In this assignment, you will examine a text (by “text” I here refer to anything which can be read to contain meaning)––an advertisement, artwork, object, map, building, or a physical space––for its textual and rhetorical features, analyzing how its form, layout, and/or physicality affect its content(s). You are to examine its features and question their purposes: what messages, cultural myths (think Barthes), and/or dreams does it convey, and how? Consider the following questions:
-What choices did the creator/author have to make, and why did they make them? -How do these choices reflect the values of the creator?
-What is the linguistic message? The symbolic message?
-What audience does the text “speak” to?
-Is it trying to persuade? To sell? To create an atmosphere?
-Does it perpetuate cultural myths? Does it attempt to create new myths?
-How does it interact with history?
-How does the material or medium affect the meaning?
-Is language utilized in any way? How and why? What about typography?
-If language is used, what lexicons or idiolects does it draw from? See: Barthes’
“Rhetoric of the Image”
-What colors are used, and to what effect?
-Are any symbols utilized? What type of symbols are they––cultural, national, religious, etc––and what do they convey? How do they work together?
-Does time or duration affect the text’s meaning?
-What is the text’s cultural and historical context?
-How was the text made, and who made it? Does the text depict something else(i.e. a product)? If so, who made what it depicts? Consider Bertolt Brecht’s imperative at the end of his poem “In Praise of Learning”: “Put your finger on each item, ask: how did this get there?”
-Where and how would an audience come into contact with this text?How does this affect the text’s meaning?
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