Visual-verbal rhetoric

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Visual-verbal rhetoric

classical rhetoric persuasion moods and feelings the interaction of speech and picture the semiotic approach the cognitive function of rhetoric rhetorical figures

Literary rhetoric Rhetoric is one of the scarcely researched areas of design, although the designer is confronted with rhetorical phenomena in his daily work. Owing to its origin in classical Antiquity, rhetoric is encumbered with tradition. At first it does not appear suitable for the study of modern communications, which is primarily based on retinal space, and the interplay of text and picture, sound and music. Seduction Rhetoric can be called a set of seductive heuristics, used to influence feelings and moods in the person to whom the message is addressed. Humberto Maturana defines feelings in this way: Biologically, feelings are physical dispositions through which domains of action are determined or characterized. Feelings are bodily processes through which the areas of action are specified within which we move. 1 Feelings, moods, attitudes Feelings are phenomena of short duration, which interrupt the flow of everyday actions. For instance, when a car suddenly skids on an icy road,

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fright passes as soon as the danger is over. Moods, on the other hand, are generally of longer duration. They are concerned with an approach to future possibilities of action. A depression is a mood characterized by the fact that there seem to be no future prospects. Specialists in advertising and corporate identity direct their rhetorical techniques to creating certain attitudes in the public or breaking them down, depending on the policy and strategy the company is using to present itself. Visual differentiation The designer is a specialist in, among other things, visual distinctions, and everyday cultural semantics. He influences the feelings, moods and attitudes of the user by employing visual means assigned to formal and semantic categories to convey messages. In the design field, practice is much more advanced than theory. The language-based rhetorical analyses of mass media, advertising, video clips, and infodesign (diagrams, scientific illustrations, maps, sign systems, interfaces for computer programmes) bypass the essential in that they treat the visual components as a secondary element. That can be explained as due to the lack of an analytical, descriptive set of instruments. Visual rhetoric is in a rudimentary state, compared with the maturity of literary rhetoric. Three areas of rhetoric Rhetoric is the domain of logomachy, the battle with words. It can be divided into two areas, firstly persuasive means, rhetorica utens, and secondly the description and analysis of persuasive means, rhetorica docens. In Antiquity rhetoric was practised as an art of speaking mainly in three areas: politics, law and religious discourse. Rhetorics covered the structure, the stylistic formulation, the method of delivery (diction) and the gestures of speakers at public assemblies, in legal proceedings and on solemn occasions. Persons in political, legal and religious life were most adept at rhetoric, insofar as they tried to induce certain moods in their listeners and bring about decisions using language and gesture. Any means that would contribute to the desired end was deemed appropriate.

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As K. Burke said, rhetoric is the right place for ... insult and offence, for quarrelsomeness and conflict, for cunning and lies, particularly for underlying cunning and deliberate lies. 2 The purpose of rhetoric Rhetoric is generally defined as the art of persuasion, or the study of the means of persuasion that are available for a given situation. The purpose of rhetoric is the efficient use of language in order to shape attitudes in others and influence their behaviour. Where there is coercion, rhetoric is not necessary. Where there is constraint, rhetoric is not even possible. Persuasion presupposes the possibility of choosing. Again we can quote Burke, who says rhetoric is directed to a person who is free: ...When people are forced to do something rhetoric is superfluous. 3 Semiotics The textbooks on rhetoric offer a wide range of subtle classifications, but the terminology is based in Ancient Greek and Latin languages, making it difficult to work with these definitions. It must be asked whether we need a new approach to rhetoric that would take into account modern semiotics. Since the combination of text and picture available in modern communications was technically impossible in antiquity, it was never a concern in classical rhetoric. Information anxiety and the cognitive function of rhetoric The flood of verbal and visual messages produced and distributed in industrial societies creates what Richard S. Wurman has termed information anxiety. A situation with a low density of information has been replaced by a situation with high density. With such conditions, one could ascribe a new, cognitive function to rhetoric, where rhetorical means are used to clarify contexts and reduce cognitive entropy.

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Visual-verbal rhetoric

Five distinctions Classical rhetoric is divided into five main areas:

heuristics, to collect materials, especially to trace arguments heuristics on the classification of the material collected prescriptions and recommendations on the stylistic formulation of the structured material heuristics for learning texts by heart recommendations on diction and gesture

The techniques in the third point that include the stylistic properties of texts are the most important for an analysis of advertising messages. These stylistic properties are expressed mainly in the form of rhetorical figures or tropes. They are defined as ...the art of saying something in a new way 4 and as ...giving words a new meaning or a new use, in order to make speech more pleasing, more lively and more penetrating. 5 Rhetorical figures of speech In the traditional view a rhetorical figure of speech is one that differs from normal usage to make the communication more effective. Figures of speech can be divided into two classes:

word figures; related to the meaning of a word, or the position of the words in the sentence thought figures; related to the formation and arrangement of the information.

