Advancing a Critical Framework for the Identification and Analysis of Visual Euphemism in Technical Communication Visuals

by

Kevin W. Van Winkle, B.A., M.A.

A Dissertation

In

TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION AND RHETORIC

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Approved

Dr. Sean Zdenek Chair of Committee

Dr. Craig Baehr

Dr. Joyce Carter

Dr. Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School

May, 2016

Copyright 2016, Kevin W. Van Winkle Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To the chair of this dissertation, Dr. Sean Zdenek, thank you for your early interest in this project and continued support throughout it. Your feedback, questions, and critiques were invaluable, ultimately helping me to achieve a deeper understanding of the topics and issues discussed herein.

To Dr. Craig Baehr, thank you, as well, for the insight you were able to provide me during this dissertation process. Also, thank you for helping me to ensure that this dissertation was a “tech comm” dissertation. It was very important to me that it be such, and having you as a committee member guaranteed that it would be.

To Dr. Joyce Carter, thank you for sitting on my committee and your willingness to help me complete this dissertation. More than this, though, I want to thank you for your leadership over the TCR program. Upon listening to the “You-Are- Texas-Tech” speech on the first day of my first May seminar, I felt both fortunate and proud. Because of you and the entire TCR faculty and students I have had the opportunity to study and work with, I still feel the same way today.

To Dr. Miles Kimball, thank you for your encouragement and guidance. Your mark on my research here and elsewhere is indelible.

To my co-workers at the SDIN NMC, thank you for all of the support you provided me during my graduate studies. Specifically, I want to thank Steve King, my boss of 15 years, for his support and for never – not even once – denying me a day off from work, so that I could meet a homework deadline, attend a conference, or drive down to Lubbock, TX for two weeks. Additionally, I want to thank Maureen Fitzgerald, my friend and co-worker. Your genuine interest in my research and willingness to help will always be something I remember and value.

Lastly, to my family – Jen, Vera, Shug, Sophie, Abbi, and Bodie – thank you for your unwavering confidence in me. You never said “if,” only “when.”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... v LIST OF TABLES ...... vi LIST OF FIGURES ...... vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 …...The Need for a Critical Framework for Visual Eupehmism ...... 3 …Research Questions ...... 7 …...Technical Communication and Technical Communication Visuals ...... 8 …...Artifacts ...... 13 …...Politeness Theory ...... 18 …...Taboo and Technial Subjects ...... 20 …...Abstraction and Ideology ...... 21 …...Verbal and Visual Eupehmism Defined ...... 22 …...Provisional Example of the Framework ...... 23 …...Chapter Outline ...... 26 …...The Value of this Study ...... 27 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 29 …...Abstraction ...... 30 …...Ideology ...... 32 …...Abstraction and Ideology in Figurative Language ...... 37 …...Figures of Speech in Technical Communiation ...... 41 …...Visual Rhetoric in Technical Communication ...... 47 …...The Link between Visuals and Figurative Language ...... 53 …...Politeness Theory ...... 57 …...Politeness Theory in Technical Communiation ...... 64 …...Politeness Theory Methodology in Techical Communication ...... 73 …...Critiques of Politeness Theory ...... 75 …...Verbal and Visaul Euphemism Defined ...... 78 …...Conclusion ...... 79

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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ...... 81 …...Artifacts ...... 82 …...The Technial Illustrations of Mariano Taccola ...... 83 …...Golden Age Graphics ...... 88 …...Animated Ailments ...... 91 …...Politeness Theory Changes and Additions ...... 97 …...Deviation from Expected Usage ...... 105 …...Social Semiotics as Visual Analysis Tool Kit ...... 106 …...Methodology of the Critical Framework ...... 109 …...Limitations of the Critical Framework ...... 110 CHAPTER IV: CRITICAL FRAMEWORK APPLIED ...... 115 …...The Technical Illustrations of Mariano Taccola ...... 117 …...Golden Age Graphics ...... 150 …...Animated Ailments ...... 180 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ...... 195 …...Research Questions Revisited ...... 196 …...Implications ...... 212 …...Limitations and Future Research ...... 221 …...Conclusion ...... 228 REFERENCES ...... 229 APPENDIX ...... 245

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ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the concept of visual euphemism in technical communication visuals. Building upon Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory, I create a critical framework that allows for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism. I then apply this framework to a wide-ranging corpus of technical communication visuals to show how the concept of visual euphemism can inform our understanding of effective visual design, as well as expose how ideology is articulated in the visual artifacts created in the field of technical communication. Ultimately, I show that, rather than avoid visual euphemism because it ostensibly contradicts common and conventional principles of design and technical communication, technical communicators should recognize and exploit the facilitative power of visual euphemism to achieve their rhetorical goals.

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LIST OF TABLES 3.1: (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation ...... 105

4.1: Interclass correlation for all artifacts analyzed ...... 116

4.2: (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation ...... 117

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LIST OF FIGURES

1.1: Gun Deaths in Florida (2014) by Chan ...... 2

1.2: It was Never a Dress (2015) by Axosoft ...... 5

1.3: Redesigned restroom signs (2011) by SomeOne ...... 5

1.4: ADA compliant gender neutral restroom sign (2014) ...... 6

1.5: Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary (c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 14

1.6: Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed …...(c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 15

1.7: Swing-arm Trebuchet (c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 15

1.8: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East (1858) by …...Nightingale ...... 16

1.9: Napoleon's March on Moscow (1869) by Minard ...... 16

1.10: Digger the Dermatophyte (2003) by Deutsch NY ...... 17

1.11: Mr. Mucus (2004) by Adams Respiratory Therapeutics ...... 17

1.12: Gun Deaths in Florida (2014) by Chan ...... 24

2.1: Abstraction panel from Understanding Comics by McCloud (1994) ...... 31

3.1: Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary (c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 85

3.2: Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed …...(c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 86

3.3: Swing-arm Trebuchet (c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 87

3.4: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East (1858) by …...Nightingale ...... 89

3.5: Napoleon's March on Moscow (1869) by Minard ...... 90

3.6: Digger the Dermatophyte (2003) by Deutsch NY ...... 92

3.7: Mr. Mucus (2004) by Adams Respiratory Therapeutics ...... 93

3.8: Lamisil Advertisement (2003) by Deutsch NY ...... 95 vii Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

3.9: Scale for Social (D)istance ...... 102

3.10: Scale for (P)ower ...... 103

3.11: Scale for (R)ank of imposition on negative face ...... 104

3.12: Scale for (R)ank of imposition on positive face ...... 103

4.1: Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary (c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 119

4.2: Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed …...(c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 128

4.3: Swing-arm Trebuchet (c. 1450) by Taccola ...... 141

4.4: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East (1858) by …...Nightingale ...... 153

4.5: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East as stacked bar …...graph (2012) by Small ...... 163

4.6: Napoleon's March on Moscow (1869) by Minard ...... 169

4.7: Napoleon's March on Moscow with Isotypes (2001) by Dragga and Voss ...... 179

4.8: Digger the Dermatophyte (2003) by Deutsch NY ...... 183

4.9: Mr. Mucus (2004) by Adams Respiratory Therapeutic ...... 184

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

Typically, euphemism refers to the substitution of a harsh or offensive word or phrase for a ostensibly milder, non-offensive one. It is saying “passed away” instead of “died,” or “heavy” instead of “fat.” In this way, euphemism is simply polite language, a divergence from coarse or even neutral terms made to show respect or prevent hurt feelings. Likewise, visual euphemism refers to the substitution of a harsh or possibly offensive image for a seemingly milder, non-offensive one. It is using blue liquid to represent urine or blood in a television commercial or the increasingly popular use of the eggplant emoji to represent a penis. These, too, at some level, are motivated by politeness. Sometimes, however, euphemisms have nothing to do with being polite. Instead, they are mechanisms of control, a subtle way to influence and steer action. “Ethnic cleansing” sounds much better than “genocide.” “Our peculiar institution” and “enhanced interrogation” are much easier to endorse and continue than “human slavery” and “torture.” Conversely, a graph that uses unconventional measurements or selective photography of a war zone can be visually euphemistic, leading us to believe things and behave in ways we might not have had the information been presented differently.

