Visual Communication in Images and Text

For my own personal interest / potential future research, I recently read an article by Diana George that appeared in CCC in 2002, “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing.” George provides a very good, in-depth overview of the history of visual communication in composition classrooms. I’ve been interested in visual rhetoric, visual literacy, visual argumentation (or whatever other “visual + word-based modifier” you can think to combine) for several years now, but only recently have I become aware of the narrow scope of the available research in this field. The narrow scope is highlighted by the combination of the word “visual” with a modifier that comes directly from our word-based communication culture (or perhaps, a communication culture that we perceive to be primarily word-based).

In order to move away from this word-based interpretation of visual communication, though, it is important to know the variety of ways visual communications have been interpreted historically. It is necessary to understand the ways word-based modifiers and, more specifically, the print-based textual culture has been imposed on / applied to standard forms of visual communication over the years. George’s article is a good place to begin building this understanding as it does include a very well presented broad history of the visual in, specifically, college composition classrooms.  

A more narrowed focus of my rhetorical research is centered on the difference between providing a visual and using descriptive language to encourage the conjuring of an image in one’s mind; the first presents the audience with a specific image while the second allows audience members to individually imagine an image, and both require different possibilities for analytical interpretations. With this specific, but not well-understood as of now, research interest in mind while reading George’s article, a very particular moment in the history of visual communication in composition classrooms stood out for me.

At one point in her article, George is presenting the history of a college textbook, Writing with a Purpose, and the introduction of a visual assignment in later editions. In one edition, this visual assignment focused on prints by artist William Hogarth. George says of this assignment, “the Beer Street and Gin Lane prints were meant to teach students the art of observation and develop the skill of creating vivid word images” (20). Of the textbook and its inclusion of pictures, George says, “Though these early texts commonly used pictures … as prompts for students compositions, the aim of each exercise was to bring students to a more vivid or accurate use of written language. Often, the authors made an elaborate case for the advantage or superiority of words over pictures” (21).

I find the inclusion of images and pictures in college composition textbooks for the purpose of teaching better vivid language an interesting one. While this type of assignment ignores and undermine the worth and meaning of the art and the artist, I must admit to being interested in the language and descriptions students might use to textually represent the art. Is it possible for a description to create in a reader’s mind an exact, or close to exact, replica of the print? Is this even the purpose of practicing this sort of vivid language assignment? And why might a writer want to use description instead of providing the visual of the print? What is lost in the description? In choosing descriptive, vivid words, is the author of the description intentionally or unintentionally framing interpretation of meaning?

George’s article is certainly leading me further down the visual rabbit-hole, but as I continue researching, I will keep in mind “the skill of creating vivid word images”.

Works Cited

George, Diana. “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing”. College Composition and Communication 54.1 (2002): 11 – 39. Print.