rhetoric, images and the language of seeing

Rhetoric, Images and the Language of Seeing
Brian McCarthy
The practice of communication is a complicated and expansive business. Communication theories and
traditions, whether pragmatic or visionary, provide the foundation for every working branch of today’s
social science studies and academic disciplines and discussions. These theories, although often complex
and esoteric in nature, endow us with a level of understanding (at least from a scholastic standpoint) as to
the ways in which meaning is formed and learning is achieved.
In Theories of Human Communication, authors Stephen W. Littlejohn and Karen A. Foss (2005)
describe the study of communication as consisting of “various typologies”- divisions of thought and
practice characterized by a wide range of perspectives (p. 35). The study of cybernetics teaches that social
systems are formed through mutual influence. The phenomenological tradition explores the ways in
which experience affects reality. Sociocultural studies revolve around the idea that reality is constructed
through group interactions. Semiotics can be defined as “… the study of signs” (p. 35), and the rhetorical
tradition, which is perhaps the least understood for a variety of reasons, deals with (at its most basic level)
the art of persuasion, although as a branch of study it has come to mean much more than that. Each of
these traditions (and others as well) in the field of communication studies are interrelated, because no
tradition can individually or completely explain the communication process on its own.

So what is rhetoric? “The study of rhetoric is really where the communication discipline began
because rhetoric, broadly defined, is human symbol use” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2005, p. 50). This is a rather
broad interpretation, and it’s this broad interpretation that I wish to investigate and dissect here. It’s
important to discern the difference between the word “rhetoric” and its definition, and rhetoric as a
tradition within a field, or theory; as something vague, or elastic, that’s open to multiple interpretations.
That’s what I find interesting. It’s more than language and language use. It’s more than oratory skills,
debate or the art of ornamental talk. It’s “… the process of ‘adjusting ideas to people and people to ideas’
… in messages of all kinds … all of the ways humans use symbols to affect those around them and to
construct the worlds in which they live” (Littlejohn and Foss, 2005, p. 50).
Merriam-Webster describes rhetoric in two ways. It’s language that’s intended to influence people in
ways which are not necessarily honest. It’s also the art of effective speaking or writing for the purposes of
persuasion (Merriam-Webster [APA],2015). That’s its most basic definition, but there’s a realdifference
between the word rhetoric and the practice or study of rhetoric as a communicative process.
The contemporary, or modern-day, understanding of rhetoric is often at odds with the long history of
rhetorical theory, which dates back to ancient Greece and Rome and provides a long-standing foundation
on which the discipline of communication is built. Rhetoric, in the classic sense,involved the use of logos
(logic), ethos (credibility) and pathos (emotional response): creating an “art of discourse” to
systematically think through rhetoric’s five canons: invention, organization, style, delivery, and memory.
However,rhetoric is no longer confined to the study of speeches or discourse. It’s generally viewed as the
study of any kind of symbol use. This means everything from intrapersonal communication to public

discourse to social movements as well as television, the Internet, visual and nonverbal elements, art,
architecture and appearance,just to name a few (Foss,2009, p. 1-3).
Described in this sense,the tradition of rhetoric encompasses,or is connected to, all other traditions
within the field of communication studies. And what is communication but mankind’s attempt at
understanding the world through the creation of meaning- requiring the interpretation of, interaction with,
and the language of symbol use. In The Passion of the Western Mind, Richard Tarnas (1991) writes that,
“… language itself can be recognized as rooted in a deeper reality, as reflecting the universe’s unfolding
meaning” ( p. 435). This paper proposes to examine the language properties of images, people’s
conceptions of beauty and images as symbolic representations. I’m curious as to what happens to us when
we see. I wonder what sorts of relationships exists, if any at all, between the image maker and the image
viewer,and how can rhetoric, as viewed as a tradition within the communication field of study, and its
emphasis on the “five canon’s”, help to explain these phenomena?
As stated above, the five canons of rhetoric include invention, arrangement, style, delivery and
memory. These ideas were centralto the art of speech making, debate, persuasion and oration in classical
Greece and Rome, and were also centralto scholars’ fundamental ideas concerning education (Tarnas,
1991, p. 29). Originally, invention consisted of methods for the creation of making arguments. Thomas J.
Roach (2013) writes that, “to invent arguments, the orator selects from three artistic proofs called logos,
pathos and ethos. The three proofs translate essentially to logic, emotion and character. Using the proofs,
a speaker might make a logical argument, stir the emotions of the audience, or ask the audience to trust
his or her judgment”. He continues by suggesting that arrangement,style, delivery and memory can just