While some motivations for employing euphemisms are more nefarious than others, obscuration is always a condition of their use; all euphemisms, linguistic and visual, are indirect communication, and therefore necessarily blur the relationship between signifier and signified. They are deviations away from neutral or conventional usage. As such, euphemisms exist on a relative truth scale. On the far left side are those euphemisms that suggest their referent rather straightforwardly, such as saying “bathroom” instead of “toilet” or using the image of a headstone to signify death or dying. Many recognize these euphemisms as mostly synonymous to the neutral term or image, close to each other in meaning and in “truth,” but whose use is motivated by the avoidance of coarse language or a graphic image. On the other side of the scale are those euphemisms whose relationships to their referents are

1 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 deliberately unclear and inconclusive. This seems to be the case with euphemisms like “ethnic cleansing” and “enhanced interrogation,” or a graph like Christine Chan’s (2014) Gun Deaths in Florida (Figure 1.1):

Figure 1.1: Gun Deaths in Florida by Chan (2014)

Chan’s (2014) graph depicting the number of gun deaths in Florida prior to and after the passage of their “Stand Your Ground” law made the rounds on social media, where many journalists, bloggers, graphic designers, and data visualization enthusiasts found it misleading. But this wasn’t because the data was inaccurate; her figures check out. The problem is that it was deliberately designed to obscure meaning. The vertical (y) axis of the graph is inverted, defying expected graphing conventions. At first glance, it looks as if the law’s passage reduced gun deaths, when, actually the opposite is true. It appears Chan intentionally mislead her audience without actually lying to

2 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 them. Chan responded to criticism of her work simply with the tweet: “I prefer to show deaths in negative terms (inverted). It’s a preference really, can be shown either way.”

Chan’s failure to rationalize her decision to defy convention, to subvert her audience’s expectations by any reason other than “preference” isn’t an adequate justification for flipping the graph as she does. Like others, I believe she purposefully created this visual to confuse viewers and obscure the truth. In other words, it appears she visually euphemized the data in an attempt to mislead. Yet, without useful criteria for identifying visual euphemism, there is no evidence for this claim. She can always cite preference or simply say that is not what she intended. Plausible deniability is, after all, the greatest benefit of euphemism. But this is where a critical framework for visual euphemism can help. Through a more profound and nuanced understanding of visual euphemism, we can better identify it in our work and the work of others. I provide a framework for doing just this in this dissertation.

The Need for a Critical Framework for Visual Euphemism Even though we have come to recognize that language and communication are more social constructs than conduits of positivistic information, technical communication is still predicated on the idea that communication should be as clear and unbiased as possible for the users who use it. Since euphemism necessitates an indefinite relationship with the truth, its use can complicate the aim for clarity in technical communication. Additionally, some technical communication textbooks will warn of their possibility to “mislead” (Markel, 2012, p. 36) or warn students to avoid “opaque and ambiguous language…that appears to finesse troublesome situations” (Oliu, Brusaw, & Alred, 2013, p. 118), as euphemism does. These bits of advice are helpful, certainly, but they seem to represent the extent of the consideration given to euphemism in our field. Basically, euphemism has received little, if any, serious attention in technical communication scholarship.

The lack of scholarship and guidance for using and/or avoiding euphemism in technical communication is unfortunate, for it is clearly the case that it appears in and affects our work in dramatic and recurring ways. For example, consider the technical 3 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 communicator charged with writing a medical treatment guide for a “disabled” person. Is this term a euphemism or is it neutral? What if the technical communicator is unaware that this is currently the preferred term, and instead uses “differently abled” in their work. Presumably, they would have to revise once it was pointed out that “differently abled” is now deemed offensive and/or inaccurate, ensuring the final document would require more time and money to correct.

For an example of the role euphemism plays in visual technical communication, consider the man and woman Isotypes used on many public restrooms. With their succinct and practically universally understood instruction of which gender should use which restroom, they seem to be a perfect example of a visual used for technical communication. Yet, I suspect that closer analysis would reveal them to be euphemistic. This is because, rather than visually represent the acts that people do in the restroom or represent the sexes by some feature that actually distinguishes them – their genitalia (a problematic distinction in its own right) – these images avoid the taboo and distinguish men and women through clothing: the female Isotype character wears a skirt. This is necessary to ensure that people use the “correct” restroom, but, as typical of euphemism, these visuals now seem antiquated, biased, and in need of updating.

Fortunately, some designers have recently done just that. For instance, the software company Axosoft recently created the “It was Never a Dress” campaign, which soon after went viral. In it, they showed how a minor adjustment to Otto Neurath’s original design makes the female Isotype’s dress a cape (Figure 1.2). And design firm SomeOne was recently featured in Wired magazine (Rhodes, 2015) for their less-sexist redesign of the ubiquitous restroom characters (Figure 1.3). Additionally, there are now Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant gender neutral restroom signs (Figure 1.4) taking the place of the older, likely euphemistic binary ones.

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Figure 1.2: It was Never a Dress (2015) by Axosoft

Figure 1.3: Redesigned restroom Isotypes (2011) by SomeOne

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Figure 1.4: ADA compliant gender neutral restroom sign (2014)

These are just a few examples of the many problems with visual euphemism that a technical communicator could encounter. When one considers all of the possibilities for verbal and visual euphemism in technical communication, the likelihood that a technical communicator will encounter difficulties when communicating “truth” is amplified, further indicating our need for guidance. If technical communicators do not consider the possible euphemistic qualities of our words and visuals, then it is possible we are not communicating in the most efficient and ethical manner. That we have little to no guidance for analyzing or doing so is worrying and in need of redressive action.

This dissertation is predicated on doing just this: redressing the gaps in our research, scholarship, and pedagogy as they relate to visual euphemism. To do this, I have adjusted Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory and equipped it with tools from social semiotics to create a critical framework for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism. To show how this framework works, I use it as a methodology to analyze a selection of technical communication visual artifacts and determine if they are euphemistic or not. From these determinations, I establish an inventory of techniques and semiotic resources for visual euphemism as they appear in the corpus. This inventory is meant to contribute to and inform a critical framework for visual euphemism. It is intended to be useful for helping us to identify the 6 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 techniques of visual euphemism and consider their quality, so that we can use them efficiently and ethically in our work or avoid them all together.

Research Questions In order to create a critical framework for visual euphemism, I have created three questions to guide my work. These research questions are modeled after Rude’s (2009) central question and subsequent areas and questions for research in technical communication. Rude argues that there is a single, essential question, either explicit or implicit, in much of the research conducted in the field of technical communication: “How do texts (print, digital, multimedia; visual, verbal) and related communication practices mediate knowledge, values and action in a variety of social and professional contexts?” (p. 176). She divided this central question into smaller ones relative to four sub-areas of technical communication research: disciplinarity, pedagogy, practice, and social change. Questions in the first two deal with identity and content, essentially asking, “Who are we and what do we do?” The second two concern the artifacts we create and the affect they have on users. The questions “How can texts be constructed to work effectively and ethically?” and “How do texts function as agents of knowledge making, action, and change?” (Rude, 2009, p. 198-99) are emblematic of these latter two sub-areas, respectively.

