ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with some key examples of how messages are framed. It traces the evolution of framing theory from its use in sociology to its adoption by discourse analysts in the early 1990s as the most useful and interesting level at which to look at language use and the teaching/learning of language. The origin of the metaphor of framing in painting will also be used, with references to visual framing and the changing nature of frames within art. The place of framing within a wider theory of rhetoric will also be set out in this chapter.
