Points of Praxis

My Blog Reflects on Visual Rhetorical Theory and Disability Rhetoric and their Connections to Classical and Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

I'm working on my reading list for my comprehensive exams, and this week, I've been reading selections from Stephen Toulmin's The Uses of Argument and Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca's The New Rhetoric:  A Treatise on Argumentation.  My experience with reading on "the new rhetoric" comes from a genre-based perspective that looks at the ways in which genres and discourses function and how that functioning or pragmaticism constructs the discourse (I'm thinking here of James Kinneavy's Theory of Discourse, Caroline Miller's "Genre as a Social Act," Lloyd Bitzer's "The Rhetorical Situation," or Charles Bazerman's work on pragmaticism.  However, both Toulmin's and Perelman and Oblrechts-Tytreca's approaches to this "new rhetoric" are similar to those discussed by Kinneavy, Miller, Bitzer, and Bazerman (to name only a few). 

Specifically, Toulmin and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca examine the epistemology of rhetoric.  For Toulmin, rhetoric as an argument.  In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's case, rhetoric as philosophy.  Philosophy as rhetoric.   I'm going to explore some unchartered territory here since I've never read Toulmin or Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca formally in a class (aside from the ever-so-brief moments in history of rhetoric II), so if I completely butcher their theories, please feel free to correct me.

Many might be familiar with Toulmin's discussion on the inadequacies of the syllogism as a means of invention.  This is because the syllogism, like Campbell noted, only retells what is already known.  Instead, Toulmin is concerned with the ways in which rhetoric does not necessarily proclaim the "truth," rather, with the ways in which rhetoric becomes a means for generating understanding.  For Toulmin, the rhetorical process is situation or contextually-bound.  The "truth" is only determined for a particular people, at a particular time, for a particular purpose, based on particular situational and environmental factors.  For Toulmin, then, persuasion is not the ultimate goal of rhetoric--discovery is. 

And, how does Toulmin propose his theory of rhetoric as a means of argumentation:  he proposes that arguments are based on the claim, warrant, data, qualifier, rebuttal, and backing.   Toulmin's elements are based on a "rational process" by which arguments correspond with "rational processes"  within fields of argument.   So, arguments w/in the same field may be judged accordingly; however, arguments based in different fields of argument may not.  Hence, Toulmin is concerned with individual situations for determining the validity of rational arguments.  (Note the elements of social construction inherent here.  Plato would have a fit.)

So, what are "claims," "warrants," "data," "qualifiers," "rebuttals," and "backings," you ask?  Good question.  To answer, I will apply Toulmin's elements to a film I watched this week for film as rhetoric:  Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.   Based on my viewing of the film, Lee claims--or comes to the potentially controversial conclusion: "America" (represented in the micro-cosmism of a neighborhood in Brooklyn) is not the racial and cultural melting pot people like to believe it is.  There isn't an acceptance of the other races and cultures that we'd like believe exists--a situation that all races are responsible for and all races will be effected by.

The "data" Lee provides for his claim comes from the film, itself--the narrative story that represents (albeit very dramatically) the reality that Lee observes.  If Toulmin is concerned with specific situations and circumstances, then Lee's reality is no less "real" or "truthful" than anyone else's.

The "warrant" for Lee's claims is the crimes and violent acts committed throughout the latter part of the 20th century based on racism, ethnocentricism, xenophobia, and anti-Semiticism--acts that are metonymically represented in the film.  For instance. Lee sets his story in the same burrough (Bedford-Stuyvesant) that many urban riots took place in the 1960's and 1970's.  Lee also shows a wall with "Tawana told the truth" spray painted on it, referencing the 1987 case of Tawana Brawley, a woman who was found in a garbage bag after being missing for 4 days.  She told investigators that she was raped by at least 4 white men, one of whom was a police officer.  Lee, in these references within the film, shows several warrants to the claims that racism is pervasive within America.  One could also argue, I suppose, that these references also serve as "backings" (or credentials that certify assumptions) for Lee's claims.

