An ideograph or virtue word is a word frequently used in political discourse that uses an abstract concept to develop support for political positions. Such words are usually terms that do not have a clear definition but are used to give the impression of a clear meaning. An ideograph in rhetoric often exists as a building block or simply one term or short phrase that summarizes the orientation or attitude of an ideology. Such examples notably include <

liberty Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional ...

>, <

freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

>, <

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

> and <

rights Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...

>. Rhetorical critics use chevrons or angle brackets (<>) to mark off ideographs. The term ideograph was coined by rhetorical scholar and critic Michael Calvin McGee (1980) describing the use of particular words and phrases as political language in a way that captures (as well as creates or reinforces) particular ideological positions. McGee sees the ideograph as a way of understanding of how specific, concrete instances of political discourse relate to the more abstract idea of political ideology. Robertson defines ideographs as "political slogans or labels that encapsulate ideology in political discourse." Meanwhile,

Celeste Condit Celeste Michelle Condit (born October 26, 1956) is an American professor and scholar of rhetorical criticism. Her work focuses on the rhetoric of racism, biology, the human genome, and feminism. In 2018, the Public Address Conference described Con ...

and

John Lucaites John Louis Lucaites (born 1952) is an American academic. He is a provost professor emeritus of rhetoric and public culture at Indiana University. In 2012, Lucaites was appointed as associate dean for arts and humanities and undergraduate education ...

, influenced by McGee, explain, "Ideographs represent in condensed form the normative, collective commitments of the members of a public, and they typically appear in public argumentation as the necessary motivations or justifications for action performed in the name of the public." Ideographs are common in

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...

and political discourse.

Definition

McGee uses the term in his seminal article "The 'Ideograph': A Link Between Rhetoric and Ideology" which appeared in the ''

Quarterly Journal of Speech The ''Quarterly Journal of Speech'' ''(QJS)'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academ ...

'' in 1980.McGee, M.C. (1980). The "ideograph": A link between rhetoric and ideology. ''Quarterly Journal of Speech, 66'', 1-16. He begins his essay by defining the practice of

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

as practice of political language in specific contexts—actual discursive acts by individual speakers and writers. The question this raises is how does this practice of

create social control. McGee's answer to this is to say that "political language which manifests ideology seems characterized by slogans, a vocabulary of 'ideographs' easily mistaken for the technical terminology of

political philosophy Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and Political legitimacy, legitimacy of political institutions, such as State (polity), states. This field investigates different ...

." He goes on to offer his definition of "ideograph": "an ideograph is an ordinary-language term found in political discourse. It is a high order abstraction representing commitment to a particular but equivocal and ill-defined normative goal." An ideograph, then, is not just any particular word or phrase used in political discourse, but one of a particular subset of terms that are often invoked in political discourse but which does not have a clear, univocal definition. Despite this, in their use, ideographs are often invoked precisely to give the sense of a clearly understood and shared meaning. This potency makes them the primary tools for shaping public decisions. It is in this role as the

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

for public values and decision-making that they are linked to ideology.

Examples

There is no absolute litmus test for what terms are or are not ideographs. Rather, this is a judgment that must be made through the study of specific examples of discourse. However, McGee (and others who have followed him) have identified several examples of ideographs or virtue words in Western liberal political discourse, such as <

>, <

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

>, <

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...

>, <

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

>, and <

equality Equality generally refers to the fact of being equal, of having the same value. In specific contexts, equality may refer to: Society * Egalitarianism, a trend of thought that favors equality for all people ** Political egalitarianism, in which ...

>. In each case, the term does not have a specific

referent A referent ( ) is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence ''Mary saw me'', the referent of the word ''Mary'' is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken o ...

. Rather, each term refers to an

abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...

which may have many different meanings depending on its

context In semiotics, linguistics, sociology and anthropology, context refers to those objects or entities which surround a ''focal event'', in these disciplines typically a communicative event, of some kind. Context is "a frame that surrounds the event ...

