ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

Contextual explanation · NAV-G03-020

Hierarchy

This explanation addresses the term in its originating context. It is not an additional canonical Atlas profile.

Explanation

In the catacosmesis context, hierarchy is a ranking used to arrange a verbal sequence. The criterion may be size, influence, dignity or importance asserted only by the text. The sequence thus presents an order as well as its individual items. It can reproduce established evaluations, ironise them or help construct them. Analysis must therefore name the criterion and identify whose perspective supports it. A descending list is neither automatically accurate nor a complete account of social relations.

Movement of thought

1. Record the sequence. 2. Name a possible ranking criterion. 3. Seek textual evidence for that criterion. 4. Test alternative orderings. 5. Determine the rhetorical function.

Example

“From the director to the intern, everyone listened” can rank institutional positions while expressing an event's reach.

Counter-test

An alphabetical list is not hierarchical merely because it has a fixed order.

Scientific use case

Rhetorical analysis can compare sequences and specify the evaluations their ordering presupposes.

Effect

Hierarchy exposes evaluation within an apparently simple enumeration.

Resonance

A sequence gives its members places and lets those places speak.

Distinction

Distinguish rank from chronology, spatial arrangement and syntactic embedding.

Sources