Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Jan 2005

Visual Metonymy and Synecdoche: Rhetoric for Stage-Setting Images

Russell Willerton Texas Tech University

Abstract

The recent trend of incorporating more visuals into communication challenges technical communicators, who must now possess both verbal and visual literacy. Despite all the recent scholarship on visual aspects of technical communication, technical communicators lack thorough guidelines for selecting and composing effective images that convey thematic and conceptual information, or what Schriver calls “stage-setting” images. This article reviews existing literature in visual communication and reports results of a study that assessed readers' opinions of themes conveyed by specific example images. It then suggests that the rhetorical tropes of metonymy and synecdoche can be used to identify images for conveying certain themes, and that successful stage-setting images will show intrinsic, not extrinsic, relationships to their thematic subject matter.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
2005-01-01
DOI
10.2190/p22x-gka9-7fgt-mt2x
Open Access
Closed
Topics
multimodality technical communication

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (5)

  1. Lane (2021)
    Industrial Discourse in Voluntary Environmental Disclosure Questionnaires Respo…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Zhang (2016)
    Illustrating Beauty and Utility
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Garwood (2013)
    Metonymy and Plain Language
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  4. Yu (2011)
    Visualizing Banking and Financial Products: A Comparative Study of Chinese and …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  5. Willerton et al. (2011)
    Evaluating Applications for an Informal Approach to Information Design: Readers…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

Cites in this index (4)

  1. Salinas (2002)
    Technical Rhetoricians and the Art of Configuring Images
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Andrews (1999)
    Book Reviews
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  3. Kostelnick (1996)
    Supra-Textual Design: The Visual Rhetoric of Whole Documents
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Dragga (1992)
    Evaluating pictorial illustrations
    Technical Communication Quarterly
Also cites 4 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.2307/357383
     ↗
  2. 10.1080/10510979409368425
     ↗
  3. 10.1525/9780520912045
     ↗
  4. 10.4324/9780203166277_chapter_4
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 17 View in citation network →

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