Even though my dissertation, like much of the research in our field, overlaps with all four of these areas to differing degrees, it contributes primarily to the last two, practice and knowledge making. Hence, the research questions for this dissertation are:

1. Can politeness theory be adapted into a critical framework for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism, and if so, how?

2. What techniques and semiotic resources of visual euphemism are revealed by the analysis of a corpus of technical communication visuals with this framework?

3. How is ideology articulated in those artifacts determined to be visual euphemisms?

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The answers to these questions will give technical communicators valuable insight into the possibility of visual euphemism, how it occurs, and what influence it has on the knowledge, values, and actions that are always a consequence of our work.

Technical Communication and Technical Communication Visuals The types of artifacts to be used for this dissertation are technical communication visuals. Even though it may seem like a term understood at face value, it is intended to suggest the rhetorical nature of technical communication, as well as the typical associations of communication mediated with technological tools and representative of specialized content, usually of a technical or scientific nature. A brief history on the ways scholars have defined technical writing and technical communication helps define this term as well as situate it – and this dissertation – squarely in the discipline of technical communication.

Connors (1982) showed that during the first half of its development in academe, technical writing was defined as and expected to be transparent, a pure conduit of objective language through which positivistic information should pass with as little adulterations as possible. This view was consistent for much of the first half of the twentieth century when technical writing developed inside the university. In 1954 things changed, though, when Mills and Walters’ (1954) published Technical Writing. In this textbook, the authors advocated for a definition of technical writing reflective of its innate, but previously marginalized, rhetorical nature. Definitions of technical writing post Mills and Walters did not just parrot their call for a rhetoric-centered definition, but, instead, began to question even the possibility of objective language and shared contexts. These questions compelled scholars and practitioners to focus much more on users and their experiences. The result has been what Miller (1979) called a “humanistic rationale” for technical writing.

Subsequent to Miller’s (1979) call for humanistic technical writing, Dobrin (1983/2004) questioned the value of “universalist” definitions of technical writing, pointing out that such definitions do not reflect the complex relationships between machines, concepts, organizations, and users upon which technical writing relies. Definitions of technical writing often include words like “technology” and 8 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

“objective,” but, as Dobrin argues, they do so mistakenly. There is no such thing as objectivity in language, a unanimous understanding of words where all language is correctly understood by all involved in the communicative act. It can be tempting to believe that there is such a thing as shared language – how else is it that we can communicate with each other? – but, actually, language is very subjective and always susceptible to confusion, error, and bias. Given language’s inherent subjectivity, Dobrin proposes the opposite of a universal definition of technical writing – a monadist – definition, because this type of definition highlights use, users and the parole function of language. This focus on users in Dobrin’s definition underscores the rhetorical nature of technical writing.

Others followed Miller’s (1979) lead and began to reconfigure and advocate expanded definitions of technical writing, a fact partially evidenced in the move from “writing” to “communication.” For instance, recognizing that technical communication occurs under a confluence of factors, Rutter (1991) defined it as “one- third writing proficiency, one-third problem-solving skill, and one-third ability to work with other people” (p. 21). More recently, Longo (2000) has also criticized the original and persistent conceptions of technical communication as a transparent conveyance of technical information. She does so in order to point out its flaws and make the case for a definition of technical communication that takes into account users, communicators, and the imbalance of power that characterizes their relationships. The true complexity of defining technical communication and the harm of limiting that definition to simply the use of transparent language is epitomized in this quote from her:

Good technical writing is so clear that it is invisible. Yet technical writing is the mechanism that controls systems of management and discipline, thereby organizing the operations of modern institutions and the people within them. The invisibility of technical writing attests to its efficiency as a control mechanism because it works to shape our actions without displaying its methods for ready analysis. (Longo, 2000, p. ix)

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Longo’s definition shows that objective and positivistic notions of technical communication persist at the same time that it reflects our field’s acuity at recognizing the involvedness of humans, with all their flaws and biases, in communicative acts.

Definitions of technical communication like these that highlight the importance of the user, and therefore highlight its rhetorical nature, are now de rigueur. This claim is borne out by the Society for Technical Communication’s (STC) current definition and description of technical communication. The STC explains that technical communication will exhibit at least one of the following qualities:

• Communicating about technical or specialized topics, such as computer applications, medical procedures, or environmental regulations.

• Communicating by using technology, such as web pages, help files, or social media sites.

• Providing instructions about how to do something, regardless of how technical the task is or even if the technology is used to create or distribute that communication. (STC, 2015)

To this, STC added a comment on the value technical communicators provide: “They make information more useable and accessible to those who need that information” (STC, 2015). That STC is currently the leading organization for the advancement of technical communication means their characterization of technical communicators and our value is significant. That they distinguish technical communication by its content, its modes, and its aims, as well as its focus on users, supports the notion that these are the ways many in our field now define who we are and what we do. And, in doing so, it also presents an explanation of technical communication in which its rhetorical nature is primary.

Like “technical communication,” “technical communication visual” is also meant to reflect the mutability of factors – technologies, users, contexts, and content – only in communication that is primarily visual in nature. In addition to co-opting the “monadist” definitions of technical communication for “technical communication visual” to highlight its rhetorical nature, as well as its content and tools of mediation, I

10 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 chose to use this term also for the reason that it describes a field of visuals more expansive than what other scholars have used. “Technical communication visual” is better suited to categorize all the disparate images that are commonly found in technical communication. It describes a span large enough to include technical illustrations, data graphics, and even animation. The terms used by the other technical communication scholars are accurate and adequate to describe the types of visuals that each scholar analyzed, but they are often too narrow or too specific to satisfactorily encompass all of the many types of visuals we use and create.

Take, for instance, Tufte’s (1983/2001) use of “data graphics.” While Tufte’s scholarship overlaps the boundaries of multiple disciplines, including statistics, computer science, information design, and even political science, he is considered a scholar of data visualization more than anything else. And, although he is not specifically identified as a technical communicator, his work has had a significant influence on our own. His major contribution is the advent of principles for ethical and effective visual display of quantitative data. He called these displays “data graphics.” Grant it, Tufte was not making an argument that data graphics are the only types of visuals used in technical communication, but his phrase and ones like it are commonly used to refer to the visuals frequently found in technical communication. Yet, unless one really stretches the definition of “data,” his phrase ostensibly excludes photographs or page layout, common resources of visual communication in technical communication texts. Certainly, these and other visuals not covered by Tufte provide data, but, really, what he means by “data graphics” are visuals that reconfigure numbers and statistics into visual displays like graphs, charts, and tables. Because photographs, illustrations, page layout, and other graphics not explicitly reflective of numerical data are frequently used in technical communication, “data graphics” is only partially representative of the visuals used in our field.

