When conducting an ideological critique, the researcher must be concerned with the way ideology is evidenced (or repressed) in the artifact, and a useful concept for identifying these "traces of ideology" is the notion of the ideograph, or the "political language which manifests ideology," which, according to Michael McGee, is "characterized by slogans" (Foss 248, McGee 5). McGee argues "that ideology in practice is a political language, preserved in rhetorical documents," and as such, can be identified in rhetorical artifacts via the "vocabulary of ideographs" frequently deployed in speech. Here it is important to note the importance of context, because in general McGee identifies ideographs as particular words, but one need not view these specific words as eternally and always ideographs; that is to say, these specific words may be identified as ideographs "by the usage of such terms in specifically rhetorical discourse, for such usage constitute excuses for specific...
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