Construal Operation of Specificity as a Cognitive Mechanism in Selected American Election Billboards

Majeed, Midya Rafiq

doi:10.25130/Lang.9.3.P1.25

	Construal Operation of Specificity as a Cognitive Mechanism in Selected American Election Billboards
Journal of Language Studies
Volume 9, Issue 3, Part 1, September 2025, Pages 453-467 PDF (780.31 K)
Document Type: Original Article
DOI: 10.25130/Lang.9.3.P1.25
Author
Midya Rafiq Majeed
University of Garmian
Abstract
Human mind has the ability to construe events or things from several perspectives. Construal is one of the central concepts in cognitive semantics and is used to describe and characterize this ability. The use of Construal Operation of Specificity, for investigating the construction of meaning in election billboards is thought to be significant. The current study aims to show the flexibility of this operation of construal to election billboards. To this end, four election billboards of Trump and Biden were selected from American general election (2020). Langacker’s Specificity as one of the most significant Construal Operations (2008) theory is used to demystify how meaning is constructed in the billboards. The results obtained show that the construal operation of specificity in election billboards significantly depends on the interplay between verbal and visual modes. Besides, the central message of the billboards is effectively conveyed through an analysis of the specific visual and verbal modes present in the design. It is concluded that the construal operation of specificity can account for meaning construction in electoral billboards and in addition to the semantic contents of the elements in the billboards, specificity makes up a principal element in constructing the meaning of the billboard.
Keywords
Election billboards; Conceptualization; Construal operation of specificity; Meaning construction

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