"Rebuttals" also function as escape clauses or safety hatches that are included with claim statements.  So, "rebuttals" would be prefaced with phrases that begin with "unless," for instance.  In the case of Lee's film, the "rebuttal" could come in character dialogue--such as when Da Mayor reminds Mookie to "do the right thing."  Or, in the opening words of the film, "Wake up."  In other words, America will remain racially divided unless Americans can "do the right thing" and "wake up."

The "qualifiers" are those statements that limit the degree of force on the claim.  They are often represented by statements such as "probably," "possibly," or may be reflected in anticipated refutation.  I would argue that hedges within discourses ("might" and "some" would serve as qualifiers).  In Lee's film, the qualifiers might also come through the characters' dialogue and action.  Specifically, no character in Lee's film escapes Lee's condemnation.  There is no "ghetto princess" or "gangsta hero"--Mookie is flawed, Sal is flawed, and Da Mayor is flawed.  However, there are moments within the film that each character shows their humanity--a humanity that shows audiences how to transcend race and reject racism.  I would argue, then, that Mookie, Sal, and Da Mayor reflect these qualifiers because audiences identify with them because they seem to be genuinely good people.  One could argue that all of the characters within the film are depicted at some time or other as "good people."  Therefore, the qualifier that America is a nation divided by race is qualified by the specific moments that audiences see Mookie, Sal, and Da Mayor transcend their racial barriers and "see" each other.

posted by: rgregory at 20:45 | link | comments |

Preface:  I decided that I need to work on my writing stamina.  So, in addition to the weekly blogs on visual rhetoric as I've done all semester, I'm going to also start posting "practice responses" for "practice comprehensive exam questions" at least once a week.  I'm going to attempt to do as much as I can each week from memory but, of course, there will be times that I will have to consult my books and notes--hopefully, though, I will commit that material I've looked up to memory by typing it here.  I'm going to try each week to alternate between rhetorical history/theory, applied rhetorical theory, and visual rhetoric.

This week I'm starting with visual rhetoric (since it's been on the brain because of my Film as Rhetoric paper).  And, I'm going to pretend that my question is to address an issue or concern regarding visual rhetoric.  In my response, I will identify that concern, place it within an historical-theoretical framework, and then predict the significance of this issue in a broader context.  So, next week?  Something to do w/ two cannons of rhetoric or something like that...

Cool?  Okay... Runners to the starting line.  And, "Go!"

Theorists such as Anne Marie Stewart Barry in Visual Intelligence, Donis A. Dondis in A Primer of Visual Intelligence, and Rudolf Arnheim in Art and Visual Perception respectively address the means in which the human mind interprets images based such aspects of color, shape, subject positioning, lighting, and subject orientation (to name only a few).  As such, Barry's, Dondis's, and Arnheim's respective works focus more specifically on what is shown in within a tangible, physical image.  For instance, Arnheim addresses how the mind perceives the spatial distances between two identical dots in a square and Dondis discusses how viewers attribute motion to images of eagles presumably in flight. 

While significant in their own rights, Barry, Dondis, and Arnheim's works do not address the ways in which those factors that exist beyond the confines of the physical image, itself, contribute to the images' constructed meaning.  One could argue that Barry, Dondis, and Arnheim examine the semiotics of the image; to borrow Ferdinand de Saussure's classifications developed in his Course in General Linguistics, Barry, Dondis, and Arnheim focus on the ways in which the image, as the "signifier," stands for or represents the "thing" itself, or the "signified."  Barry, Dondis, and Arnheim primary concerns are with the ways in which viewers understand the "sign" as a whole unit of "Linguistic Value"--as Saussure refers to it.

However, rhetoricians are typically not concerned with just the "sign," itself, but also with the ways in which contexts shape discourses' constructed meanings.  Therefore, just as context or situation appears in the middle of the "communication triangle," influencing the sender, receiver, and message, images' constructed meanings are shaped by similarly by the contexts in which the images appear and the contexts in which viewers interpret the image.  As such, the language that appears with images or the languages used to describe or interpret images also shapes that very interpretation.  Roland Barthes discussed this relationship between images and language in his essay "The Rhetoric of the Image" in his book Image-Music-Text (1970).  Similarly, visual rhetorician W. J. T. Mitchell in Picture Theory (1995) is concerned with the ways in which language shapes images' meanings.   In this case, the "meaning" of the image goes beyond just the physical constraints of the image, itself.  As Roy A. Fox notes in the introduction of his book, Images in Language, Media, and Mind, "the most important kind of meaning is constructed from personal interactions with images; we use images, often mediated by language, to make sense of our world, and this activity resides at the core of thinking and literacy development."  Therefore, in the following paragraphs, I will, first, identify Barthes' theory of the "linguistic message" and Mitchell's theory of "image-text."  Within each discussion, I will address how language shapes images' interpretations and Mitchell's concerns to the limitation of language, or ekaphrasis, in regard to visual rhetoric.  Finally, I will conclude this discussion by addressing the importance of understanding this intrinsic relationship between images and language as it relates to our era of "new media."

