Martin Solomon's 'The Power of Punctuation' causes me to think twice as I write this. On my blog, the options for text variation (outside of the initial setting) consist of 'normal' which without question, I always use for posts, and three others: heading, subheading and minor heading. To indicate these, the creator of this blog site uses size changes and boldface text, declining slightly as we move from heading down to normal. Is it not somewhat strange that we innately know these characteristics to define, or categorize, thoughts?
You Should Naturally Think Now That This Is A Heading- Something New And Important Happens Here
Solomon's focus is less of size and appearance, but more on the physicality of punctuation of the page. He explains: "Most punctuation marks are designed to be seen, not heard. These subtle, often understated, devices are quite important, however, for they are the meter that determines the measure within the silent voice of typography" (282). He goes on to assimilate punctuation to music, in that it helps direct pitch, volume, and separation of words.
Gunther Kress, though he focuses more closely on genre in his article ' Multinodality, Multimedia, and Genre', still can reinforce Solomon's idea of how punctuation can in a sense 'manipulate' the reader's interpretation of a text. Kress explains the relationship between 'participants' and 'the act of communication' as an "objective" one (42). "The viewer is presented with the text-element "front-on." It is objectively there, with maximal "involvement" of the viewer, that is, the viewer is positioned as confronting the image straight on..." (Kress 42-3). He seems to be getting at here the idea that the way we present a text can help determine the reader's level of involvement or inclusion in it's interpretation. And just look at all the punctuation Kress used to contribute to the reader's understanding! It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there is always a right and wrong, a black and white, with writing and grammar, when in reality (or Solomon's reality, at least) we do have a relative freedom to help express our own style as authors and to guide our reader to see the text the way we want them to.
I love your heading in the middle of the page. It bugs me that Wysoki bothers with teaching us this stuff. I know that a heading means something new is going to happen. I see the point she is trying to make but she is making it in such a broad context. I wonder how important the size of my text or the placement of subtitles adds to the rhetoric of a web page? It is obvious that you cant have a block chunk but then i think it must not be that obvious because she is wasting her time writing 20 pages. I found Kress and Solomon more helpful. I always wonder how much grammar is actually inserted by the writer in terms of rhetoric and style. The only examples I can think of are poems. How many people are analyzing grammar as they write in a rhetorical way? and how many people are analyzing rhetoric in punctuation? Do authors insert rhetorical punctuation? or is it found by the analyzer?
ReplyDeleteGreat post Lea! My level of involvement always seems to match the amount of craft in a piece. When I find creativity in a piece, I am intrigued by their craftsmanship and will spend time decoding how they were able to take words we use daily and create something special. In a weird way punctuation contributes a lot to the way I read, see, and imagine the writer’s voice coming through the piece. You were able to demonstrate that very well.
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