Punctuation and Gender advertisement

Punctuation has been a significant function in sentences. Without punctuation, readers have hard time to go through the sentences. The purpose of using punctuation is organizing the whole sentences. Punctuation not only distinguishes between the sentences, but also clarifies or emphasizes the contents. It unifies the sentences according to their relevancies. Capital letters have almost the same functions too. Also, capital letters are able to clarify a beginning of sentence and emphasize a significant word. Those capital letters easily get readers' attention, and readers can understand key points in the sentences based on capital letters.

Period mark is definitely one of the most useful punctuation. It must exist in order to unify the each sentence. Without period mark, all the sentences are connected to each other, they don't make any sense. Also, quotation and question marks are useful to show who the sentences head for, and avoid some misunderstanding in the sentences.

Solomon, Martin. "The Power of Punctuation." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World (2004): 282-289.
















This is an advertisement for Tiffany &Co. According to Goffman, men are usually taller than women in advertisements. He mentioned one of reasons is that bigger sizes symbolize their strengths and superiority of status. However, I can see both man and woman are about the height in this picture. Also, I've seen many of advertisements which men are not much taller than women. If I analyze this conversion according to Goffman's theory, this is because status of women has improved these days. Because men are not longer take over all the status, they don't have to be symbolized as strength anymore.

On the other hand, I see another Goffman's theory, "the feminine touch" in this advertisement. (Gender advertisements 29) The woman in the picture put her hand on the breast. Women usually look more elegant with this gesture. I think the feminine touch is still common in advertisements.

Goffman, Erving. "GENDER ADVERTISEMENT. " 28-80.

Verbal and visual arguments

From my understanding, according to Blair, the main point is that we see arguments both in visual and verbal ways. "Visual arguments are not distinct in essence from verbal arguments. The argument is always a propositional entity, merely expressed differently in the two cases." (VR 362) He also mentions that visual arguments can be as strong as verbal arguments. Let me introduce one Japanese proverb, "Seeing is believing." This basically means "seeing once is as persuasive as hearing a hundred times." This sounds kind of extreme, but I mostly agree with both Blair's theory and the proverb. Visuals are sometimes very powerful; especially, when we see something we have never seen before.

For instance, when we see the pictures of disasters; although we read articles about huge earthquakes, without a visual we can't really realize how serious they are. In this case, descriptions of damages or numbers of deaths in a newspaper article (verbal elements) aren't really persuasive. Probably, not because of poor contexts, but because readers' lack of imagination. In some situations, we'll never understand something unless we experience on our own. Understanding verbal arguments sometimes requires us to have prior knowledge or experiences.

On the other hand, I also agree with Blair's point, "The sender of the message lacks the power to have his or her intentions well understood, since the receiver is free to interpret in various ways." (VR 361) There is always no guarantee that receivers interpret as senders mean. The diverse backgrounds and various kinds of common sense mean that misconceptions are basically unavoidable unless a message is particularly created for a common audience.

Blair, Anthony J. "The Possibility and Actuality of Visual Arguments." Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World (2004): 344-362.

Watch your step going home!

Probably, we all have experienced at least once that some stores or trees suddenly disappear from local streets. On the other hand also we sometimes see new unfamiliar objects suddenly appear on the streets. We can recognize those alterations when outside is light. However, what if it is at night? What if outside is completely dark? Can we notice that something changed? I discovered the answer walking home one night.

This story goes back to the days when I was in Auburn where I went to a community college. One quiet night, I was going back to my apartment from a night class. Usually, my friend took me back to the apartment; however, that night I was taking a walk going back to the apartment myself. There were two apartments next to each other, and mine was the second one. If I take the normal route, it usually takes fifteen minutes from the campus to the apartment. However, there was a shorter way which I called the super short cut. The way was actually a parking lot for the first apartment; if I cut across the parking lot, I saved about five minutes. So, I took the short cut every time I walked back from the campus.

Everything seemed as usual until my whole body suddenly got covered in mud. I did not understand what happened to me for a moment. Then, I took a look around; I could see nothing but mud. As I looked up, the sky was way up higher than normal. Finally, I realized that I fell into a huge hole in the parking lot that I had never seen there before. Because it was at night, outside was completely dark and I couldn't see the hole. Moreover, the hole was extremely huge; it was deeper than my height. I couldn't even reach the top of the hole with my arms outstretched. I tried to get out of the hole, but that hole was all covered with slippy and thick mud; I was completely stuck. After a long effort, I realized that it was impossible to get out on my own. Unfortunately, I couldn't use my cell phone because the phone was in my bag which was completely covered in mud. The only thing I could do was waiting until someone would pass by and help me out.

First, I called for help pretty loud, "Help me! I'm in the hole!" but nobody came to help me. So, I started waiting until someone would come. Probably, I had been waiting for twenty minutes in the hole. Finally, I heard some people came talking and walking near the hole. As soon as I heard a voice, I screamed very loud "Help me! I'm stuck in the hole!" Two guys heard my scream, and came to me. I will never forget their facial expression when they found me in the deep and muddy hole. They were so shocked that I was stuck in the huge hole on that cold night. They rescued me from that big muddy hole. After I got back to my room, I looked at myself in a mirror. The reflection showed me all covered with mud and some small bruises.

The next day I went back to the parking lot, but the hole was already gone. Instead of the hole, I saw one brand-new street lamp. The night I fell into the hole, the parking lot was under construction for the lamp. Knowing this, I really wished they would have finished the construction one day earlier so that I wouldn't have fallen into the hole.

And, this why you don't walk across the parking lot at night!

What's rhetoric?

Rhetoric has a long history since the fifth century B.C. This is one part of Arts which is about understanding of using symbols in our lives.

Humans are the only animals who create substantial symbols and use those in the real life. Our reality is through the symbols, and we share meanings of the term. Although other animals are able to cognize symbols, they will not be able to use those in their real lives. Using substantial symbols for ordinary communication distinguishes between human and other animals.

We use various kinds of symbols which represent something else. For instance, we use a term "lemon" refer to "sour fruit." This representation comes from unchangeable fact that lemon is sour. In this case, lemon will be always referred as sour unless scientists modify lemon to sweet or spicy in the future. However, there is a symbol which could have been referring to different meaning. For example, we use a term "Cougars" refer to "Washington State University." This is because cougars have known as WSU's school mascot for long time, and not only WSU students, but also other local residents know this fact. What if "Alligators" has been WSU's school mascot? If so, "Cougar" has not represented WSU, but "Alligators." This is not unchangeable fact; someone invented what the symbol stands for.

To me, rhetoric is more like common sense among those who share some experiences, thoughts, cultures, and so on. Those who understand what symbols stand for which could be different depend on one's background.

a. The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.

The free dictionary. 17 Jun 2008 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rhetoric.

Rhetoric is the study of misunderstandings and their remedies.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/english/courses/sites/lunsford/pages/defs.htm