An arduous relationship, for lack of a better word, between images and language seems to be one that wouldn't necessarily exist.  After all, textual discourse, itself, is a symbolic image that is associated with meaning; "texts" are just symbolic images strung together in forms that are recognizable to readers. Specifically, the English language uses an "alphabet" with graphemes, or symbols that represent different phonemes.  Similarly, the Chinese language uses logograms, or symbols that represent single words.  However, the relationship between pictorial images--images that are iconic or indexical, like photographs or drawings--and language is not quite as simplistic.  Are "texts" needed at all to the convey meaning of an image?  And, if so, how much "text"?  Or, can the image simply "speak for itself"?

Roland Barthes' structuralist essay "The Rhetoric of the Image" discusses how texts can either "anchor" or "relay" the messages conveyed in an image.  Specifically, texts that anchor an image's meaning tend to reaffirm what is shown in the image; inversely, texts that function to relay information add new, additional, or alternative meanings--meanings that would not have be conveyed simply by the image alone.  Barthes referred to this "message" of the text as the "linguistic message."  However, Barthes' "linguistic message" was restricted to those texts that appeared within or in conjunction with an image.  For instance, Barthes discussed the "linguistic message" of a label on a bottle of spaghetti sauce as within an advertisement for the sauce.  However, Barthes' essay did not address the "linguistic messages" that existed beyond the boundaries of the image--the texts that make up a larger context of the image.

Contemporary scholar W. J. T. Mitchell examines how those texts that belong to the context of the image shape interpretations.  In postmodern fashion, Mitchell argues that the relationship between images and texts are not arduous at all and argues that scholars should not attempt to compare the functions of images and texts within a context separately.  Instead, they function as an ensemble, each picking up where the other left off.  Therefore, Mitchell terms this cooperative relationship between images and texts as "image-text."  Mitchell argues that there is no way to divorce texts from the interpretation of images.  After all, as I noted earlier in my discussion of Fox, we use texts to understand what is shown in an image.  Cognition and perception are not mutually exclusive.  Therefore, visual rhetoricians must concern themselves with not simply the image as a "sign" but with the contexts in which those images appear.  Images and texts are only "forms" within a larger picture. 

For instance, images are intrinsically ambiguous and humans often attempt to use language to "fill in" those ambiguities.  Mitchell discusses how through ekaphrasis, we attempt to use language to completely describe or erase visual ambiguities within an image.  However, as Mitchell notes, humans desire to completely represent an image in language is a mission that is ultimately doomed.  Most individuals are all too familiar with the phrase, "A picture is worth a thousand words."  Mitchell's argument would perhaps increase these "thousand words" by several thousand more.  While Mitchell looks at the art work of William Blake as it is represented (or inadequately represented) in his poetry, Mitchell's essay works well within this discussion of the relationship between images and language since Mitchell is concerned with this interconnected relationship between images and texts.  When trying to describe an image completely in text, one will always come up short--just as Blake could never completely describe his art in his poetry.  Similarly, when trying to capture a text completely in an image, one will always fail--just as filmmakers are often criticized for "cutting so much of the book out."

