In Chapter 9 of "Everything's an Argument", the text book discusses how to understand and develop arguments of definition. It emphasizes on the importance of a word's or phrase's different definitions because it can cause controversy. The book uses the example of the text from President Obama's speech where he uses the term "patriotism". He defines "patriotism" as many different things such as loyalty, love, support for his country. He goes into more detail of the word "patriotism" to show all possible definitions to gain acceptance from the audience. The book further goes into the example of the definition "human intelligence" which could mean a couple different things. It could mean that someone's intelligence is strictly determined by their standardized test scores like the SAT or IQ or the ability to perform specific practical tests. There is controversy between those two meanings for the definition of "human intelligence" in our society. The book explains that dictionaries are a form of reference for a general knowledge of a word but that there is so much more in depth to the word than just that definition.
The text also explains the different kinds of definitions and gives examples of each to further the reader's knowledge. It says that there are two main kinds of definitions; formal and operational definitions. Formal definitions are the general direct definitions someone would find in a dictionary. These definitions give the word a general label and place it in a certain category for better understanding. It gives the example of "hybrid car" and how its formal definition would list that it is a passenger vehicle that operates using two or more sources of power. The next kind of definition is an operational definition and it defines a word by what it does or what conditions create it. The example they give in the book is "sexual harassment" and how it is not officially called "sexual harassment" unless three conditions take place. These definitions are also highly debatable in society because personal opinions differ between what conditions took place to consider it an official serious term like sexual harassment. The person that sexually harassed the individual might not consider that all the conditions took place but the person harassed would definitely consider the actions taken more seriously.
It discusses the steps in developing a definitional argument. The first step is to formulate a tentative claim addressing a specific definition. If the definitional argument was "volunteer" the writer must write down what is and what is not a volunteer and try to accommodate both sides of the argument of the word. The writer needs to come up with reasoning behind their claims for each side while being considerate of both sides and they do this by researching their topic very in depth. Then they would need to match their claim to the definitions. They would then need to develop their conclusions on the definitional arguments.
Definitions do vary from person to person. Patriotism can have many definitions and can be perceived differently by many people. For instance, patriotism can be seen as a good thing by reducing riots and violence and such. However, too much patriotism for the wrong cause can lead to horrible events such as The Holocaust. I remember one of my teachers telling me how too much patriotism in Germany today is looked poorly upon by the people of the country. I also agree with your example of the definition of human intelligence varying as well. For instance, some people will argue that human intelligence is based on one’s ability to grasp a subject, such as calculus, and the speed they are able to grasp it. A person who termed smarter would be able to grasp more in a certain time frame than a person who is termed stupid. However, other people may see being smart as someone who is studious and studies. The person who is smarter studies more and is therefore smarter while the person is stupid, does not study as much and is therefore less smart. I also agree with the last part about the writer having to research the topic in depth. Another example can probably be the word fun. What does it mean to have fun? Obviously this word differs from person to person based on their passions. One person may think sleeping or relaxing is “fun” while others would fun at a carnival or fair. Fun can then be defined as something someone enjoys doing. On the other hand, it can also mean the emotion and does not have to be tied so much as something someone enjoys doing. Anyways there are many examples of definitions varying from person to person. (296)
ReplyDeleteI like how you were able to incorporate so many examples into the post. Starting off with explaining the different meanings of things really drew me in, especially with the writing project two coming up. The example of the word “patriotism” from the book was a great example because you can see how such an important figure can even run into the issue of clearly defining a word. Going on to discuss “human intelligence” was interesting because I did not realize how many different outlooks there were for such a basic idea. I like how you concluded the last paragraph saying that there is “much more to a word than just that definition” because it is so true, and is the point of that chapter. In the next paragraph where you talk about the two different kinds of definitions, I became much more informed on the idea. I had trouble understanding the different types of arguments, and you cleared it up with the examples from the book about the hybrid car and sexual harassment. They are very different issues, and when a person thinks about them individually a complete different thought process occurs. I would agree that the car is just a more straightforward definition about what it is/does, but sexual harassment focuses on the actions and is more serious. Finishing with how to formulate a definitional argument brought the blog all together and yet again helped me with my writing project. Seeing all the steps presented in a different voice other than the text is nice to see how more people interpret what is being said.
ReplyDeleteI like how you split different information into different paragraphs. It made easier to understand, instead of having all these random thoughts shoved into one single paragraph.. What drew me to your blog first was the fact that you brought up Barack Obama. I was following his campaign and did remember him being called unpatriotic. Than just by Barack telling everyone his definition of patriotism he silenced many of the critics out there. This is a good example of what we will be doing in our writing assignment two paper. Taking a definition and explaining a meaning behind it that most people don’t notice.
ReplyDeleteAlso I liked how you used the example of Obama’s patriotisms and his definition and went and actually the two types of definition their actually are. Not only did it help understand the whole Barack situation but it also further helped me understand what I am supposed to do on the project as well. I appreciated the unintentional help on that. Another thing that interested me was when u explained how the definition of sexual harassment is debatable. It just goes to show that just because the definition is in the dictionary it doesn’t have to actually mean that and the meaning of the word can actually be changed depending on different contexts or certain situations.
Overall I really liked your blog post. You used many different type of examples and with each examples I understood more and more of what you were trying to tell me. Excellent blog post!