Designing a frame: rhetorical strategies of architects

We examine the rhetorical strategy of architects in widely available architectural texts, to identify what words are available for use in the cultural register. Our results show that these cultural register texts use distinct but related rhetories; vocabularies of competency that are revealed through clusters of keywords and which capture institutional logics of business, profession and state. We then examine how architect firms use these keywords as rhetorical strategies when competing for projects from clients. Our results reveal that architect firms deploy multivalent keywords-keywords that bridge institutional logics with the same word having multiple meanings- and combine pragmatically unique keywords from distinct logics, allowing them to appeal to Multiple, diverse interests in their audiences. Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.