However, Mitchell (and even Barthes) isn't succeeding the failure of the image or text to convey meaning.  Rather, Mitchell's essay illustrates the multi-modalities rhetoricians have at their disposal.   Similarly, scholars of visual rhetoric--and even the community at large--should be concerned with this intricate relationship between images and texts because of the privileges afforded each.  Specifically, as rhetoricians, I am often concerned with what is written, how a text is written, and to whom this text is written.   (I'm going to finish this paragraph later... Yes, there's something to be said for building endurance.  I'm really starting to see that now.)

posted by: rgregory at 16:57 | link | comments |

A story of interest to those interested in the rhetoric of disability:  A group of teenagers from Melbourne, Australia filmed, editing, and distributed a home video they titled, Cunt:  The Movie in which the teenagers performed a series of Jackass-like stunts and pranks.  One particular prank involved luring a 17 year-old girl with "mild developmental delays" into the woods where they filmed themselves urinating on her, setting her hair on fire, sexually assulting her, and throwing her clothes into the nearby river.  The teenagers' (unrepentant) crimes were only known after they began selling the video (which also included credits with each teenager's name listed) for A$5 at their schools. 

If you'd like to check out the story, it's already been wiki'ed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunt:_The_Movie

posted by: rgregory at 16:48 | link | comments |

While this is an academic blog for my independent study course, I'm going to take the liberty to incorporate the "personal" into this discussion, as is common among those within the disability studies discourse community.  Specifically, I've been thinking a lot lately about my autistic son and his struggles in school this year.  (I'm going to call him "Charlie," for privacy's sake.  And, those of you who know him will get the reference.) 

If I can give a little bit of background, Charlie is considered "high-functioning" autistic since he vocalizes his communication, interacts with his peers and others, and makes eye contact some of the time.  There is, though, quite a bit of controversy surrounding the use of the terms "high" and "low" functioning, primarily because these designators are contingient on an autistic person's ability to verbally communicate with others.  "High" functioning autistic children are often, also, labeled as having Asperger's Syndrome; the difference here, again, has to do with language ability.  

I'm in very murky water here, but  the difference between being "traditional" autistic and "Asperger's" autistic relies quite a bit on a child's development of language skills.  According to the DSM IV, for a child to be considered "Asperger's," he or she developed language skills appropriately for his or her age; whereas, "high" functioning autistic children experienced significant language delays.  (Of course, there are other markers distinguishing between "high" functioning autistic and "Asperger's," including imaginative and academic abilities, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to focus on the distinguishing characteristic of language abilities.)  Also, there are controversies concerning the labels "high" and "low" functioning autism because "high" functioning implies "some" functioning and "low" implies "no" functioning.  The distinctions as to what constitutes "high" and "low" is determined, it seems to me, by a person's economic, social, and productive contributions to a society.  (A socially constructed scale that is, again, a topic for a whole other post.)

In regard to language abilities, a point of contention that I wish to address in regard to this distinction of "high" and "low" functioning based on verbalization is the primacy of discursive ability.   Namely, an autistic child's distinction as having "some" or "no" functioning is determined primarily on that child's ability to construct meaning either verbally or through text-based discourses.  This struggle to identify one's functioning (or worth, really) is an issue addressed throughout deaf scholarship.

Still, I don't believe that the issue here is one of verbal or written discourses; rather, this is a conflict of semiotics--the differences among the signs.   And, the priviledging of one sign system over another.   For instance, autistic children are often able to communicate their needs with the "outside" world by pointing at pictures on computers or clipboards.  Specifically, many non-verbal autistic children rely on pictures to communicate that they are hungry, are thirsty, are tired, need to go to the bathroom, or want to "sensory" break.  Whereas a N-T (neuro-typical) child might tell his mother, "I am hungry" to indicate that he or she would like a sandwich, a "low" functioning autistic child might point to a picture of a sandwich to indicate hunger.  Likewise, a picture of a glass of milk would indicate thirst, and a picture of a toliet would indicate the need to use the bathroom.  However, because oral and written discourses are, typically, priveledged, the use of pictures to convey meaning is considered "low" functioning.  The connotations are clear:  verbalization indicates "high" or meaningful functioning whereas pointing to pictures is considered "low" or meaningless functioning.

