Visual rhetorical argumentation

What is it about?

In semiotics and the study of pictorial communication, the conceptualization of visual rhetoric and argumentation has been dominated by two connected approaches: firstly, by providing an understanding of visual rhetoric through tropes and figures; and secondly, by interpreting pictures as texts that are read and decoded in the same way as words. Because these approaches provide an opportunity to understand pictures as a form of language, they contribute in explaining how pictures can be used to argue. At the same time, however, these approaches seem to under-communicate two central aspects of pictorial argumentation: its embedment in specific situations and the distinguishing phenomenological aesthetics of pictures. This paper argues that the study of visual argumentation must understand pictures both as language and as a material aesthetic event. The possibility and actuality of visual argumentation is partly explained by understanding argumentation as a cognitive and situational phenomenon, and partly by introducing the notion of symbolic condensation. It is suggested that reconstruction of visual argumentation should be supported by reception analysis.

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