Page 339 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 339
challenges of rhetoric in the era of “bytes and likes” 339
stantly shifting and changing milieu of ideas, events, appearances, and
meanings” (Soja, 1996: 2); a third space is a reflective space from which
the actual and practical cultural place can be seen.
If we revisit its disciplinary history, rhetoric’s spatial capacity is un-
questionable. The main aim of the establishment of rhetoric was to form
the building elements and rules which inhabit and govern an autono-
mous discursive sphere apart from – or authentically connected to – re-
ality. In oral communication rhetoric was also a container (Esposito,
2002) where traces of past experiences were stored and exposed on cer-
tain occasions. As the architect of culture, rhetoric provided commun-
ities and societies with spaces of discourse; this could not be done with-
out spatial logic and intelligence in message construction.
Spatial intelligence, one of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences
(1993), concerns the ability of thinking in three dimensions: having
mental imagery, graphic skills, and the capacity to reason spatially and
imagine actively. From this, it is obvious that spatial intelligence is re-
lated closely to visual intelligence and visual, hyper-textual new media.
However, the intelligence for space also includes abilities for less con-
crete impressions including skills for the abstract, for the schematic, and
for the mapped. Although visualizing governs spatial practices, in or-
der to be understood and answered, space has its specific requirements.
Conceiving and analysing an argument is less a visual than a spatial ex-
perience even if exploited in pictures or images, as Venn-diagrams with
the overlapping circles may prove. Spatial capacities add dimensions to
the visual and develop structural hierarchy, reasoning, and hyper-text-
ual consumption skills.
Ancient speakers used their spatial intelligence effectively in re-
membering their speeches. They were architects of their ideas, imagin-
ing them either in buildings or in streets, and they were landlords of
that building to which the audience was invited to visit. The imagin-
ative is memorable; in classical rhetoric, the art of memory highlights
the way rhetoric performers recoded their speeches in pictures, in spaces,
and in mental sites from where words and ideas could be recalled. With
the urge to remember, they worked out the text’s spatial experience, en-
riched by visual impressions. Hence, the rhetorical text was recomposed
visually and spatially to convey, in a persuasive way, meanings, symbols,
and ideas. The discursive sphere was created by a visual-spatial thinking
about and of words and relationships. Therefore, the researcher claims
that rhetorical “texts” are messages which have visual and spatial char-
stantly shifting and changing milieu of ideas, events, appearances, and
meanings” (Soja, 1996: 2); a third space is a reflective space from which
the actual and practical cultural place can be seen.
If we revisit its disciplinary history, rhetoric’s spatial capacity is un-
questionable. The main aim of the establishment of rhetoric was to form
the building elements and rules which inhabit and govern an autono-
mous discursive sphere apart from – or authentically connected to – re-
ality. In oral communication rhetoric was also a container (Esposito,
2002) where traces of past experiences were stored and exposed on cer-
tain occasions. As the architect of culture, rhetoric provided commun-
ities and societies with spaces of discourse; this could not be done with-
out spatial logic and intelligence in message construction.
Spatial intelligence, one of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences
(1993), concerns the ability of thinking in three dimensions: having
mental imagery, graphic skills, and the capacity to reason spatially and
imagine actively. From this, it is obvious that spatial intelligence is re-
lated closely to visual intelligence and visual, hyper-textual new media.
However, the intelligence for space also includes abilities for less con-
crete impressions including skills for the abstract, for the schematic, and
for the mapped. Although visualizing governs spatial practices, in or-
der to be understood and answered, space has its specific requirements.
Conceiving and analysing an argument is less a visual than a spatial ex-
perience even if exploited in pictures or images, as Venn-diagrams with
the overlapping circles may prove. Spatial capacities add dimensions to
the visual and develop structural hierarchy, reasoning, and hyper-text-
ual consumption skills.
Ancient speakers used their spatial intelligence effectively in re-
membering their speeches. They were architects of their ideas, imagin-
ing them either in buildings or in streets, and they were landlords of
that building to which the audience was invited to visit. The imagin-
ative is memorable; in classical rhetoric, the art of memory highlights
the way rhetoric performers recoded their speeches in pictures, in spaces,
and in mental sites from where words and ideas could be recalled. With
the urge to remember, they worked out the text’s spatial experience, en-
riched by visual impressions. Hence, the rhetorical text was recomposed
visually and spatially to convey, in a persuasive way, meanings, symbols,
and ideas. The discursive sphere was created by a visual-spatial thinking
about and of words and relationships. Therefore, the researcher claims
that rhetorical “texts” are messages which have visual and spatial char-
