Ohh... Vocab

Have you ever wondered what vocabulary words Heinrichs introduced in Chapters 11 and 12? If you have keep on reading, if you haven't you know how to leave. In this chapters a lot of new terms were introduced which I am going to explain. 

For "cracking good clichés" we should talk about common place, which has five terms that should be defined:

The Advantageous: Persuasion that makes the audience believe your own choice to be an advantageous one. This device also deals with choices of the future.

In this video the persuaders, being the people that work at apple, talk about all the features and characteristics of the new Iphone 5. They make you believe that the right thing to do is buying the new phone they released. They explain how it is going to be beneficial for the audience to buy this phone due to all its features, therefore using "the advantageous."

The Common Place: Any cliche, belief, or value that can serve as your audience's boiled-down public opinion. This is also the starting point of an argument.

In this video, we can see Martin Luther King's famous speech I Have a Dream. This could be considered a common place, because all the ideas that he transmitted were were beliefs that the audience shared. As the book says, "common place takes advantage of the way humans process information"(101). When MLK talks, the people that are hearing his arguments can see the point of view of people with color which makes people process the information of the speech differently, therefore using common place. 

Babbling: When your audience repeats the same thing over and over, it is probably mouthing a commonplace. 

According to the definition of the book, babbling is when you "repeat the things over and over" until you reach a commonplace. In this video Stewie repeats her mom's name in a lot of different ways, until he finally get's what he values (commonplace) which was his mom's attention. This is one way in which babbling could be applied.

The Common Label: Applying a common place to an idea, a proposal, or apiece of legislation; anyone who opposes it will risk seeming like an outsider.

In this video Obama talks about his take in foreign policy, meanwhile Romney offers a different one. In the begin of the video Obama talks about what he thinks should happen, and what Romney has said in those topics in past encounters (in which he disagreed), Therefore Obama made Romney look like an outsider, and at the same time used "the common label."

The Rejection: When your audience turns you down, listen to the language and identify the common place.

As we move on to Chapter 12, we stop talking about "common place" and start talking about the "specific techniques for labeling." So here they are for your own knowledge:

Term Changing: Don't accept terms your opponent uses, instead use your own.

Redefinition: Change the connotation of your opponent's terms.

Definition Jujitsu: Use your opponent's terms to attack if they favor you.

Definition Judo: Use terms that contrast with your opponent's, making them look bad.


*The videos attached to the definitions above don't just apply to those terms, but to other aswell.