Rebranding Contrast as Likeness — Redundancy by Reflection

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna 2025: 111):

The counterpart to opposing is likening. Likening involves grouping things as the same or similar. This similarity is not necessarily in terms of any ideational similarity but in terms of how they are positioned rhetorically within a set of oppositions… Like opposing, likening is a regular resource for building constellations and extending text and offers resources for organising sets of apparently different things, ideationally speaking, as ‘the same’.

ChatGPT Comments:

Likening suffers from similar issues:

1. Conceptual overlap: Likening mirrors cohesion, repetition, and synonymy signals already captured in INTERNAL CONNEXION. Its novelty lies mostly in rhetorical framing rather than systemic distinction.

2. Ambiguity in scope: The statement that similarity is “not necessarily in terms of any ideational similarity” risks creating confusion. If rhetorical alignment is the primary function, it should be clarified how this interacts with appraisal or engagement, rather than leaving it broadly under “constellations.”