Textual Rhetoric

As a child, I frequently heard elementary teachers remind the students that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Baloney. Words are powerful, and we see examples of this anywhere from the effects of bullying to religious doctrine (e.g. “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord,” Deut. 8:3b). Text is merely a physical, visual representation of the words we speak. For centuries now, rhetoricians have utilized text to prompt people toward certain action or certain belief in something.

There are several techniques people use to employ text as a rhetorical tool. One technique they use is visually designing the text. In his paper, Seeing the Text, Stephen Bernhardt stated that multiple “visible cues” such as white space, variations in typeface, numbers, asterisks, and punctuation allow writers to have more rhetorical control of their writings (66). Other writers have explored the implications of these visible cues more in-depth. For example, two writers, Martin Solomon and John Dawkins, focused on different rhetorical emphasis techniques of punctuation. Solomon based his discussion on the visual appeal of punctuation, such as the size or weight of periods. According to Solomon, “A single line of copy set in a light typeface contrasted with a bold, larger period creates a more dramatic stop than a period of conventional size and weight” (283). In effect, a reader is forced
to come to a stop and carefully consider the sentence that is punctuated with such a dramatic period. Solomon also mentioned that “exaggerated quotation marks flanking a message offer another example of illustrative punctuation. The contrast in size and weight indicates to the reader, primarily through design rather than grammatical intent, that an important message is being presented” (283).

In contrast to Solomon, Dawkins analyzed the rhetoric of punctuation according to their grammatical levels of emphasis. He proposed that punctuation consists of a hierarchy of rhetorical functionality, and a writer would gain emphasis by using appropriate higher marks and connectedness by using appropriate lower marks (536).

Hierarchy of Functional Punctuation Marks

MARK                        DEGREE OF SEPARATION

sentence final (.? !)      maximum

semicolon (;)                medium

colon (:)                       medium (anticipatory)

dash (—)                     medium (emphatic)

comma (,)                    minimum

zero (0)                        none (that is, connection) 

(535)

Note how the different punctuation marks affect the emphasis of the sentences below:

1.      John asked for a date when he got the nerve.

2.      John asked for a date, when he got the nerve.

3.      John asked for a date—when he got the nerve.

4.      John asked for a date. When he got the nerve. (538)

Another visible cue—typeface—was discussed at length by Anne Wysocki in her paper, The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media. Wysocki suggested that different typefaces could visually imply certain things. For example, a sans serif typeface implies rationality because in its design, type designers “streamlined the typefaces with which they had grown up, removing everything they saw as extraneous, such as serifs” (129). Not only do we use different typefaces for rhetorical effect, but we also use different styles of type. Two styles we commonly use are italic and bold. Wysocki claimed that these particular styles, when used conservatively on only a few words at a time, “call visual and hence conceptual attention to words or phrases; they can mark text that is supposed to represent spoken words” (129). The size of type could provide a useful rhetorical effect as well (129). Basically, a rhetorician can visually write like he’s shouting at someone…or whispering in her ear.

Visually designing the text is just one rhetorical technique; non-visually informative text can achieve rhetorical ends as well. For example, sentence grammar itself could be used to one’s advantage. In their book, Understanding English Grammar, Martha Kolln and Robert Funk describe several methods for incorporating rhetorical grammar in writing:

1.      Basic sentences—very short sentences that are little more than two words long—can be used as attention-getters. Like this. (310)

2.      Cohesion, or using words that connect a sentence to what has gone before it. This connectedness by renaming the topic strengthens one’s writing and clarifies the discussion for the readers.

3.      Sentence rhythm, the natural ebb and flow of how we’d speak a text aloud. The authors explain the different degrees of emphasis and stress as “peaks” and “valleys.” They wrote, “As listeners we pay attention to the peaks—that’s where we’ll hear the information that the speaker is focusing on. As speakers, we manipulate the peaks and valleys to coincide with our message, reserving the loudest stress, the highest peak, for new information, which will be our main point of focus” (313, emphasis added). This particular method of introducing the main information at the end of the sentence is also referred to as end focus, and good writers commonly employ end focus into their writing (313-314).

4.      Focusing tools, devices used when moving the emphasis from the end of the sentence to somewhere else in the sentence. The most common focusing tool is the “it-cleft transformation.”

a.    It was the monkey that ate the banana pudding yesterday.

b.    It was the banana pudding that the monkey ate yesterday.

c.    It was yesterday that the monkey ate the banana pudding.

Observe how in the above examples, the main emphasis of the sentence changed depending on what was inserted after “it was.” Kolln and Funk warn, “The it-cleft is not a structure you will want to overuse, but it certainly is useful—and almost foolproof—when it comes to controlling the rhythm of a sentence and directing the reader’s focus” (315).

5.      Verb choice, such as phrasal verbs versus one-word verbs, passive voice versus active voice, etc., indicates to the reader the importance of the message since the writer took the time to craft the sentence carefully (316-317).

 

Of course, the content of the text also contributes to its overall rhetorical effectiveness. The primary advantage textual rhetoric has over visual rhetoric is its ability to constrain very specific meanings. However, no matter how detailed a text becomes, there is always room for subjectivity and personal interpretation because everyone has their own different perspectives. For example I could write:

A black dog.

Think of the possibilities people might have pictured this in their minds. The “black dog” could’ve been a multitude of different sizes, breeds, etc. Now I could refine the description with as much detail as I can:

A large, black Rottweiler dog, seven years old and well-disciplined, a perfect companion for a policeman—or an assassin.

This time I added several more qualifiers, but even then, not everyone will think of the exact same image in their minds. Although my example was very rudimentary, I hope it illustrates my point well enough: language doesn’t perfectly constrain meaning.

When comparing text to picture, I also notice that text cannot universally elicit such strong emotional reactions from readers that pictures can. Text is also limited in the fact that it is held to a certain accountability, whereas pictures have more freedom to imply something without provoking the consequences of such implications.