison. In

this chapter we will focus on metaphor, simile and metonymy.

7.1 Metaphors

According to Yerkes (1989) metaphor is a figure of speech in which a

name or a quality is attributed to something to which it is not literally

applicable. Ex. NERVES OF STEEL, AN ICY GLANCE

Very frequently metaphors involve “understanding and experiencing” –

and communicating-

something abstract in terms of something more concrete. Metaphors is a basic

part of the way we both see the world and explain it to others.

It is a kind of play on words, but they often include «understanding and

experiencing one kind of things in terms of another» (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).

When we say “I have invested a lot of time on it” or “it’s a waste of time” we

compare time to money, so time is regarded as a commodity, this is why we

say that “time is money”.

Metaphors can be literal, half-metaphorical and metaphorical. Recently a

common metaphor has become WAR ON TERROR.The phrase WAR ON

collocates with these words: TERROR, TERRORISM, CANCER, DRUGS, POVERTY,

AL QAEDA, THE ISLAMIC STATE, OBESITY and so on.

WAR ON TERROR can be both literal and metaphorical depending on the

context. WAR ON TERROR

President of the United States George W. Bush first used the term "war on

terrorism" on 16 September 2001, and then "war on terror" a few days later in

a formal speech to Congress.

Since then, the Bush administration and the Western media have used

the term to identify a global struggle of a military, political, legal and

ideological nature against both organizations classified as terrorists and some

states accused of supporting them or perceived as a threat to the security of

the United States and its allies. U.S. President Barack Obama: his

administration sought to avoid the use of the term since taking office. The

expression was abandoned by his administration, which preferred to refer to all

operations, including military ones, of counter-terrorism with expressions such

as overseas contingency operations and countering violent extremism.

An example of a metaphorical use of WAR ON are the expressions WAR ON

COAL, WAR ON CHRISTMAS, WAR ON WOMEN. As for the latter, in the US,

Conservative opponents to “planned parenthood” – that is a relatively open

access to contraception and abortion – have been accused by their opponents

of conducting a WAR ON WOMEN.

7.1.1 How metaphors work

Metaphors explains an evaluation on, which is why they are so useful

in persuasive argument. There is a target, a source, the basis of

resemblance and often evaluation. In Richard the Lion-heart the target

is Richard, the source is the lion’s heart and the basis of resemblance

are the courage and strength, two qualities of the lion (one entity) that

are transferred to another entity (Richard). The evaluation is good.

See the examples of Sally is a block of ice and Putin the Grandmaster

on the book. The power of metaphor is that the grounds are implicit,

not openly stated, so that different people can interpret the same

metaphor in different ways. Sometimes, the supposed basis of

resemblance makes it difficult to challenge or deny the statement. A

metaphor is often defined as an opinion dressed up in fine clothing.

Read Q3

7.1.2 Metaphor and irony

In the expression CHANGE THE CLIMATE, the original metaphor

(POLITICAL CLIMATE) was reinterpreted to refer to the physical

climate, the air we breathe. The pun converts the metaphorical phrase

into its concrete equivalent. The journalist amuses his audience and

maybe wins their support, makes a sarcastic joke to the President’s

expense and makes a serious political point.

7.1.3 The dangers of metaphors: how metaphor nearly started

a war

In a conference held in Stockholm in 2012 about the conflict in Syria,

President Obama made a remark using the expression “to cross the

red line”.

This is a metaphor with a military connotation (to defy or violate the

furthest limit of what is tolerable, allowable, or forgivable) and the

implication was that military action would be taken against the

opponent if the metaphorical red line was crossed. When after some

time evidence of chemical weapons used by Assad was found, Obama

was supposed either to attack Syria or to lose face.

Secretary of State Kerry spoke to the Congress and tried to explain

what the President had meant by using that expression and that it was

misunderstood.

Pag.131

Sports and war

Adrian Beard states that sport and war are two predominant areas of

experience to obtain political metaphors. In sport we have THE

GLOVES ARE OFF (no gloves, unrestrained), TO PLAY BALL

(collaborate, co-operate) and in war we have BOMBARDED WITH

QUESTIONS, ELECTION BATTLE, TO MARSHAL THE TROOPS (to

organise people in an orderly way).

But when real war is discussed we often find euphemistic expressions:

COLLATERAL DAMAGE for ACCIDENTAL INJURY OR DEATH TO CIVILIANS

ETHNIC CLEANSING for GENOCIDE

ENHANCED INTERROGATION for TORTURE

7.2 Similies

In political discourse they are very common and have four general

attributes:

1. They expl