Kenneth Burke: Semantic and Poetic Meaning
Poetic
Burke defines poetic meaning to be language concerned with attitudes. For example, in his argument he uses the phrase "New York City is in Iowa", which would be semantically false, but it could be true in poetic meaning because the statement is a metaphor. What Burke argues that makes poetic meaning different from semantic is poetic meaning can have varying degrees of trueness or falseness. He further on argues that semantic ideal cheats us and that the poetic ideal would provide us with the ability to better understand human conduct.
Semantic
Burke defines semantic meaning, not to be a complete opposite of poetic meaning, rather semantic meaning focuses on more literal meaning of words and semantic statements are good only if they are true. Burke uses "semantic meaning" in his argument to point out that the semantic ideal would be a totally neutral vocabulary, but and that the semantic ideal is becoming the "norm". Semantic meaning would simply tell the truth, freeing our language from emotion, however Burke argues that this would be inadequate for understanding human conduct.
Ideal
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Meaning
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Morality
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