Buzz Out Loud: CNET’s podcast of indeterminate length on CNET.com [click here to listen to clip] recently featured this fascinating discussion of analogies. A caller suggests an analogy and the hosts discuss both the aptness of the analogy itself as well as the medium of analogies for elucidating certain issues. The combination of negotiating a frame and the framework (i.e. the medium of communication) at the same time is extremely intriguing and also something that happens all the time at all levels. The problem is that it mostly goes unnoticed in the relevant literature on language. Conversation analysts and ethnomethodologists know all about it but linguists often see it as something of no consequence to the study of ‘lower level structures’ such as morphology and syntax.

It goes without saying that this also underscores the importance of analogies and tropes in general in any kind of discourse. They are not only important structurally (very often they play the role of topoi) but also essential for the conceptual organization of extensive discursive interactions such as the thing often referred to as public discourse.