Special Section Editorial

Themed section on Visual rhetoric and rhetorics of the visual

Abstract

My aim for this broadly-conceived special section in Image & Text on visual rhetoric and rhetorics of the visual is to highlight the multiple ways in which rhetorical approaches can offer valuable perspectives on a broad range of visual cultural products and practices. More specifically, one of my main objectives was to solicit studies that consider the rhetorical constitution of visual cultural phenomena via a mixture of visual and verbal argumentation. This means paying attention to how visual artifacts operate as persuasive “arguments”, while recognising the essential role played by verbal argumentation when it comes to the creation, justification, promotion and evaluation of the visual. I am delighted that the articles presented here reflect on these interconnected aspects of visual rhetorical inquiry (the rhetoricity of visual language and the rhetoricity of language about the visual).