Blog 4

Birdsell and Groarke’s purpose is to take David Fleming’s claim that “visual images (“pictures”) cannot, he claims, be arguments” and prove him wrong. (1) In fact according to Birdsell and Groarke “the point that visual images are frequently vague and indeterminate cannot, in view of the demonstrable indeterminacy of verbal expressions, show that images are intrinsically less precise than spoken or written words.” (2) Simplistically meaning that even though pictures can be vague does not mean that they are any less exact with sending their message than that of spoke or written word. A picture of a bloody battle may not tell you where the battle took place, what day, what time or who was fighting, but it will still tell you that a battle was fault and the end results were tragic. While a passage from a novel may depict a bloody battle scene with gruesome looking corpses littered around, this is hardly more detailed and in fact is telling you the same thing that a picture of that battle scene might show. Sometimes a picture has the ability to come across with more meaning than words ever can. Some things in life cannot be expressed in words. Imagine the most beautiful scenery you can think of and then think of the words to describe it, you can spend a lifetime trying to find the perfect word to describe the scenery and always fall up short. However you can take a photo of that perfect scenery and capture that image as it is for a lifetime and never once need a word to describe it.


Birdsell and Groarke provide a solid argument for immediate verbal context, immediate visual context and visual culture. They divulge into the significance of each term in its relation to visual argument. For instance, “ the significance of immediate visual context is most obvious in film, for it incorporates a progression of images which allows us to recognize a single frame as part of an overarching argument.” (6) Birdsell and Groarke go on to say that immediate visual contexts capture “more than the sequences of images” and that immediate verbal context “provides a basis for the interpretation of visual images.” (6)


Works Cited:

1. Birdsell, David S; Groarke, Leo. Toward a Theory of Visual Argument. (Argumentation and Advocacy. 33.1 (1996). Research Library)