. It is in their mutability between circumstances that give the terms such rhetorical power. If the definition of a term such as <

> can be stretched to include a particular act or condition, then public support for that act or condition is likely to be stronger than it was previously. By encapsulating values which are perceived to be widely shared by the community, but which are in fact highly abstract and defined in very different ways by individuals, ideographs provide a potent persuasive tool for the political speaker. McGee offers the example of

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

's attempt to defend his decision not to turn over documents to Congress during the

Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the Presidency of Richard Nixon, administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Resignation of Richard Nixon, Nix ...

by invoking "the principle of

confidentiality Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise sometimes executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access to or places restrictions on the distribution of certain types of information. Legal confidentiality By law, la ...

." Recognizing that his refusal to submit to Congress could be seen as a violation of the "

rule of law The essence of the rule of law is that all people and institutions within a Body politic, political body are subject to the same laws. This concept is sometimes stated simply as "no one is above the law" or "all are equal before the law". Acco ...

", Nixon pitted "the principle of

" against the "

," despite the fact that these two ideographs would, in the abstract, not likely be seen as in conflict with one another. Nixon, in an attempt to expand the understanding of "the principle of confidentiality" to cover his own specific refusal to cooperate with Congress, used the abstractness of the term to his benefit, claiming that right to confidentiality was the more central term. While the term has remained mostly in this sphere of academic

rhetorical criticism Rhetorical criticism analyzes the symbolic artifacts of discourse—the words, phrases, images, gestures, performances, texts, films, etc. that people use to communicate. Rhetorical analysis shows how the artifacts work, how well they work, and ho ...

, some

political consultants Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely televisi ...

and practitioners are becoming savvy to this art. Ideographs appear in

and

political campaigns A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referen ...

regularly, and are crucial to helping the public understand what is really being asked of them. For example, "equality" is a term commonly used in political discourse and rarely defined. It can refer to a situation in which all people have the same opportunities, or a condition in which social resources are distributed uniformly to different individuals and groups. The former is the more commonly used definition in US history, according to Condit & Lucaites, although in a socialist or left-leaning political state, the term may refer foremost to the distribution of social resources. Condit and Lucaites depict the racial facet of equality as the dominant meaning in an American context of political discourse, since 1865. Another important ideograph used specifically by U.S. presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks is <

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

>. The term does not have a clear or specific definition, but when applied to the context in the fear-stricken country after the devastating attacks in 2001, this term held significant weight and meaning to Americans all across the country. Kelly Long explores Obama's discourse on the < War on Terror> and states that "by developing an ideological justification for the conflicts that the United States was involved in at the time, Obama remedied much of the damage done by the Bush administration". Obama justified the < War on Terror> by addressing the nation and saying that in order to protect the and , we must fight against <

>. Obama used this term to his advantage and made appear to be a common enemy and fighting back was the common cause. This use of the ideograph unified the country creating a sense of identity for American citizens, "defining what the nation stands for and against. The term divides those who are civilized from those who are uncivilized, those who defend economic freedom from those who would attack America’s way of life and those who support democracy from those who would disrupt it". Marouf Hasian discusses how key ideographs representative of a society's commitments change over time, particularly in the name of , , or <

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

> epitomized in

eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...

. From the 1900s-1930s, Americans justified the restriction of reproductive rights based on medical, social, economic, and political considerations, but were appalled when the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

used some of the same arguments in their creation of the "perfect race". While rhetorical critics identify these terms as ideographs, political leaders viewed each other's terms as "

glittering generalities In rhetoric, a glittering generality or glowing generality is an emotionally appealing phrase so closely associated with highly-valued concepts and beliefs that it carries conviction without supporting information or reason. Such highly valued co ...

