Framing

Of the readings from last week, what stood out to me especially vividly was George Lakoff's article on why framing matters. Whether because I am particularly interested in the use of language, or because it compliments material from other classes, it came back up in my thoughts over the course of the week.
Lakoff states that "[i]n order to communicate a complex fact or a complex truth, one must choose one’s words carefully to activate the right frames so that the truth can be understood" (73). This is a simple principle of language and rhetoric, but encompasses many specific modes of communication that often go overlooked. "Frames" I took to mean many different things while reading Lakoff's article; discourse, and binaries, for example. Discourse, because we look at and engage with everything around us through them, and binaries, because we categorize and identify objects and texts through them. As he stated, frames can also "include semantic roles, relations between roles, and relations to other frames" (71).
When this became particularly clear to me in relation to environmental communication was standing in line at the Glendale Starbucks. The compartmentalized trash bin, with openings uncannily resembling a children's game, was distinctly labeled with two words - the text's colours corresponding to the hole through which that type of waste should go. The words? Recycle and Landfill. Not only were they framing the choice as "so simple that a child could do it," they are also forcing a binary between recycling and garbage that weighs one option with guilt and responsibility, and the other with superiority and morality. This framing falls under Lakoff's classification of "relations to other frames" of course, by contrasting (and thus linking) recycling with landfills.
Using dichotomy or binary as framing is immensely effective, as the associations are often intrinsically linked to our conceptions of "good" and "bad."