as easily be supplanted for order, choice, presentation and necessity (p. 36). However, the art of rhetoric
has evolved, and the point is that these terms are mere abstractions- general ideas or qualities, and are
subject to contextual properties and interpretations due to social, psychological and cultural changes and
advances over time.
Invention now refers to conceptualization- the process through which we assign meaning to data through
interpretation, an acknowledgment of the fact that we do not simply discover what exists but create it through the
interpretative categories we use.Arrangement is the process of organizing symbols- arranging information in light
of the relationship among the people, symbols, and context involved. Style concerns all of the considerations
involved in the presentation of those symbols, from choice of symbol systemto the meanings we give those
symbols, as well as all symbolic behavior from words and actions to clothing and furniture. Delivery has become the
embodiment of symbols in some physical form, encompassing the range of options from nonverbals to talk to
writing to mediated messages.Finally, memory no longer refers to the simple memorization of speeches but to
larger reservoirs of cultural memory as well as to processes ofperception that affect how we retain and process
information (Littlejohn & Foss, 2005, p. 50).
Littlejohn and Foss (2005) make a number of interesting distinctions in their contemporary description
of rhetoric’s five canons. They make reference to the need for interpretation, organization, the assignment
of meaning, informal relationships, context, processes of interpretation, cultural memory, non-verbal
communication and the physical product of invention and symbol use, which can be defined as,“an
action, object, event, etc., that expresses or represents a particular idea or quality (Merriam-Webster,
[APA],2015), or, as put forth by Elvira M. Spriova (2013), it’s something that, “… helps us shed light on
the origins of mankind, describe the sensible world, and explore the phenomenon of human nature” (p.

46). These particulars are inherent in both the construction and understanding of recorded images and the
production of meaning.
So what is an image? Prior to the invention of cameras and photographs, image creation belonged
almost solely to society’s artists. For centuries, paintings and sculptures (and music as well) epitomized
peoples’ understanding of beauty. Artists were employed to capture and preserve true likenesses while
expressing their unique aesthetic sensibilities. But the invention of photography forever changed what it
meant to be an artist, and it’s the primary medium I’ll be examining here. The camera can capture in
seconds what the painter or sculptor might spend months or years trying to reproduce, and this technology
helped to spawn a new age of mass-media production, and this altered our ideas concerning meaning
(particularly shared meaning), language and communication. “… photographs are,as we all know,
products of physical and chemical processes. They are produced by capturing the light emitted or
reflected by an object through a lens onto the light-sensitive carrier of film or a photographic plate
(Keilbach, 2009, p. 55). However,a photograph’s power lies in its symbolic, historical, cultural,
contextual and aesthetic significance. They are relational and situational. They’re connotation and syntax
involved. Images have a way of offering up their own brand of language and their own form of rhetoric.
John Berger (1972) writes,
An image is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced. It is an appearance,or a set of appearances,which
has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved-for a few moments or
a few centuries … Every image embodies a way of seeing.Even a photograph.For photographs are not,as is often
assumed,a mechanical record. Every time we look at a photograph,we are aware, however slightly, of the

photographerselecting that sight from an infinity of other possible sights … The photographer’s way of seeing is
reflected in his choice of subject. The painter’s way of seeing is reconstituted by the marks he makes on the canvas
or paper. Yet, although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends
also upon our own way of seeing (p. 9-10).
In an article devoted to advertising and images, author Linda M. Scott (1994) links age-old rhetorical
concepts with modern marketing techniques, arguing in favor of a convention-based model of reality and
media knowledge with regards to the way images are interpreted. She writes,
If we are to construe advertising images as a form of rhetoric, then visuals must have certain capabilities and
characteristics. First, visual elements must be capable of representing concepts,abstractions,actions,metaphors and
modifiers, such that they can be used in the invention of a complex argument. There further must be an ability to
guide the order of argumentation via the arrangement of the visual elements. Visual elements must also carry
meaningful variation in their manner of delivery, such that the selection of style can suggest an intended evaluation.
The rhetorical intention behind a visual message would be communicated by the implicit selection of one view over
another, a certain style of illustration versus anotherstyle,this layout but not that layout. Response to such selective
communication would necessarily draw on a shared visual vocabulary and a learned s ystemof pictorial conventions
(p. 253).
And it’s this “visual vocabulary”- this conventional use of symbols that’s presented (either intentionally
or unintentionally), shaped and delivered, that produces a shared understanding among viewers, because
what is a photograph if not a representation, a symbol, of something else? If rhetoric implies something
more than dialogue, if it implies the carefulmanipulation of symbol use, than it’s necessary to also view

