Language functions, McLuhan and Burke Created by Brett Oppegaard for Washington State University Vancouver's CMDC 375 class, spring 2011

Language functions, McLuhan and Burke

Created by Brett Oppegaardfor Washington State University

Vancouver's CMDC 375 class, spring 2011

How do we use language?

• To communicate ideas, exchange facts

and opinions … yes, and how else?

Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language


• Emotional expression


Oops! Ow! Darn it!


• Social interaction


Good morning, lovely dayPleased to meet youBless you! … Thank you!


• As rhythmic sound


Shirley Oneple, Shirley Twople … Shirley TenpleI like coffee, I like tea …


• As graphical representations

Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language / Howdesign.com / tkhere.blogspot.com


• To try to control reality


‘I baptize you …’I name this ship ‘Titanic’


• Recording the facts


Genealogy CensusLaw casesImpossible to predict how it will be used in the future (when it’s ‘communicated’)


• Instrument of thought


32 plus 19 equals 51 So if I put this nail here …Rough draft, gets thoughts flowing


• Expression of identity


Go Cougs!Four more years!

McLuhan-Fiore reading• Our society's transition from 'the magic world

of the ear' to the 'neutral world of the eye' was caused primarily by what?

How did that change the ways in which we live for the better? For the worse?

Are we now, per McLuhan's “Global Village” concept, returning to Orality? How? Why?

McLuhan-Fiore reading• McLuhan argues (p. 26 of “The Medium is the

Massage,” not in course pack) that “all media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. … Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.”

• “Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible.”

Hidden ideologies in a map?“For to do its work, ideology depends on its dissimulative

(disguised) nature not being recognized. In this sense, advertising is not ideological. … What form is

quintessentially ideological in this sense?”

From: “Ideology and the Map” by Ben F. Barton and Marthalee S. Barton, “Professional Communication: The Social Perspective.”

Hidden ideologies in a map?"if we was going so fast we ought to be past Illinois, oughtn't we?"

"Certainly."

"Well, we ain't."

"What's the reason we ain't?"

"I know by the color. We're right over Illinois yet. And you can see for yourself that Indiana ain't in sight."

"I wonder what's the matter with you, Huck. You know by the color?" "Yes, of course I do."

"What's the color got to do with it?"

"It's got everything to do with it. Illinois is green, Indiana is pink. You show me any pink down here, if you can. No, sir; it's green."

"Indiana pink? Why, what a lie!"

"it ain't no lie; I've seen it on the map, and it's pink."

(Mark Twain, 1924, “Tom Sawyer Abroad,” p. 23)

Hidden ideologies in a map?

Maps courtesy of: Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan

Electoral College by county (2008)

Electoral College by state (2008)

Defining the terms

What is a map?What is a map?

'A representation, usually on a plane surface, of all or part of the earth or some other body

showing a group of features in terms of their relative size and position.'- cartographer Norman Thrower

Defining the terms

What is a map?What is a map?

'Maps have the character of being textual in that they have words associated with them, that they employ a system of symbols within

their own syntax, that they function as a form of writing (inscription), and that they are

discursively embedded within broader contexts of social action and power.'

- geographer John Pickles

Hidden ideologies in a map?A parable about a renowned empire's College of Cartographers:

“In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space

of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were

found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the

Empire and that coincided with it point for point.”

(J.L. Borges, “A Universal History of Infamy, p. 141)

Hidden ideologies in a map?

Maps courtesy of: Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan

By shades of support (2008)By state population (2008)

Kenneth Burke's definition of man

• Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal

• Inventor of the negative• Separated from his natural condition by

instruments of his own making• Goaded by the spirit of hierarchy• And rotten with perfection.

Kenneth Burke's terms

• Condensation• Substitution

Translations: Ambiguities1. Linguistic: Words or syntax may be rendered in several ways.2. Attributive: An image or figure may lie halfway between two ideas in such a way that the qualities of the image or figure and / or the attitudes toward them is obscured.3. Contradictory: Words or ideas may contradict one another in the work.4. Moral: Words or ideas in which the attitude (of the author or the audience toward the notion the word represents) cannot be determined.5. Situational: Actions of a character or events in the work occur in such a way that they lead to differing interpretations.6. Generative: Origin of a work is unknown; therefore, a lack of understanding exists concerning the customs, conduct, and attitudes of characters in the text and / or the audience for which the work was first intended.

From: The Craft of Translation. Ed. John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989, with summary courtesy of: Dr. Dene Grigar, WSU Vancouver.

Documents

Language functions, McLuhan and Burke Created by Brett Oppegaard for Washington State University Vancouver's CMDC 375 class, spring 2011