The campaigns that emerged in Wisconsin, as well as the metaphor Argument as Issue Campaigns, invites us to examine how arguments and campaigns are not static nodes, totalizing, or fixed structures, but are fluid, and interconnected webs. With a particular interest on the ads for how they perform argumentation, each ad and its rhetorical components were closely scrutinized for how they constructed their arguments, what went in to each argument, and what particular rhetorical practices were used. Also, since the metaphor Argument as Issue Campaign was a motivating force for this study, close attention is paid in the texts for how metaphor is used to construct and participate in argumentation. Metaphors shed light on dominant frames of information and arguments but also function within collections of texts to frame and shape messages and symbols in an effort to influence how we understand and talk about issues. Lakoff and Johnson state that, metaphors are “pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but in thought and action” (Lakoff & Johnson, p. 287).
Issue campaigns and their practices of argumentation highlight complexities within each as well as their combined metaphorical forms and functions. According to Richards (1936) the two central elements to metaphor are vehicle & tenor. “The tenor is the topic or subject that is being explained, [and] the vehicle is the mechanism or lens through which the topic is viewed” (Foss, 2009, p. 267). The purposes of this paper are to is to explore argument as the tenor and issue campaigns as the vehicle and its metaphorical construction(s) as an alternative way to explore argument and issue campaigning.
According to Black (1981) “the reader is forced to “connect” the two ideas. In this “connection” resides the secret and the mystery of metaphor” (p. 73) Exploring the connections and interactions of the metaphor Argument as Issue Campaigns allows for the exploration into the systems of argument and issue campaigns, as well as the implications from the metaphors application of issue campaigns to argument (Black, 1981). Additionally, change can be generated by metaphors because they play a key role in framing perceptions, as well as action and argumentation (Foss, 2009).
As such, this metaphor invites us to think of argument as not only a verbal speech act, but also as something nonverbal, and even visual. Argument could then be thought of outside of a binary construction of a claim for or against and issue, and could have more than two sides. It could be marked on bodies, it could be a body, it could be symbolic, metaphorical, a lie or misinformation, it could be a rhetorical act, a combination of texts and performances, a compilation of messages from different sources, and/or it could be without an explicit solvency or call to action. Although this list is not exhaustive, it is suggestive of the importance of thinking of arguments potentials, what it can do, instead of confining argument and frames of information to static, misleading, and limiting conceptions.
Black, M. (1981). Metaphor. In M Johnson (E.d.), Philosophical perspectives on metaphor (pp.
63-81). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Foss, S. K. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1981). Conceptual metaphor in everyday language. In M Johnson
(Eds.), Philosophical perspectives on metaphor (pp. 286-325). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Richards, I. A. (1936). The Philosophy of Rhetoric. NY: Oxford University Press.
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