(so to speak) the communicative properties of images from a semiotic perspective.
The study of semiotics encompasses a wide-range of topics and concepts, but basically, it’s the study of
signs. This paper mainly concerns the rhetoric of images and symbol use,and it should be clear that
there’s a difference between symbols and signs. The terms aren’t wholly interchangeable, but are often
used in conjunction or in lieu of one another. A symbol represents an abstract concept. It’s something
which manifests a conceptual connection in a person. A sign is more like a conveyance. It’s an indicator,
and can be thought to consist of both a signifier and what is being signified: in other words, smoke
(signifier) might indicate (the signified) that something is on fire. Here,what’s being signified is also an
abstract concept,and both are indicative of another condition, but I think a symbol contains a certain
amount of value that’s distinct from what is actually being symbolized and that fact further distinguishes a
symbol from a sign. However,in order to explore the way meaning is formed- in order to grasp the
relationship between the image maker and the image viewer,it’s important to consider the properties of
both signs and symbols when discussing the communicative properties of images.
Littlejohn and Foss (2005) write that is was Charles Saunders Pierce who first considered the idea that
the relationship between an object and a sign isn’t strictly binary. There is also the human individuals’
understanding of that relationship. They write that, “the sign represents the object, or referent,in the mind
of an interpreter” (p. 36). These three factors create a triad of meaning which forms the basis of the
semiotic tradition and is useful with regard to understanding relationships non-verbal symbol usage.
The most basic model of communication describes the process quite simply and succinctly. This
model begins with what’s called a sender- someone who must transmit and encoded message. This

message travels via some sort of channel,and the message is then decoded by the receiver. This process
often results in some form of feedback.
A similar model, or a model of some kind, is needed while attempting to understand the ways in which
images communicate. Like the semiotic model, the above description also contains a triad- a sender,a
channel and a receiver,or for our purposes here- the image maker,the image (or artifact) and the
viewer(s). The image maker arrives with certain qualities, abilities and intentions. These qualities are
necessarily determined by a number of factors- social, cultural, economic, psychological, etc. These
factors (whether consciously or unconsciously) help determine not only “why” the maker “makes”,but
also the content that actually appears in the artifact as wellas the channel through which the maker
expresses himself. Next, we have the artifact itself. The artifact contains a plethora of visual cues and
codes such as use of color, quality of light, cropping, focus and depth of field to help convey the symbolic
attributes of the artifact’s cultural,social and historical elements. Then there is the viewer,who, like the
maker,interprets the artifact through a lens of communal and contextual understanding that’s determined
by (often similar) social, cultural and ideological factors. Littlejohn and Foss (2005) write,
… nonlinguistic signs create special pragmatic problems. For example, visual codes are more open in their potential
meanings- their interpretation is ultimately subjective and more connected to the internal perceptual and thought
processes ofthe viewer than to conventionalrestricted representations.This is not to say that a person’s meaning for
an image is entirely individual; indeed, visual meanings can be and are affected by learning, culture, and other
socially shared forms of interaction. But perceiving visual images is not the same as understanding language.Images
require pattern recognition, organization, and discrimination, not just representationalconnections.Thus the

meanings of visual images rely heavily on both individualized and social perception and knowledge (p. 37-38).
Roland Barthes (1980), who devoted considerable time and energy to the study of photography, arrives
at a similar conclusion in his essay, Camera Lucida.He writes,
I observed that a photograph can be the object of three practices (or of three emotions, or of three intentions): to do,
to undergo,to look. The Operator is the Photographer.The Spectator is ourselves,all of us who glance through
collections of photographs-in magazines and newspapers,in books,albums, archives … And the person or thing
photographed is the target … (pg. 9).
It’s through this process,this triad, this relationship, that meaning is achieved. But meaning is
subjective. Every viewer necessarily brings his or her own unique viewpoints to what is being observed,
as well as it is being observed. “For example, if you were to look at a painting by Vincent van Gogh, you
would assign meaning shared with virtually all other viewers, but you would probably also have a private
subjective meaning for the painting as well” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2005, pg.102).What’s also interesting is
that there is often no direct contact between the maker and the viewer, therefore making reciprocity
almost impossible, but not entirely. Advances in technology, like the camera- which changed peoples’
conception of art, make it possible for images and photographs to further transcend time and space,
transmuting the physiological processes of observation and memory. If images are in fact representations
or re-creations,then the availability of re-creations of re-creations dispersed through mass media channels
further multiplies what meaning actually “is”. John Berger (1972) writes,
This is vividly illustrated by what happens when a painting is shown on a television screen. The painting enters each
viewer’s house.There it is surrounded by his wallpaper, his furniture, his mementoes. It enters the atmosphere of his

