🚀 go-pugleaf

Just to add a brief note to Russ Hunt's point that tropes cannot help
but be rhetorical since they are a deliberate departure from the
"local norm of the text."  This is the very point that Group Mu make
in *The General Rhetoric*.  They claim that there is a "degree zero"
for what is recognized as the linguistic norm for a given discourse
community.  They are careful to point out that this degree zero is
not frozen or universal: it is specific to a particular context.
What would be a trope or deviation for one community would not
necessarily be a trope for another.  How then does metaphor differ
from definition?  How is "My love is a rose" different from "My love
is a woman"?  Grammatically they are the same.  Each
places an object within a class.  The difference rhetorically is that
according to what is recognized as a linguistic norm, the love
interest of a human is not *really* a rose, so we look for a
figurative or tropical meaning.





Gary Hatch
Brigham Young University
English Department
3146 JKHB
Provo, UT  84602        (801) 378-2402
gary_hatch@byu.edu