Strategies of Definition, Or Rather, How Do You Define Something?
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.’’
- Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
Words can mean so many different things. How do we choose what they mean? Who chooses what they mean? What really does it mean for a word to mean something, you know what I mean? These questions and more will be answered here.
Buckle up!
Defining a Definition
A definition is a statement of the exact meaning of a term (word or expression such as a phrase, idiom, etc.)
All good definitions can be considered to have the form (or a slight variation) “a DEFINIENDUM is a GENUS that DIFFERENTIA”, or in short, “a De is a G that D”.
That probably makes little or no sense to you at all. But, don’t worry.
Let Mr. Banana help.
A banana is an elongated usually tapering tropical fruit with soft pulpy flesh enclosed in a soft usually yellow rind.
In a definition, the term being defined (the subject of the definition) is called the definiendum of the definition, and the expression that defines the definiendum is called the definiens.
The definiens is made up of the genus and the differentia.
The genus of the definition gives us basic information about the term being defined and fits it into an overarching category that generally has an existing definition. The genus serves as a portion of the new definition; all definitions with the same genus are considered members of that genus.
The differentia of the definition is the characteristics of the term being defined that distinguishes (or differentiates) the term from other things in the same genus.
Now does the format, “a DEFINIENDUM is a GENUS that DIFFERENTIA” make sense?
But Sire, How are Definitions Created?
There are several strategies scholars and advocates make use of while creating definitions. Perelman and Olbrechts, in their extensive body of work on language, outlined some of the most important strategies of definition creation.
Now that we know (sorta kinda) what definitions are, let’s look at some of these important strategies of definition creation.
Stipulative definition
“There’s glory for you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t–till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.”
A stipulative, or a Humpty-Dumpty word (no, I didn’t just make that up), provides an operational account of how the term is going to be used in a particular context. In other words, a stipulative is a definition that assigns meaning to a word, with or without any regard for the common usage of that word.
As we see in Humpty’s exchange with Alice, Humpty decides that ‘glory’ means ‘a nice knock-down argument’.
So, a banana is really just an apple in disguise — a banana is a bananapple.
Authoritative Definition
An Authoritative Definition refers to the definition of a term by accepted social and/or political authorities. This strategy is a form of argument from authority.
For example, an authoritative definition of cruelty would require an advocate to analyze how the term has been used and defined within the relevant authority — in this case, the judicial system.
Etymological Definition
Etymological definitions trace the origins of a word as a resource for defining it.
These definitions look at the history of a term’s meaning and use that to define it in the present.
In a more serious attempt to explain etymological definitions, referencing the history of the term cruelty in an argument that capital punishment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment is an appeal to etymological definition.
As a generous giveaway, I’ll just leave this super cool online etymology dictionary here for those of you with curious minds that have word histories to find — https://www.etymonline.com/
Condensed Definition
According to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, a condensed definition attempts to locate the “essential elements” that reside in the various common definitions of a term.
A condensed definition of cruelty, for example, would review existing definitions (e.g., in dictionaries, in scholarly works) to locate those essential elements that appear in all of the various definitions. These common elements are taken to represent the “essence” of cruelty and serve as the basis for a definition that could either (a) provide backing for the original stipulative definition or (b) function as an alternative.
Negation
In some cases, it might be difficult to specify, in a positive sense, the meaning of a term or concept but relatively easy to identify its antithesis or opposite. So, we then proceed to define the term by reference to its negative.
For example, while defining the idea of “freedom”, a person might find it difficult to come up with a definition of what freedom entails, but he/she might be able to elaborate on its opposite, the lack of freedom.
Or, consider how the idea of “public” is defined by scholars. They begin by understanding what “private” means and use that as the basis for defining what “public” is.
Metaphorical definition
A metaphor is a trope or figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two, unlike things that actually have something in common.
As Lakoff and Johnson and others demonstrated, we define many of our most important concepts metaphorically.
Thomas Jefferson’s famous phrase from the Declaration of Independence, the “pursuit of happiness”, makes use of metaphorical definitions to show us that happiness is something to be pursued. By doing so, Jefferson appeals to the idea of happiness being a journey and not an end goal.
Many a definition in political rhetoric has come about using metaphors. Let's take an example from electoral processes — a landslide victory. By inviting the audience to think about candidates or parties receiving overwhelming majorities of the votes or seats in the elected body and thereby utterly eliminating the opponents, as does a landslide.
Combination of Definitional Strategies
As is evident, definitional strategies can be combined in different ways to produce definitions. For example, a condensed definition of banana can make use of the history of the term’s meaning, thereby combining the condensed and etymological strategies. Making a banana an elongated yellow tropical finger. (The word banana comes from the Arabic word ‘banan’, meaning finger.)
Try making a combined definition of the word rhetoric and send it to me on salik.basharat_yif19@ashoka.edu.in. Best combined definition wins a surprise gift ;)
References
- Jasinski, James L. Sourcebook on Rhetoric. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2001. Print.
- All the gifs in this essay have been taken from — https://giphy.com/
- “The World’s Most Trusted Dictionary Provider.” Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford Dictionaries, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2019.
- Carroll, Lewis, and V. A. Pearn. Alice Through the Looking Glass. N.p.: French, 1900. Print.
- “Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America’s Most-trusted Online Dictionary.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2019.
