Is repetition sensory language?
It most surely is. Obviously, to the extent it has content, it is also conceptual langauge. But think of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speach. He repeated that phrase in almost every “verse” that constituted the speech, and the effect of the repetition was purely emotional, purely affect, and intended to be so. The same with Barack Obama’s recent “Yes I can” speech, repeated similarly every “phrase.” so that it had the effect more of rhythm than of content. It is, in a sense, more musical than textual, and if music isn’t sensory I don’t know what is. It surely appeals to the senses–the sense of sound, even if you simply read it. And rhythm is surely a sense of its own, and repetition is surely rhythm and, therefore, sensory.