Semiotic terminology enables the figures of speech to be clearly classified. Proceeding from the fact that one can distinguish between two aspects of a sign, namely, the shape and the meaning, one can identify two types of rhetorical figures. A rhetorical figure can be based on:

an operation with the shape of a sign (syntactic figure) or an operation with the meaning of the sign (semantic figure).

These possibilities, inherent in language, have always made rhetoric appear

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dubious. In language philosophy, persuasion is played off against information; influence against informing/teaching; the everyday language against the language of scholarship. The advocates of a purified language of scholarship see rhetoric as no more than a compendium of verbal tricks. The flexibility of language expressed in metaphor, for example, seems to them to be a defect, if not actually criminal. They brand rhetoric as a source of misunderstandings, of sloppy speech and falsification. In this view rhetoric is only a decorative adjunct of the information conveyed. That argument assumes that human communication is possible without rhetoric - but that is a moot point. Communication without rhetoric, aseptic com-munication as it were, leads to the breakdown of communication. In any case, pure information is an abstraction for the graphic designer. The moment the information is shaped or made sensually perceptible, the process of rhetorical infiltration starts. On the other hand, advocates of rhetoric argue that the many layers of meaning of spoken language inevitably result from the dynamic of language and are an essential means of human communication. 6 Note on the catalogue of visual/verbal figures The following is a list of visual/verbal rhetorical figures that was originally drawn up in 1964 for a seminar at the Institute of Design in Ulm (hochschule fr gestaltung, ulm). It was based on the semiotic work of Toms Maldonado, which in turn was oriented to Peirce and Morris. Influenced by French semiotics, which completely ignores all the work of Peirce and Morris, the general field of semiotics has become rooted in language and lost a good part of its analytical potential. About this Maldonado said: Occasionally certain histories of semiotics of a structuralist kind give the impression that only de Saussure and Hjelmslev have worked in the field that separates Peirce from Barthes and Greimas. This is to cast a shadow on the work of the neo-positivists in semiotics. 7 This essay was probably the first attempt systematically to apply the terminological distinctions of verbal rhetoric to visual communication, and also to create new distinctions, but it remained an isolated undertaking. A

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rhetorical approach can still lead to a deeper understanding of the phenomena that a graphic designer confronts daily. List of visual/verbal figures analogy: a verbal comparison is transferred to the visual sphere with equivalent semantic signs. metonym: a meaning indicated verbally is set in relation to another meaning, based on a thematic connection; e.g. cause instead of effect, instrument instead of result, producer instead of product. synecdoche (pars pro toto): a part indicating the whole. specification: a visual sign is accompanied by a minimum of text in order to make it clear and narrow it down semantically. (Often the name of the firm making the product is used). fusion: a visual sign is incorporated in a supersign owing to its formal qualities. The syntactic linking suggests a semantic connection. parallelism: visual and verbal signs relate to the same meaning. associative transfer (link) or mediation: from a number of verbal signs, one is selected in order to illustrate the ideas associated with it (associative context). metaphoric reversal: the tension between primary and secondary meaning is utilized so that the visual signs show the original meaning, taking it literally, so to speak. typogram: the meaning of the typographic signs is illustrated by these signs. The text is, so to speak, short-circuited with the typographic signs. understatement: verbal understatement is made visual. exaggeration: meaning is visualized through signs, the contents of which go beyond the usual measure. visual-verbal negation: the meaning of a sequence of words is illustrated by a visual opposite. visual-verbal comparison: two meanings are compared visually through the mediation of language. exemplification: meaning indicated verbally is illustrated visually. 74

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Open questions Since rhetorical figures are part of everyday language, their translation to other languages is limited. What can be a rhetorical figure in English may not be so in German, and vice versa. Moreover, this rough outline of static visual/verbal rhetoric needs to be supplemented by the dynamic rhetoric found in computer graphics (animation, picture sequences and their transitions). This is a large field for design research. It should help designers, not only to improve what they are doing, but also to understand what they are doing. That would bring us closer to what Donald Schn has called the reflective practitioner, that is, the practitioner who thinks about what he is doing.
This is a revised and shortened version of the article first published in the periodical of the hfg ulm (Institute of Design Ulm) 14/15/16 (1965). The study presented here deals with the lowest level of rhetorical figures. The work of Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements. London: Marion Boyars 1978, deals with a higher contextual interpretation.
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2 3 4 5 6 7

Maturana, Humberto, Emociones y lenguaje en educacin y politica. Santiago: La Hachette 1990, pp. 15 and 88. Burke, Kenneth, A Rhetoric of Motives. New York 1955, p. 19. loc. cit., p. 50. Quintilian. Lausberg, K., Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik. Munich 1949, p. 12. Richards, I.A., The Philosophy of Rhetoric. New York 1950, p. 40. Maldonado, Toms, Reale e virtuale. Milano: Feltrinelli 1992, p. 63n.