Kostelnick and Hassett’s (2003) “visual language in professional communication” is a much broader term than Tufte’s (1983/2001) “data graphics,” but it, too, is incomplete. Their term creates a large and expansive banner to house many types of visuals at the same time that it restricts inclusion to only certain types; “visual 11 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 language” can mean anything that is communicated visually, while “professional communication” limits the visuals to a type found only in a certain context. By limiting “visual language” to only that which appears in “professional language,” Kostelnick and Hassett can still parameterize visuals in a way that does not result in a grouping so expansive it loses meaning. At the same time, using “visual language” allows the authors to group charts and graphs together with photographs and maps. This is a useful way to identify visuals within professional communication. And were it not for an admittedly minor detail, it would be a useful term for this dissertation: professional communication is not always the same as technical communication. While there is much overlap between the two, professional communication is distinguished from technical communication by the former’s emphasis on context. “Professional communication” implies a type of communication that occurs in the workplace. Technical communication can also occur in professional contexts, and often does; however, as discussed above, the “technical” part of “technical communication” also suggests something about the tools and content of the communication. In this way, “professional communication” is limited, and could arguably be seen as a sub-set of technical communication.

In Visualizing Technical Information, Brasseur (2003) chose to call the visuals used in technical communication “technical visuals.” Hers is a more inclusive term than Tufte’s (1983/2001) “data graphics” because it implies any visual used for technical purposes. It allows room for data graphics and photographs, maps, illustrations, and even page layout. Additionally, “technical visual” corrects for the limitations incurred by using “professional,” as it does in Kostelnick and Hassett’s (2003) “visual language in professional communication.” For these reasons, Brasseur’s “technical visual” is more applicable a label for the many types of visuals used in our field, and, therefore, would be an apt term to use; however, “technical communication visual” is better because it permits that visuals are used by people to communicate with each other. In other words, the problem with Brasseur’s term is the same problem Miller (1979), Dobrin (1983/2004), Rutter (1991), and Longo (2000) had with the original definitions of technical writing: it leaves out the users and,

12 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 consequently, deemphasizes the rhetorical nature of the communication. Effectively, “technical visual” accentuates content; “technical communication visual,” on the other hand, denotes specialized content while also connoting the rhetorical nature of human- to-human communication.

The problems with “data graphics,” “visual language in professional communication,” and “technical visuals” are not ones of accuracy; these terms aptly describe the artifacts these scholars chose to study. Instead, theirs is a problem of exclusivity. My use of “technical communication visual” is intended to correct for this. It defines charts and graphs as well as photographs and maps. It includes visual language in a professional environment, but also outside of it. It acknowledges the specialized knowledge so often the content of technical communication, as well as the tools with which it is created, and the users to whom it is conveyed.

Artifacts The technical communication visuals that comprise the artifacts used in this dissertation can be delineated into three sets. The first set is made up of the technical illustrations of renaissance engineer and artist Mariano Taccola (1450). These illustrations include Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary, (Figure 1.5) Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed, (Figure 1.6) and Swing-arm Trebuchet (Figure 1.7). The second set includes two technical communication visuals created during the “Golden Age of Statistical Graphics” (Friendly, 2008): Florence Nightingale’s (1858) Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East rose diagram (Figure 1.8) and Charles Joseph Minard’s (1869) Napoleon’s March on Moscow graphic (Figure 1.9). The last set of visuals is anthropomorphic animation characters, the kind frequently used in pharmaceutical commercials to represent parts of the human body, the diseases that can befall it, and the drugs that can cure it. I’ve labeled these characters animated ailments. For this study I will focus on two animated ailments: Digger the Dermatophyte (2003) (Figure 1.10) and Mr. Mucus (2004) (Figure 1.11), as they appear in numerous print and television advertisements.

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Figure 1.5: Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary (c. 1450) by Taccola

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Figure 1.6: Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed (c. 1450) by Taccola

Figure 1.7: Swing-arm Trebuchet (c. 1450) by Taccola

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Figure 1.8: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East (1858) by Nightingale

Figure 1.9: Napoleon's March on Moscow (1869) by Minard

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Figure 1.10: Digger the Dermatophyte (2003) by Deutsch NY

Figure 1.11: Mr. Mucus (2004) by Adams Respiratory Therapeutics

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Despite how heterogeneous they first appear, these three sets of seven artifacts share some significant similarities. First, they are technical communication visuals, in both the denotative and connotative sense. All are visual, of course. All represent technical and specialized content. Furthermore, each artifact was created by their designer with a specific audience, context, and purpose in mind, making them rhetorical and therefore related to the nature of our work. This partially justifies their use in this study, but they were also chosen because, presumably, they were motivated by the same things that motivate verbal euphemism. As I will show throughout this dissertation, communicators are likely to use euphemism when they find themselves communicating with someone unfamiliar, inside a skewed power structure, and on a potentially imposing taboo topic, like death or disease. All seven of these artifacts were created under such circumstances, leading me to believe they would be valuable for this dissertation.

While all of the chosen artifacts are very similar, they are also very different. Created for and by different people, with different technologies, and under different circumstances, these artifacts seem to have nothing in common. Rather than making them incompatible for a single study, though, these disparities make them representative of a broad range of technical communication visuals. And critical framework for visual euphemism is made more robust by its applicability to multiple artifacts, genres, times, and technologies – all conditions represented in the technical communication visuals introduced above.

Politeness Theory To create a critical framework for the analysis of visual euphemism, I have adapted Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory in several significant ways. In succeeding chapters, I thoroughly explain this theory and how I have adapted it for the study of visual euphemism. For now, though, a brief summary will help readers understand why and how politeness theory fits into this dissertation.

Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory provides an explanation for why people so often choose to use indirect language, such as euphemism, in their communication with each other. Borrowing a concept from Goffman (1967/2005), the 18 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 authors contend that people have “face,” which is essentially shorthand for one’s public self-image. As long as each party in a communicative act is rational and seeks effective communication, they will work to communicate without damaging each other’s face. To do this, they will employ certain politeness strategies in their communications with each other. When a speaker fails to take face into account and says the wrong thing, they have committed what Brown and Levinson call a “face- threatening-act” (FTA). FTAs are words, acts, or requests that could offend or embarrass the speaker, the hearer, or both. By mitigating the offensive aspects of the topic with euphemism, communicators are allowed to discuss possibly face- threatening issues while still paying respect to face.

According to Brown and Levinson (1987/2004), the possibility of an FTA and the seriousness of the affront are relative to three sociological variables: social distance, power, and rank of imposition. The first two concern the relationship between communicators. Specifically, social distance describes the frequency of interaction between participants. It is essentially a qualitative measurement of familiarity. The sociological variable of power “is the degree to which H[earer] can impose his own plans and his own self-evaluation (face) at the expense of S[peaker]’s plans and self-evaluation” (p. 77). Brown and Levinson identify two sources of power: “material control (over economic distribution and physical force) and metaphysical control (over the actions of others, by virtue of metaphysical forces subscribed to by those others)” (p. 77). Rank of imposition relates to the actual communication, referring to its content and its form. In one sense, rank of imposition denotes an imposition on material goods and time, such as a request to borrow money or perform a favor. In the other sense, a communicator can impose upon their audience by discussing things or discussing them in a way that causes the audience discomfort.

Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) call the conflation of these three sociological variables “weightiness.” Depending on the weightiness of the context for communication, a speaker will employ a politeness strategy that ranges from direct to indirect communication. The higher the weightiness, the more indirectly a rational speaker is expected to communicate. When the combined qualitative measures of 19 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 social distance, power, and rank of imposition combine to create the highest measurement for weightiness, there is a greater likelihood that a communicator will use euphemism. This is because euphemism is part of the most indirect strategy of communication.

