The Cultural Dimension of Rhetoric: The Use of Meiosis and Hyperbole in British and American English
The Cultural Dimension of Rhetoric: The Use of Meiosis and Hyperbole in British and American English

Summary/Abstract: This article explores the relationship between culture and rhetoric starting from the premise that language is not only a major element of culture, but also a faithful reflection of it, as confirmed by linguistic anthropologists who tend to equate language learning with culture learning. More specifically, it focuses on the cultural characteristics of the UK and the US along two pairs of descriptors ("dimensions") provided by Geert Hofstede and Michael Minkov – Long-Term Orientation vs. Short-Term Orientation, on the one hand, and Monumentalism vs. Flexumility (understood as a mix of flexibility and humility) on the other-, in an attempt to identify certain cultural differences and their corresponding linguistic expression: an effaced vs. an enhanced self-image, and the rhetorical use of understatement vs. overstatement. The article is meant as a tentative, cultural approach to rhetoric, and a possible starting point for future research on the rhetoric-culture relationship.

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