I use the term "meaningless" intentionally here because it is quite appropriate to any discussion of signs and semiotics.  According to Daniel Chandler, signs "take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinstic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning" (Chandler 17).  The pictures that autistic children use to communicate are meaningful; however, they are not considered meaningless to a community that values verbal and written discourses.   The difference here is, in many ways, a difference of signifier and signified.  For N-T children, the signifier "I'm hungry" conveys the signified hunger.  Conversely, for autistic children, the signified concept for hunger is a picture of a sandwich--something that functions to satisfy hunger.  The signifier is the act of pointing to a picture of a sandwich.  And, as Saussure notes, the difference is purely "psychological."  Both the N-T child and the autistic child function by engaging in the act of signification, but the signification is validated and priviledged by the N-T child and autistic child's signification is considered "low."  We could look, similarly, at acts like head-banging, flapping, and spinning as moments of signification.

It's easy to understand, then, how many within the medical and autistic discourse communities commonly evoke and invoke to metaphor of the autistic child as locked away, just out of reach, and lost within the mazes of their minds.  The signification is obviously there.  Autistic children are able to communicate.  However, the recognition of that signification is what is dismissed.

In order to understand autistic communication, I think, first, there needs to be more humanities-based research on autism, disabilities studies, rhetoric, discourse analysis, semiotics, and visual rhetoric.   Second, I believe that there needs to be more academic collaboration among scholars of deaf culture, deaf communication, the deaf community and autistic scholars and the autistic community.  It seems like the autistic community could learn much from the deaf community and culture in regard to communication, constructed meaning, and making the meaning known to the "outside" world.  The deaf community has worked tirelessly to have ASL recognized as the legitimate signification system that it is, and I believe that this validation of signification as something other than verbalized speech is something about which the autistic community could learn.

posted by: rgregory at 16:49 | link | comments |

A good quote to remember--

"A Rhetoric is a social invention.  It arises out of a time and place.  A social context, establishing for a period the conditions that make a peculiar kind of communication possible, and then it is altered and replaced by another kind of scheme.  [...] Rhetoric is thus ultimately implicated in all a society attempts.  It is center to culture's activities" (Berlin 1-2).

Berlin, James.  Writing Instruction in Nineteenth-Century American Colleges.  1984

posted by: rgregory at 16:47 | link | comments (2) |

Some other quotations of notable interest to rhetoricians--particularly those studying for comprehensive exams: 

"Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic.  It is the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion."--Aristotle

"Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five lesser arts:  inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronunciatio.  It is speech designed to persuade."--Cicero

"Rhetoric is the science of speaking well, the education of the Roman gentleman, both useful and a virtue."--Quintilian

"Rhetoric is the art of expressing clearly, ornately (where necessary), persuasively, and fully the truths which thought has discovered acutely."--St. Augustine

"Rhetoric is the application of reason to imagination for the better moving of the will.  It is not solid reasoning of the kind science exhibits."--Francis Bacon

"Rhetoric is that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end.  All the ends of speaking are reducible to four; every speech being intended to enlighten the understanding, to please the imagination, to move the passions, and to influence the will."--George Campbell

“Rhetoric is not so much a practical art as a speculative science; and the same instructions which assist others in composing will assist them in judging of, and relishing, the beauties of composition.”  --Hugh Blair

"Rhetoric is the study of misunderstandings and their remedies."--I.A. Richards

"Rhetoric is that which creates an informed appetite for the good."--Richard Weaver

"Rhetoric is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic and continually born anew:  the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols." [emphasis mine] --Kenneth Burke

"Rhetoric is the art of discovering warrantable beliefs and improving those beliefs in shared discourse...the art of probing what we believe we ought to believe, rather than proving what is true according to abstract methods."--Wayne Booth

"Rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action."--Lloyd Bitzer

"We should not neglect rhetoric's importance, as if it were simply a formal structure or technique exterior to the essential activity.  Rhetoric is something decisive in society...[T]here are no politics, there is no society without rhetoric, without the force of rhetoric."--Jacques Derrida

"Rhetoric is the art, practice, and study of [all] human communication."--Andrea Lundsford

"Rhetoric appears as the connective tissue peculiar to civil society and to its proper finalities, happiness and political peace hic et nunc."--Marc Fumaroli

I will continue to add to these as I come across them.  And, thank you, Wayne Booth, for this handy, starter compilation.  (Booth, The Rhetoric of Rhetoric.)

posted by: rgregory at 17:59 | link | comments (2) |

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