Rhetoric and modes

rhetoric and the graphic novel

english 4810-6810

rifenburg

rhetoric

How a text means vs what a text means

The production of text vs interpretation of text (poetic)

--James Berlin, Rhetoric and Reality

Aristotle's definition: seeing all the available means of persuasion in any given case

To help study textual production or produce text ourselves

Context

Kairos

Constraints

Exigence

What is this discourse about?

Why is this discourse needed?

What is the discourse trying to accomplish?

--Keith Grant-Davie "Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents"

"the production of spoken and written text" (Berlin 1)

What is text?

What isn't text?

Everything is rhetoric according to Kenneth Burke

Everything is produced, formed, manipulated by humans

But for our purposes, let's stick to comics

modes: "the result of a social and historical shaping of materials chosen by a society for representation" (11)

Gunther Kress's Multimodality

Think Lascaux, the Spinx, Egyptian hieroglyphics, tweets,

Traditional college writing assignment:

white 8.5 x 11 sheet paper

black ink

standard font (Times New Roman, Arial, no Calibri!!)

12 point font or so

left alignment

paragraphs

alphabetic text

English

Design and mode is determined because of the genre

In comics, the genre is much more fluid

The communicative modes are more diverse

Lettering (the how)

Alphabetic text (the what)

Inks

Colors

Cover

Layout

How are comic creators using these various communicative modes?

How are comics produced to persuade?

HOW DO THEY MEAN?