Greenberg (2002)

[杉森 典子]

Josh Greenberg’s “Framing and Temporality in Political
Cartoons
” (2002) was a stimulating paper. Greenberg hypothesized
that the following five rhetorical devices affect the
contents of political cartoons. The first four rhetorical
devices are formulated by Morris (1993). (For details,
please see p.187)

Condensation--compresses disconnected or complexly related
events to a common, singular frame.

Combination--constructs and organizes various elements or
ideas from different domains with numerous and perhaps
conflicting meanings.

Domestication--distant events remote from the everyday
experience(s) of the reader are translated into concrete
happenings that can be experienced as close and familiar.

Transference--absolves the cartoon’s actors of their
absurd actions or commentary by displacing blame to
another, normally non-visible, actor.


Greenberg examined whether or not these rhetorical devices
were used in two political cartoons in Canadian
newspapers. He found that at least two of the rhetorical
processes, transference and combination, were at work, but
not all of them. Greenberg is modest, recognizing the
limitation of his study.  Even so I was intrigued by this
result.

Do you like political cartoons?
Personally, I usually skip political cartoons when I read
newspapers in English probably because I feel these
cartoons are too difficult for a person like me, who is a
nonnative speaker of  English, to enjoy.  Although
Greenberg did not suggest such a thing, I think these five
rhetorical devices can be used to explain
miscommunications between native speakers and non-native
speakers. But all native speakers do not always receive
the cartoons the same way, either. The five devices will
be used to explain individual differences, too.

Have a nice weekend.

Best wishes,

Noriko Sugimori