The definition of synecdoche varies from theorist to theorist (sometimes markedly). The rhetorician Richard Lanham represents the most common tendency to describe synecdoche as 'the substitution of part for whole, genus for species or vice versa' (Lanham 1969, 97). Examples: part for whole ('I'm off to the smoke [London]'; 'we need to hire some more hands [workers]'; 'two heads are better than one'; 'I've got a new set of wheels', the American expression 'get your butt over here!'); whole for part (e.g. 'I was stopped by the law' - where the law stands for a police officer, 'Wales' for 'the Welsh national rugby team' or 'the market' for customers); species for genus (hypernymy) - the use of a member of a class (hyponym) for the class (superordinate) which includes it (e.g. a mother for motherhood, 'bread' for 'food', 'Hoover' for 'vacuum-cleaner'); genus for species (hyponymy) - the use of a superordinate for a hyponym (e.g. 'vehicle' for 'car', or 'machine' for 'computer'). In photographic and filmic media a close-up is a simple synecdoche - a part representing the whole (Jakobson & Halle 1956, 92). Indeed, the formal frame of any visual image (painting, drawing, photograph, film or television frame) functions as a synecdoche in that it suggests that what is being offered is a 'slice-of-life', and that the world outside the frame is carrying on in the same manner as the world depicted within it. This is perhaps particularly so when the frame cuts across some of the objects depicted within it rather than enclosing them as wholly discrete entities. Synecdoche invites or expects the viewer to 'fill in the gaps' and advertisements frequently employ this trope. Class assignment (pair work, done orally): Look at two book covers and comment upon the use on synecdoche: do you think the message became clearer through it? Can you suggest a better variant? Two book covers