Taboo and Technical Subjects Rank of imposition plays a unique role in the confluence of factors that motivate euphemism. Rather than the relationship between communicators, rank of imposition describes a level of burden produced by the communicative act. This burden can be present in the form of communication (a loud voice; a graphic picture) and/or its content (“Can I borrow money?”; the image of a man with his empty pockets turned out). This explains why taboo subjects are so frequently euphemized; they are inherently imposing. Why they are imposing has a great deal to do with the ideology of a given society or culture, but for a western culture like our own, death, sex, and money are commonly considered taboo. Thus, when a communicator speaks of taboo topics with their audience, they impose upon that audience’s cognitive faculties, making them think about something they’d rather not and causing them discomfort for doing so.

Even though it may not seem like it at first, the possibility of an FTA is high when it comes to specialized and technical matters as well as taboo ones. This is because, just like taboo subjects, specialized content runs the risk of imposing on the audience’s mental faculties, making them think about something – or think about something with difficulty – when they’d rather not. This, as anyone who’s felt stupid when trying to learn something new can likely attest to, can lead to embarrassment and discomfort. This circumstance has significance for technical communicators, who are often required to make technically complex – imposing – content accessible to lay audiences. Certainly, this is motivated by the goals of accessibility and usability, but it also has to do with our estimations of the audience’s sensibilities and cognitive capacities, their face. A technical communicator may choose to display data with a certain graph because they believe it is the most ethical and efficient way to do so. But, in some cases, either tacitly or overtly, they are also motivated by the expectation 20 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 to pay respect to the audience’s face. The technical communicator doesn’t make the graphic too complex and indecipherable because this would make the audience feel discomfort and impose upon their time.

Abstraction and Ideology As I have indicated previously, little scholarship exists on visual euphemism. Fortunately, I was able to leverage the limited scholarship on verbal euphemism and other figures of speech to help make sense of visual euphemism. Doing so required some justification, though. Visual communication is not simply speaking with pictures; it is a unique form of communication with its own rules and concerns. There is a connection, however, between figurative language and visual communication: they both use abstraction to create and communicate meaning.

Abstraction is predominantly related to visual communication. It describes the non-mimetic reproduction of images, whereby the salient features of an object, but not all of its features, are used to convey its essence (Arnheim, 1969/2004). Abstraction, therefore, operates metonymically, just like many figures of speech. Indeed, metonymy itself is a general type of figure. When a communicator employs metonymy generally, or metaphor and euphemism specifically, they emphasize certain features of a thing at the same time that they minimize others. I argue that this significant connection between visual and verbal communication justifies the use of politeness theory for the analysis of visual communication.

Since abstraction requires the inclusion and exclusion of certain features of an object or concept, the resultant artifact is encoded with ideology (Barton & Barton, 1993b). The selection of some features over others has to do with context, audience, and purpose, of course, but it also has to do with value and hierarchy, and therefore power and bias. I will corroborate the above claims while making them much clearer throughout this dissertation, for it is particularly important that we understand how abstraction incurs and encodes ideology into our communicative artifacts. To do this and to further substantiate my use of politeness theory to inform a study of visual euphemism, I review scholarship on figurative language as it has been dealt with in the rhetorical tradition generally (Aristotle, trans. 2004; Nietzsche, 1873/2001; Burke, 21 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

1969; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003; Foss, 2009) and technical communication specifically (Graves & Graves, 1998; Fahnestock, 2002; Baake, 2003; Giles, 2008). Conversely, I will show how the same concerns for recognizing the role of abstraction in figurative speech and the inevitable encoding of ideology into language are shared by visual communication scholars (Arnheim, 1969/2004; McCloud, 1994; Tufte, 1983/2001; Ware, 2008) and technical communication scholars working with visuals (Barton & Barton, 1993a; Barton & Barton, 1993b; Brasseur, 2003; Brasseur, 2005; Kostelnick & Hassett, 2003).

Verbal and Visual Euphemism Defined I explain further how I arrived at the following definitions of euphemism and visual euphemism used in this study in Chapters 2 and 3. For now, though, and in light of the preceding information, it’s important that readers have some understanding of what I mean when I speak of visual euphemism. Euphemism is a deviation in normal usage, one that occurs in specific contexts and under specific circumstances. It is motivated by the avoidance of a face-threatening-act (FTA), as calculated by the social distance and power balance between communication participants and the rank of imposition created by the communicative exchange. Furthermore, euphemisms function by way of abstraction and are encoded with ideology. Euphemisms relate to both taboo and technical matters. And, lastly, euphemisms have an ambiguous relationship to the “truth.” Hence, the definition of euphemism I use for the dissertation is:

an abstracted and ideologically encoded substitution of a verbal sign for another, motivated by the avoidance of a face-threatening-act, as measured by social distance, power, and rank of imposition; typically related to taboo or specialized content; can range from mostly truthful to purposefully deceptive

A visual euphemism fulfills the same criteria as a verbal euphemism with one major adjustment. Verbal euphemisms are mostly limited to substitutions between word-signs. In the case of visuals, however, what constitutes a sign is greatly expanded, as are the possibilities for exchange. A visual euphemism could occur when one image is substituted for another. A visual euphemism could also occur when a single visual feature of an image is changed, such as the replacement of full color with 22 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 black and white. Visual euphemism could also occur when an image is substituted for a word or words, as in the case of a diagram being used to explain a complex process instead of a lengthy textual explanation. Similarly, a visual euphemism could be the use of a graph instead of complex numerical data. Whereas linguistic euphemisms are mostly circumscribed by extant words, visual euphemism can employ signs from a seemingly infinite number of visual semiotic resources. Given this circumstance, I propose the following definition for visual euphemism:

an abstracted and ideologically encoded substitution of a visual sign for any other type of sign(s), motivated by the avoidance of a face-threatening-act, as measured by social distance, power, and rank of imposition; typically related to taboo or specialized content; can range from mostly truthful to purposefully deceptive

Provisional Example of the Framework The complete critical framework for visual euphemism is presented in Chapter 3 and applied to the corpus in Chapter 4 of this dissertation. Until then, though, for understanding and to further justify the applicability of the proposed framework, I want to return to the first visual cited in this chapter, Chan’s (2014) Gun Deaths in Florida graph (Figure 1.12), and offer a provisional analysis of it using some of the elements described above to show how the framework operates.

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Figure 1.12: Gun Deaths in Florida (2014) by Chan

In the case of this graph, Chan’s (2014) social distance with her audience is far. In fact, given the graph’s circulation in multiple news outlets and across numerous websites, there is no way she could accurately be described as being familiar with her audience. Power imbalance is more difficult to account for, in part because her audience is not a single person, but a heterogeneously mixed group. Presumably, she wants to show her audience the effect of the implantation of a new gun law, but she also wants to show that she is a capable designer and secure more work for herself in future publications. Thus, the audience has the power to prevent or progress this goal of hers. The audience could’ve viewed the graph and found it poorly designed, rendering future work for her unlikely. Conversely, the audience could’ve found the graph terrifically designed, sensitive to the subject matter, and sought out more of her work because of this. In either case, the audience, even as an abstracted entity, holds a 24 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 significant amount of power over Chan and her ability to make her living designing infographics. They have some ability to prevent or progress her goal of being a credible, working designer.