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Visual-verbal rhetoric

Examples

Analogy We sell sharp ideas The sharpened pencil corresponds to the sharp ideas. Average advertising is visualized by unsharpened pencils. Moreover, another rhetorical figure is included here, a metonym. The ideas are shown through a means with which they can be recorded on paper.

Analogy and metaphor Announcing The Birth of a New PublicationEnvironment Quality Magazine. The publication of a new magazine is set as an analogy like a chicken emerging from its shell.

Exaggeration and specification It also sticks handles to teapots The it is specified as a glue, and its strength is visualized by an automobile stuck to a poster on a wall.

Analogy and exaggeration After 500 plays our high fidelity tape still delivers high fidelity. The quality of the tape is set in analogy to a current of air flowing from the loudspeaker. It is so strong that the listener has to cling to his chair.

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Metonym Guaranteed to make you laugh The effect of being tickled - you laugh - is visualized by the instrument used to tickle the foot.

List combined with metonym For Me Too Holidaymakers it is not what is on your head that counts, but what is in it. The headgear stands for what is in the head. The rows of hats visualize the different kinds of holiday on offer.

Synecdoche combined with a comparison and a rhetorical question Have you ever wished you were better informed? The television or radio cable represents a channel of information. The comparison that starts verbally: ...better informed than... is concluded visually (by showing a plug and a socket that do not match, so the information channel will not function).

Metonymy, exaggeration and rhetorical question How many reasons do you need to cut out blades? Cuts are shown verbally through the word blades, and the word cut also suggests doing without them.

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Visual-verbal rhetoric

Visual-verbal comparison, combined with a quotation Contemporary Dutch Masterpiece. The historical masterpiece by Vermeer is compared with a contemporary Dutch masterpiece - Gouda cheese.

Comparison with metaphoric reversal For quality colour prints you need the right attitude. The primary meaning of the expression attitude is visualized in an exaggeration.

Exaggeration and metonym Temptation beyond endurance. The impossibility of resisting the temptation of the peanuts is visualized in the broken shop window.

Visual-verbal comparison and metonym Many people drink Knig-Pilsener. Or something that is just as good. The quality of the drink is visualized in a metonym (the cap of the beer bottle) and visualized through the comparison with the champagne cork.

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Parallelism You never run out of air The air that is always available is visualized through a homogeneous, light-grey surface.

Typogram Full? - Empty? The letters illustrate the verbal contents - the transition from full to empty.

Metaphoric reversal and rhetorical question Is just the top of the news enough? The primary meaning of the word sequence top of the news is taken literally in the visualization (top of the letters).

Synecdoche, metaphoric reversal and rhetorical question Are just two sides of the question enough? The question is visualized through the question mark. The primary meaning of the two sides of the question is taken literally in the reversed question marks arranged symmetrically.

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Visual-verbal rhetoric

Metaphoric reversal Geizkragen (lit. tight collar = tight-fisted). The advertisement is for information provision and punch cards; here the cards are bent into a collar in a literal illustration of the metaphor.

Fusion Baumann Light Metal Shutters Robust and Durable. The illustration of the shutter has been integrated into a suit of armour that visualizes the verbal message.

Specification Elizabeth Stewart Swimwear The beach scene with two people is narrowed down from its semantic breadth to the producer.

Analogy and exaggeration Its the most exciting fashion change in liquor industry The change in fashion that includes the product is illustrated by the primary attribute of fashion - the mannequin and the rolls of fabric.

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Metaphoric reversal The Point of a Screwdriver is Smirnoff. The secondary meaning of the word screwdriver, a cocktail, is shown by illustrating the primary meaning in the picture of a screwdriver.

Exemplification Our soap has nothing to hide. The verbal suggestion that the soap is transparent is visualized.

Associative link Its got to be Gordons Link between the green of the bottle, the green of the traffic light Go and the first two letters of the name of the gin Gordons.

Visual-verbal negation All our fork lifts are 1.72m high and have arms 96 cm long. The statement that anthropometric standard values exist is negated by the illustration.

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Rhetorical question and visual analogy Are just two shades of opinion enough? The two shades of one opinion are set in analogy to the contrast between black and white.

Parallelism and fusion We just put Jaffa for short. Word and image both refer to the same content. The typographic signs are integrated with the surface of the fruit.

Understatement and specification Thats all we have to sell. The statement, which is put as a concession, is visualized.

Fusion and metaphoric reversal The Peak of Enjoyment. The primary meaning of the verbalmetaphoric word peak is illustrated by the pyramid of chocolate.

Specification, synecdoche and visual comparison Thats something we Germans have in common The something is shown to be brandy, the different people who are drawn together are illustrated by the different arms and hands (a workman and a manager).

Rhetorical question, comparison and exaggeration Is this how YOU want to be treated by your first bank?

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