ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on lexicon, words unique to a group or individual having special rhetorical power. Lexicons set people apart. Even if one had never read the above prayer, one could learn something from a list of its constituent words. Words such as martyrs, humbly, sheep, dust, and guide indicate that submission to something or someone is expected. One way of measuring lexicon is to examine verbal repetition, something one rarely finds in Palin's remarks. Insistence measures a text's dependence on a limited number of often-repeated words. A lexicon-searching program like DICTION is obviously fast, obviously capacious, but it also makes an odd assumption—that a text can only be understood when its similarities to, and differences from, other texts are considered in exacting detail. Computer programs like DICTION are hardly omniscient. They cannot think; they can only count. They cannot deal with the majesty of style, just its plumbing.