When considering rank of imposition, it’s helpful to consider the other options the communicator could have used to display the information. Chan (2014) could’ve shown the actual faces of those killed with guns, or, more graphically, she could’ve shown images of the crime scenes and the victims’ bodies. Images like these are not uncommon when the media cover gun deaths. With respect to these options, Chan’s choice of a line graph was rather un-imposing. Nonetheless, while the form might not present a high rank of imposition, the content of her graph does. Remember that imposition is partly defined as making people think about something they’d rather not, something that causes them pain or discomfort, and death is primary in this category. While not all deaths are equally imposing, meaning the death of a loved one is likely more imposing than that of a stranger, and not all people view death with the same sensitivity, the real death of a real person still carries it with it a certain psychic impact for many. In this sense, the evaluation of imposition should be high. Here again, considering other options helps determine value. This graph could’ve divided its content into age groups, wherein viewers could see the deaths of children. Or it could’ve reflected another type of victim: innocent or accidental. The deaths of children or the deaths of those seemingly undeserving of it are more imposing than deaths in general. Admittedly, it’s strange to rank the level of discomfort caused by this graph by considering the different ways a person can die or the different types of people who die, but there are worse ways to die than others and there are groups of people who seem less deserving of death than others. These differences relate to the level of imposition put upon an audience. Chan’s graph doesn’t present the highest level on the spectrum, but it is closer to the higher end than the lower.

Since Chan is unfamiliar with her audience, and they hold a significant level of power over her, and her content presents a high level of imposition, there is a good chance of an FTA. When there is a good chance of an FTA like this, it’s expected that a rational person will employ a politeness strategy with a high level of indirect 25 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 communication. Euphemism is a central feature of an off record politeness strategy. In other words, the context for Chan’s (2014) graph is euphemism-conducive. That it confuses audiences by breaking with conventional graphing standards – the inverted y axis – without legitimate reason corroborates its status as a visual euphemism, while also suggesting that it is a deceptive one. So, while Chan can continue to claim that it was only a matter of preference, through the provisional use of the critical framework for visual euphemism, we can more convincingly contradict her claim and arrive at a better understanding of her graph and her motivations for making it the way she did. Also, technical communicators and designers learn a valuable lesson on the use of conventions and what happens when those conventions are transgressed arbitrarily.

Chapter Outline The following outline briefly summarizes subsequent chapters of this dissertation and shows how I will create, exemplify, and discuss the implications of the critical framework for visual euphemism.

Chapter 2 Literature Review: To justify the use of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) verbal-centric theory for the study of visual artifacts, I review literature concerning the similarities between figurative language, like euphemism, and visual communication. This review centers on the roles abstraction and ideological encoding play in both. The review spans from ancient rhetorical theory to contemporary rhetorical theory, eventually culminating in a review of research on figurative language in technical communication. While still centered on abstraction and ideology, I extend the discussion from the verbal realm to the visual realm and review research on visual communication in technical communication. Once complete, I introduce and explain Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory, show how abstraction and ideology figure into it, and then segue into a discussion of how the theory has been applied by technical communication scholars and researchers. Lastly, from all of this, I further establish the definitions for “euphemism” and “visual euphemism” introduced above and used in this study.

Chapter 3 Methodology: Chapter 3 begins with a review of the artifacts chosen for this study. Once these artifacts are fully explained and justified, I move on to 26 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 rationalize how I have adapted Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory into a framework suitable for visual analysis. This includes a discussion of social semiotics and the tools incorporated into the framework. I explain what these tools are and how they fit within the larger theoretical apparatus provided by politeness theory. To complete Chapter 3, I present the complete critical framework, which comprises my methodology for this dissertation, and discuss what efforts I intend to take in order to establish rigor and reliability with it.

Chapter 4 Critical Framework Applied: Chapter 4 contains the application of the framework to the artifacts briefly described in this chapter. Using the critical framework as my methodology, I analyze each artifact to determine if it is a visual euphemism or not, identify if it is facilitative or deceptive, consider what techniques and semiotic resources were used in those artifacts determined to be visual euphemisms, and identify the important lessons technical communicators can learn from the analysis.

Chapter 5 Conclusion: In Chapter 5 I revisit my research questions and ensure each is answered satisfactorily. I then discuss the limitations and implications of this dissertation with some suggestions on how future research might respond to these implications and limitations. Lastly, I conclude with a discussion on the value this dissertation has for technical communication practice and pedagogy.

The Value of this Study I anticipate several valuable outcomes for the fields of technical communication and visual rhetoric from this dissertation. The first, and simplest, is the introduction of a new term: technical communication visual. My argument for this neologism centers on the inadequacies of other terms used to describe the types of visuals found in technical communication, at the same time that it alludes to their highly rhetorical nature. Just as scholars in the past have advocated for a better understanding of our field through the explication of what we call “technical communication,” so do I advocate for “technical communication visual” as a better term to define and describe the types of visuals used in technical communication.

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Another consequence of this dissertation is a viable argument for using language-based rhetorical theory for the analysis of visual artifacts. A large portion of the literature review in Chapter 2 substantiates an argument for cross-applicability between these two fields, especially as it relates to figurative language and visual communication and their shared use of abstraction. If my argument proves convincing, then it could create, or at least strengthen, a link between verbal and visual communication, making other verbal-centric rhetorical theories viable for the analysis of visual artifacts.

Another product of this study is the introduction of two relatively new sets of technical communication visuals: the technical illustrations of Mariano Taccola and animated ailments. My use of Taccola’s illustrations provides an opportunity to contribute to the efforts in our field to look backwards and locate those seminal works of technical communication visualization. Likewise, the use of animations as technical communication conveyances provides the opportunity to look forward and anticipate the type of visuals we might use more of in the near future.

While the above listed outcomes for this study are all valuable and contribute to the discipline of technical communication, the biggest contribution of this study is the actual critical framework for visual euphemism. The proposed framework allows for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism, a mostly heretofore unknown, or at least inadequately established, concept. If the proposed framework proves viable, then it can become a useful tool for determining the value, efficiency, and ethical quality of a number of visuals inside of and outside of technical communication as well as a way to examine the ideology articulated into them.

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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW As I stated in the introduction, visual communication is not simply speaking with pictures; it is a unique form of communication with its own rules and issues, ones very different from verbal communication. There are connections, however; and these connections are most prominent between figurative language and visual communication. The primary purpose of this literature review is to explain and validate these connections and thereby justify my use of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory, a theory specifically intended for spoken language, for the study and analysis of visual communication. To complete this purpose, I fully explain the important concepts of abstraction and ideology. These explanations establish two important connections: one between metaphor and euphemism, and another between figurative language and visualization. The first connection is necessary because there is so little relevant scholarship on euphemism, and practically none on visual euphemism, useful for this study. The second connection is necessary to carry that understanding of figurative language over to visual communication. In short, with this literature review I show how metaphors and euphemisms, and figurative language and visual communication share certain important features, enough to rationalize the use of the verbal-centric politeness theory to inform a critical framework for visual euphemism.

While the scholarship reviewed in this chapter concerns several different figures of speech, metaphor predominates. Conversely, euphemism has not been the focus of a great deal of serious scholarly inquiry. As such, there is less in this review that specifically addresses it than I would like. Although it’s unfortunate there isn’t more scholarship on euphemism, the similarities between metaphor and euphemism are strong enough to justify a review of the former to inform the latter. To begin to understand how, consider that both metaphor and euphemism operate metonymically, a substitution of some bit of language for some other bit of language, and done so because the substitution is expected to be more rhetorically effective. Additionally, both metaphors and euphemisms are idiosyncratic, often only understood properly in 29 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 the proper context or as practiced in a specific discourse community. Lastly, and most importantly, metaphors and euphemisms participate in the ideologically wrought process of abstraction to create and convey meaning.