," as Lincoln first identified his opponent's words. In addition to practitioners, corporate marketing and

political consulting Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely televis ...

use key terms in this way, concentrating on the

image An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be di ...

and

branding Branding may refer to: Physical markings * Making a mark, typically by charring: ** Wood branding, permanently marking, by way of heat, typically of wood (also applied to plastic, cork, leather, etc.) ** Livestock branding, the marking of animals ...

of terms. For example,

Frank Luntz Frank Ian Luntz (born February 23, 1962) is an American political and communications consultant and pollster, best known for developing talking points and other messaging for Republican causes. His work has included assistance with messaging ...

tests audience reaction to certain words or phrases using dial technology, a mechanism which instantaneously shows moment by moment reactions to speeches or presentations. This research has been extremely beneficial to his clients, as they can use ideographs as "trigger words" in an

advertising campaign An advertising campaign or marketing campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ide ...

Importance

There are three primary ways in which the concept of the ideograph is important to rhetorical critics. First, it suggests a way of studying political ideology using concrete instances of language use. By showing how looking at specific uses of key words and phrases in political language reveal underlying ideological commitments, McGee offers a concrete method for understanding the highly abstract concept of ideology. Second, the definition of the ideograph makes clear that the rhetorical study of a term is different from a legal, historical, or etymological study of a term. Unlike other perspectives that focus on how a term has changed over time, a rhetorical study of a term focuses on the forces involved in the creation of these meanings. In short, a rhetorical study of a term is the study of the use of that term in practice. This leads to a third key aspect of what the concept of the ideograph offers to rhetorical critics. McGee notes that the study of a term must not, and should not, be limited to its use in "formal discourse." Instead, the critic is much more likely to gain a better understanding of an ideograph by looking at how it is used and depicted in movies, plays, and songs, as well as how it is presented in educational texts aimed at children. This moves the study of ideology beyond the limits of social philosophy or even political discourse as traditionally conceived (i.e., "great speeches by great men").

Cultural variability

"An ideograph is a culturally biased, abstract word or phrase drawn from ordinary language, which serves a constitutional value for a historically situated collectivity."

There exists a culturally-specific understanding in each culture about what an ideograph means. Ideographs in rhetoric are culturally specific but recur inter-culturally; meaning the understanding of one ideograph can be used and interpreted differently across cultures. The idea may be different from culture to culture, but this doesn't mean some aspects won't be the same in one or more cultures. For example, the concept of

femininity Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

that exists cross-culturally to define ideas about women, yet one can expect these ideas to vary from culture to culture.

Critical use

At the end of his essay defining the ideograph, McGee says that

“A complete description of an ideology . . . will consist of (1) the isolation of a society’s ideographs, (2) the exposure and analysis of the
diachronic Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach - from ,("together") + ,("time") - considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. In contrast, a ''diac ...
structure of every ideography, and (3) characterization of
synchronic Synchronic may refer to: * ''Synchronic'' (film), a 2019 American science fiction film starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan *Synchronic analysis, the analysis of a language at a specific point of time *Synchronicity, the experience of two or m ...
relationships among all the ideographs in a particular context.”

Such an exhaustive study of any ideology has yet to materialize, but many scholars have made use of the ideograph as a tool of understanding both specific rhetorical situations as well as a broader scope of ideological history. As a teacher, McGee himself made use of the ideograph as a tool for structuring the study of the rise of liberalism in British public address, focusing on ideographs such as <

>, <

patriarchy Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...

>, <

>. Other scholars have made a study of specific uses of ideographs such as <

family values Family values, sometimes referred to as familial values, are traditional or cultural values that pertain to the family's structure, function, roles, beliefs, attitudes, and ideals. Additionally, the concept of family values may be understood ...

> and <

>. Some critics have gone beyond the idea that an ideograph must be a verbal symbol and have expanded the notion to include

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. The process and pra ...

. and objects represented in

mass media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...

.Moore, M. P. (1996). The cigarette as representative ideograph in the debate over environmental tobacco smoke. ''Communication Monographs, 64'', 47-64.

Definition

Examples

Importance

Cultural variability

Critical use

See also

References

Further reading