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Non-discursive Rhetoric: Image and Affect in Multimodal Composition
Technological advances have the potential to create new languages unlike printed or spoken words. The increased textual complexity generated by sophisticated graphics, photos, hypermedia, film, typography, and other modes of expression requires a theory of language and symbolization that accommodates emotion, ambiguity, simultaneity, and layers of dynamic meaning. In Non-discursive Rhetoric, Joddy Murray uses concepts from philosophy, rhetorical theory, and recent advances in neuroscience to develop a model of composing that connects contemporary writing practices, technology, and image functions within the mind. The theory and classroom practices presented here provide tools for writing teachers to help students compose various hybridized, multimodal texts. Murray highlights the significance for student composition of the relationships among emotions, images, and argumentation, and demonstrates the importance of considering the rhetorical dimensions of design choices in multimodal composition.
242 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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March 10, 2016
I read this as a teacher of writing who teaches multimodal composition, but also as part of my research for my dissertation in which I explore an alternate history of multimodal comp. A chapter of my dissertation is focused on how mental images are central to thinking, and I use this point as evidence of my larger claim that multimodal writing isn't as new as it seems to many. In this way, I knew something about Murray's point before I began reading.
I found this book to be hard to follow at times. The subject matter is complex, but the author made it even harder to understand than it is naturally. For a book about non-discursive rhetoric, I'm disappointed to be finishing the entire text with some doubt remaining about what the term really means. From what I've gathered, the term means basically everything other than our logical, sequential writing that we teach and prize in schools. So it could be anything from the spacing in an outline to a photograph to a pictorial ad. It could also be a sound or a gesture or anything else we can see or hear, so long as it is not a discursive text.
While I agree with the author as a whole, i'm not sure what the ultimate point of this book really is. Clearly, he wants us to understand the role of images in creating emotion and affect, and he also wants us to recognize that image and affect should play a role in composition. But I do not really see him explain HOW any of this might occur. How might we teach nondiscursive text in a way that does not still yield a discursive product. Right now, all of the multimodal comp that I teach ends in a discursive project. I really don't know what a nondiscursive project would look like or how I might assess it. It seems like to assess it, I would need to see a discursive reflection explaining it or the student would need to orally explain in a discursive manner. Throughout the margins, I just kept writing "how?"
The author tells us that in the final chapter, he will apply all of the theory he presents by advocating a particular way to teach writing. So I looked forward to that practical application, but the final chapter is, alas, just as theoretical as the prior three. HOW is not explored in this highly theoretical work.
I found this book to be hard to follow at times. The subject matter is complex, but the author made it even harder to understand than it is naturally. For a book about non-discursive rhetoric, I'm disappointed to be finishing the entire text with some doubt remaining about what the term really means. From what I've gathered, the term means basically everything other than our logical, sequential writing that we teach and prize in schools. So it could be anything from the spacing in an outline to a photograph to a pictorial ad. It could also be a sound or a gesture or anything else we can see or hear, so long as it is not a discursive text.
While I agree with the author as a whole, i'm not sure what the ultimate point of this book really is. Clearly, he wants us to understand the role of images in creating emotion and affect, and he also wants us to recognize that image and affect should play a role in composition. But I do not really see him explain HOW any of this might occur. How might we teach nondiscursive text in a way that does not still yield a discursive product. Right now, all of the multimodal comp that I teach ends in a discursive project. I really don't know what a nondiscursive project would look like or how I might assess it. It seems like to assess it, I would need to see a discursive reflection explaining it or the student would need to orally explain in a discursive manner. Throughout the margins, I just kept writing "how?"
The author tells us that in the final chapter, he will apply all of the theory he presents by advocating a particular way to teach writing. So I looked forward to that practical application, but the final chapter is, alas, just as theoretical as the prior three. HOW is not explored in this highly theoretical work.
Displaying 1 of 1 review