In the following sections of this chapter I more fully explain what is meant by abstraction and ideology and how each shapes verbal and visual communication. Once established, I use these concepts to review how rhetoricians have considered figures of speech over time and then go on to show how contemporary technical communication scholars have dealt with them. The connective thread of abstraction and ideology is then carried into a review of scholarship on the topic of technical communication visuals. I show the role abstraction plays in their creation and design and discuss the ideological problems created by doing so. Throughout this review, I highlight the many ways scholars have proffered to mitigate the ideological biases that arise when communicators abstract information and repackage it into different verbal and visual forms.

Abstraction Abstraction is a concept chiefly related to visual communication. It is intended to describe the non-mimetic reproduction of images, a process through which the salient features of an object, but not all of the object’s features, are used to convey its meaning or essence (Arnheim, 1969/2004). When a visual communicator draws a stick figure to convey the idea of a person, they emphasize certain features of that person with lines and shapes at the same time that they exclude other features. McCloud’s (1994) illustration (Figure 2.1) provides an excellent explanation of how the inclusion/exclusion process focuses attention on the “essential” features of a thing to amplify meaning:

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Figure 2.1: Abstraction panel from Understanding Comics by McCloud (1994)

McCloud’s (1994) drawing provides an example of visual abstraction, but a similar process occurs with figurative language. When someone says, “This car’s an oven” to indicate that it is hot inside, they highlight the heat feature of the oven. They do this while downplaying other features, such as the oven’s dials or its stovetop, which are irrelevant for the metaphor. Likewise, when someone uses the euphemism “passed away” to describe the death of a loved one who was hit by a train, they highlight the person’s death but diminish its horrific quality.

Recent studies in cognitive science substantiate Arnheim’s (1969/2004) theory of abstraction and underscore just how important it is for human cognition. Through a neurological study of the human mind, Ware (2008) showed how the rapid exchange between the eyes and the brain allows us to form and identify patterns from what we see. This pattern finding process is the cornerstone of visual thinking, which, for Arnheim is the cornerstone of human cognition. When we view a thing, we make meaning by looking for and constructing patterns of that thing’s salient features. Ware calls this action a “visual query.” The mind looks for salient features and then arranges them into a pattern meant to resemble the original object. For visual communicators,

31 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 the “design challenge” for creating and conveying information is “to transform data into a form where the important patterns are easy to interpret” (Ware, 2008, p. 174).

One notable conclusion of Ware’s (2008) account of visual thinking is just how little we actually perceive. He shows that we abstract only a relatively tiny portion of the original looked-at object and its environment with our eyes. While it seems that we take in a huge amount of visual information when we look at a person or scan a room, our minds are actually engaged in a complex process of selecting and combining what we see with what we know and remember to create meaning. In a very direct sense, then, our perceptions and the meaning we construct from them are highly reliant on context, memory, and other forms of a priori social knowledge. If a person has never seen a car or for some reason does not remember what one is, then they cannot perceive it correctly, no matter how many pictures they are shown of one.

This is the same way that figurative language works. It, too, relies on context, memory, and a prior social knowledge. Actually, without them, we would likely be unable to infer meaning from a great many utterances. If someone were to say, “He’s got sticky fingers,” then the speaker has reduced that person to an essential feature and amplified it, making it the only characteristic necessary to describe that person. The hearer would have to possess the correct knowledge or recall some previous use of this phrase to correctly detect that the person being spoken about is a thief.

Ideology The a priori social knowledge and memory needed to deduce the meaning of figurative language and objects of visual communication and figures of speech can be, and often is, treated as synonymous with ideology. Admittedly, this is not universally agreed upon. This is attributable to the variations in the way theorists and scholars have characterized the complicated concept, something that’s been true of “ideology” since it was first coined by Destutt at the end of the eighteenth century (Kennedy, 1979). Yet, consider how social semioticians Hodge and Kress (1988) defined “ideology” to better see why I feel justified in drawing the parallel: “we will use the terms ‘ideology’ and ‘ideological (content)’ to refer to a level of social meaning with distinctive functions, orientations and content for a social class or group” (p. 3). 32 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Foss (2009) provides further evidence of the link between the social knowledge necessary to understand figures of speech correctly and ideology:

An ideology is a pattern of beliefs that determines a group’s interpretations of some aspect(s) of the world. These beliefs reflect a group’s ‘fundamental social, economic, political or cultural interests.’ Another way to think about an ideology is as a mental framework – the language, ‘concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the systems of representation’ that a group deploys to make sense of and define the world or some aspect of it. (p. 209)

Ideology tacitly shapes our communications with each other. In fact, communication is impossible without ideology. I mean this in both senses: it is impossible to communicate without ideology, just as it is impossible to communicate without reifying and incurring ideology. Communication, visual or otherwise, is rarely, if ever, arhetorical. While some terms and images may be considered less ideological than others, the truth is communication never occurs in a vacuum and can therefore never escape ideology. Voloshinov (1973) made this point very clear when he declared that “whenever a sign is present, ideology is present too” (qtd. in Chandler, 2004, p. 214).

Since ideology is always a consequence of communication, researchers often attempt to expose the ideological biases encoded into the communicative artifacts they study. And perhaps the quintessential example of this endeavor with technical communication visuals is Barton and Barton’s (1993b) article “Ideology and the Map: Toward a Postmodern Visual Design Practice.” In this article, the authors show how maps, rather than neutral descriptions of geographical surfaces, are actually articulations of ideology used to naturalize and legitimize relations of domination (p. 233). The primary way ideology operates in maps is twofold: through rules of inclusion and rules of exclusion (p. 235). Barton and Barton show that what gets included and excluded in maps – the terrain, boundaries, names, and people – are often the result of a society or culture’s ideological underpinnings, ones that support hegemonic interests. These ideological underpinnings are realized in the connotations that a map carries with it. To name a place, to map it even, connotes its importance; to not do so, connotes the opposite.

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This is just one example of how ideology is articulated in a map, but it is important to note for this dissertation that the authors indicate the same processes of inclusion and exclusion is relevant for noncartographic examples found in other visual genres (Barton & Barton, 1993b, p. 235). What’s also important to note for this study and for understanding how ideology works in a larger sense is the aforementioned role that connotation plays in the process. Preeminent scholar of ideology Stuart Hall (1985) writes:

Ideologies do not operate through single ideas; they operate, in discursive chains, in clusters, in semantic fields, in discursive formations. As you enter an ideological field and pick out any one nodal representation or idea, you immediately trigger off a whole chain of connotative associations. Ideological representations connote – summon – one another. (p. 104)

Makus (1990) recapitulates Hall’s point here nicely when she writes, “As systems of linguistic practices, ideologies operate in discursive fields such that when any one ideology is proffered a coterie of connotations are engaged” (p. 503).

A drawing of a lamp provides a good example of how ideology is articulated through the dual process of inclusion and exclusion and how the connotations attached to the artifacts once materialized convey this ideology through abstraction. If I were to draw a lamp, I would include certain of its features and exclude others. I would likely draw the shade and the base, maybe even the cord. From my reasonably abstracted drawing of a lamp, most who saw it would likely recognize it as a lamp. Accordingly, if I were to draw a Tiffany lamp, I might amplify its ornate base and stained glass shade during abstraction. Many would still recognize it as a lamp, but a smaller group might infer that the image is intended to represent more than just the object itself. They might recognize it as a Tiffany lamp and pick up on my intended connotations of wealth or class. Or, they may recognize them but disagree. They may think Tiffany lamps are ugly or money ill-spent. This shows that, among other things, meaning depends on ideology, or what Hodge and Kress (1988) call ideological complexes, held by the participants in a communicative act and how it influences abstraction and reception.

