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Los tropos, como la metáfora, la metonimia, la sinécdoque y la ironía, fueron inicialmente reconocidos y estudiados sistemáticamente como mecanismos retóricos, pero los antropólogos han reconocido progresivamente que aquéllos constituyen formas fundamentales de relación y asociación comunes a las representaciones culturales y a la pragmática de la interacción social. El interés en la pragmática de la interacción ha estimulado también el análisis y la elaboración teórica de la noción de marco de referencia. Tropos y marcos han sido tratados casi invariablemente, al menos para fines teóricos, aisladamente unos de otros por teóricos con intereses divergentes. La tesis de este artículo, sin embargo, es que tropos y marcos son construcciones del mismo tipo, y operan normalmente de forma interdependiente como niveles complementarios de las mismas representaciones culturales compuestas. Sostengo, además, que la interdependencia de marcos de referencia y tropos es inseparable de la comprensión del modo en que formas ; Tropes such as metaphor, metonymy, synechdoche and irony were first recognized and systematically studied as rhetorical devices, but anthropologists have increasingly recognized that they constitute fundamental forms of relationship and association common to cultural representations and the pragmatics of social interaction. Interest in the pragmatics of interaction has also stimulated the analysis and theoretical elaboration of the notion of framing. Tropes and frames have almost invariably been treated, at least for theoretical purposes, in isolation from each other, by theorists with divergent interests. The thesis of the present paper, however, is that tropes and frames are constructs of the same kind, and normally operate interdependently as complementary levels of the same composite cultural representations. I argue, furthermore, that the interdependence of frames and tropes is integral to the understanding of how complex social and cultural forms such as ritual or political demonstrations generate power that can be projected beyond the frame in which the actions that produce the power take place, to cause effects in other frames.

The concept of "generalized symbolic media of social interaction" was introduced by Parsons five years ago in his two articles on the concepts of power and influence.1 I believe that it represents a theoretical development of the first importance, which has received much less attention—particularly in my own field of social anthropology—than it deserves. The purpose of the present paper is to review and criticize the concept itself and to point out its relevance to certain problems in social anthropology.