family. It becomes their talking point. It lends its meaning to their meaning. At the same time it enters a million
other houses and,in each of them, is seen in a different context. Because of the camera, the painting now travels to
the spectatorrather than the spectatorto the painting. In its travels, its meaning is diversified (pg. 19-20).
Barthes (1977) asks,in his essay Rhetoric of the Image,“how does meaning get into the image? Where
does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond (pg.152). It would seem that meaning is not arbitrary.
It’s contextual and dependent on cultural understanding, and at least part of an image’s meaning is
derived through a clear interpretation. Rhetoric of the Image,explores the ways in which images convey
messages and how those messages shape people’s ideas about reality. Barthes (1977) states that images
contain both connotative and denotative properties and that an image’s “rhetoric” signifies the
connotative nature of cultural understanding- differentiating between an image’s literal (denotative)
meaning and its provocative (connotative) meaning. Olga Panzaru (2012) writes that Barthes considers
connotation as involving a “higher level of interpretation” due to a particular culture’s connotative
similarities, and that an image’s rhetoric, “… is determined according to Barthes by the sum of meanings
yielded by the signs which compose the code and are in the image with ideology tying them together into
a coherent utterance”. (pg. 410-411).
And it’s the summary of meaning that needs expansion, because logic insists that there can be no
single, individual interpretation of meaning. On a personal level, meaning becomes individualized, but
culture and ideology are crucial components to how meaning is attributed. In Camera Lucida,Barthes
continues to examine the nature of photography, but he does so intimately- from a personal point of view.
He writes, “I was overcome by an ‘ontological’ desire: I wanted to learn at all costs what Photography
was ‘in itself’, by what essential feature it was to be distinguished from the community of images” (pg.

3).
In Camera Lucida,Barthes divides the experience of looking at a photograph into two distinct
categories- the studium and the punctum. He describes the studium as being a purely cultural response
that creates a general,so-so effect on the viewer. It’s a picture that merely informs through convention
and codes and is virtually banal in quality. The punctum,on the other hand, is that photo which creates a
genuine emotional response. It’s “… that accident which pricks me” (Barthes,1980, pg. 27). Barthes
considered this state to be “accidental” because emotional responses are personal and subjective- not
universal. A photograph endowed with the quality of studium is affective only in its ability to transmit
information, but the quality of punctum acts like a strong, emotional trigger, and it’s this quality that is
transformative- providing the image with a higher level of relevance and aesthetic significance.
Foss (year) writes, “there is virtually nothing that is part of the human experience that cannot be looked
at from a rhetorical perspective” (cite). This of course means that rhetorical theory is also suited to the
study of symbol use and every aspect of visual and nonverbal communication- art,architecture, design,
literature, music, cinema and photography can all be studied within a rhetorical context. “Today,
television and movies, billboards and video games, websites and computer graphics are studied by
rhetoricians as much as are discursive texts … Most rhetorical theorists today subscribe, to some degree,
to the notion that humans create their worlds through symbols- that the world we know is the one offered
to us by our language” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2005, pg. 52). Although photographs are especially suited for
record keeping, a photograph is not reality, or actually, the pictorial elements are not reality. They are
only representations of one imagined reality. These elements are coded, symbolic, contextual and

subjective and these elements are interpreted through a series of personal associations which are linked
together by a shared knowledge that accumulates both culturally and historically. The camera forever
changed our conception of art, media and media distribution. Photographic images can be looked at (both
literally and figuratively) as two-dimensional abstractions- communicative devices capable of informing
and expressing. Berger writes, “… images are more precise and richer than literature. To say this is not to
deny the expressive or imaginative quality of art,treating it as mere documentary evidence; the more
imaginative the work, the more profoundly it allows us to share the artist’s experience of the visible” (pg.
10).
SOURCES
Littlejohn, S.W., & Foss, K. A. (2005). Theories of Human Communication. Belmont,CA: Thomson
Wadsworth.
Tarnas,R. (1991). The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our
World View. New York,NY: Ballantine.
Berger,J. (1977). Ways of Seeing. NewYork, NY: British Broadcasting Corportation & Penguin Books.
Barthes,R. (1980). Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New York, NY: Hill & Wang.
Barthes,Roland. (1977). Rhetoric of the Image. Image-Music-Text, 32-51. Retrieved from Academic
Search Complete.
Scott, Linda M. (1994). Images in Advertising: The Need for a Theory of Visual Rhetoric. Journal of
Consumer Research,21,252-271. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete.
Keilbach, Judith. (2009). Photographs, Symbolic Images,and the Holocaust: On the (Im)Possibility of
Depicting Historical Truth. History and Theory,47,54-76. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete.

Foss, Karen A. (2009). Rhetorical Theory. Encyclopedia of Communication Theory,854-858. Retrieved
from Academic Search Complete.
Roach, Thomas J. (2013). Public Relations is an Ancient Art: The Five Canons of Rhetoric Are All Facets
of Effective Business Communication. Rock Products,36. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete.
Spirova, Elvira M. (2013). The Symbol as an Anthropological Concept. Russian Studies in Philosophy,
52(2), 46-60. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete.
Panzaru, Olga. (2012). Semiotic Interdependence Between Text and Visual Image. Agronomy Seriesof
Scientific Research,55(2),409-412. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete.
Rhetoric. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5,2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rhetoric
Symbol. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5,2015, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/symbol

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