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The lamp example is a rather innocuous one of how ideology works. The stakes are raised, however, when the lamp example is replaced with more complicated or meaningful signs, such as “man” or “woman,” “nature” or “industry,” “rich” or “poor.” Signs like these still carry positive and negative connotations, too; however, rather than just influence whether or not one finds a lamp attractive and classy or not, “man”/“woman”, “nature”/“industry”, and “rich/“poor” influence how we treat each other and the places we live and work. The features that are included – as well as those that are excluded – during abstraction determine how we view these things and which of their characteristics we find to be most indicative of them. So, more than just connotations of value, ideology presents and reifies hierarchy, which can lead to prejudice, disparity, and even subjugation of one group over another.

These problems, serious in their own right, are exacerbated by ideology’s insidious transparency, its inherent ability to dissimulate. Ideology makes our biases seem “real,” because are biases are constantly expressed and then confirmed. The tautology created becomes an incredibly powerful force. Hall (1982) describes just how powerful:

[Ideology is] a way of representing the order of things which endow its limiting perspectives with that natural or divine inevitability which makes them appear universal, natural and coterminous with ‘reality’ itself. This movement – towards the winning of a universal validity and legitimacy for accounts of the world which are partial and particular, and towards the grounding of these particular constructions in the taken-for-grantedness of ‘the real’ – is indeed the characteristic and defining mechanism of ‘the ideological.’ (p. 61)

For the same reasons described by Hall, Hodge and Kress (1988) characterize ideology as a “false consciousness,” one imposed upon a dominated group by the dominant. They write that ideology “represents the world ‘upside down’ and in inverted form. But it also displays an image of the world as it ought to be, as seen from the vantage point of the dominant” (p. 3). Ideology exalts and affirms one view at the same time that it devalues other views, and it can do so surreptitiously. Ideology has what Barton and Barton (1993b) call a “Janus face,” one that “privileges or legitimates certain meaning systems but at the same time dissimulates the fact of such 35 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 privileging” (p. 233). In other words, ideology imposes valuations of worth, as it simultaneously reifies those valuations. To return to my Tiffany lamp example once more: ideology allows for connotations of wealth and class to be articulated in the lamp image, but through this articulation, ideology is reconfirmed. It becomes tautological: to connote class and wealth I draw a Tiffany lamp; a Tiffany lamp must connote class and wealth because these connotations are recognizable from my drawing.

It’s important to note here that, while my lamp example may suggest that ideology is something communicators and audiences rely on consciously, it is in many ways a tacit influence that ideology exerts. Often, we are unaware of the ways ideology shapes our world. It is, as Barthes (1957/1992) explained, naturalized, meaning it limits what can be communicated at the same time that it insinuates those limitations as “facts.” In his own words, ideology is “innocent speech: not because its intentions are hidden – if they were hidden, they could not be efficacious – but because they are naturalized” (p. 131).

While ideology once naturalized dictates the way a society creates, delivers, and interprets communicative artifacts, it is not limited to some seemingly subjective objects or concepts. Since there is no such thing as a non-ideological text or communicative artifact, ideology influences “fact” as well. And this includes the seemingly objective field of science. Foucault (1972/2010) expresses this point expertly when he writes:

If the question of ideology may be asked of science, it is in so far as science, without being identified with knowledge, but without either effacing or excluding it, is localized in it, structures certain of its objects, systematizes certain of its enunciations, formalizes certain of its concepts and strategies; it is in so far as this development articulates knowledge, modifies it, and redistributes it on the one hand, and confirms it and gives it validity on the other. (p. 185)

Foucault highlights an important feature of ideology here. Ideology is not just “knowledge,” per se, but, also, the discursive formations and communities that allow for the articulation of that “knowledge.” This means that “facts” cannot exist without

36 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 ideology, to include “scientific facts.” They can only ever occur at the intersection of a complex set of features and can only have meaning for a certain discourse community at a certain time in history.

What all this suggests is that in many ways we do not possess ideology, as much as ideology possesses us. It isn’t that we cannot “see” the articulation of ideology in the discourses we participate in, but rather, we are unlikely to “see” it because it is so pervasive. It is reminiscent of a joke, famously told by David Foster Wallace (2005/2008) during his commencement address to the graduating class of Kenyon College:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’ (para. 1)

To paraphrase, fish don’t know they are in water in much the same way people do not know they are in ideology. This makes it very difficult to comprehend ideology; however, it does not make it impossible. If we do as Barton and Barton (1993b) advocate and look for the manifestation of ideology in the things that are included and excluded in our discourse, then we can get much closer to understanding how the realizations of this dual process reflect the ideological underpinnings of a discourse community, with the ultimate goal of denaturalizing the ideology within which said community is enveloped.

Abstraction and Ideology in Figurative Language My previous lamp example shows how abstraction and ideology work in tandem to create meaning with a visual image, but they work the same way and to the same effect with language. This is most evident in figures of speech. Consider, a poetic metaphor like, “Your love is the sun.” When a poet employs the word “sun” in this metaphor, the reader recognizes both denotative and connotative meaning; however, when the reader shares the poet’s ideology, they recognize the poet’s intention and correctly identify the intended abstracted features of the sun. The word “sun” denotes the central star in our universe. It is large, circular, and 92,960,000 37 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 miles away from the earth. These are some of its denoted features, but, because there is a long tradition of using the sun as a symbol, for many of us in western societies we recognize other connotations for “sun.” Because we share a cultural knowledge with the poet, and are possessed by similar ideology, we are able to know which features are intended to be included and which are meant to be excluded. We can infer that “sun” is actually meant to suggest power, warmth, and sustenance, and that the addressee’s love is also these things.

Euphemism, which is expressly intended to obscure the relationship between a sign and its referent, seemingly requires even more shared knowledge between user and audience. To say the “birds and the bees” as opposed to “sex,” and have it be properly interpreted, means that both the user and the audience must have some sort of shared background and knowledge to make sense of this idiomatic phrase. Without it, the “real” meaning of “the birds and the bees” is un-inferable. Moreover, that we have such a euphemism for sex, one amongst a great many, suggests our culture’s own ideological issues with sex. The euphemism insinuates that sex isn’t something to be spoken about openly or on record, but is instead better left obscured.

In all these examples – the lamp image; “Your love is the sun”; “the birds and the bees” – meaning is derived from the combined recognition of denotative and connotative features established during abstraction. This recognition and the consequent valuation placed on each is a result of ideology, both tacitly or explicitly applied, and done so by both user and audience. Given all of the importance that abstraction and ideology have on our communications with each other, and that they are so evident in the figurative language we use, it is no surprise then that, while not necessarily referred to as such, how abstraction and ideology affect communication and how to mitigate the problems that will invariably appear from their use have been a consistent thread throughout the rhetorical tradition, beginning as far back as Aristotle.

In Poetics, Aristotle (trans. 2004) defined metaphor as the transference of a name from the object to which it has a natural application. For him, metaphors are mostly ornamental language, best used by poets and avoided by rhetors. Despite this 38 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 characterization, though, Aristotle still identified a benefit of their use: metaphors have a remarkable ability to facilitate learning. Metaphors, he observed, have a capacity to make the unfamiliar familiar and to produce understanding quickly. A metaphor properly abstracted, Aristotle explained, can put “the subject before our eyes” (p. 236). This is perhaps another reason why metaphor is so commonly the focus of rhetorical theory concerned with figures of speech. Their pedagogical value, however, does not negate their ability to obscure meaning and produce bias. Accordingly, Aristotle found metaphor to be a sort of necessary evil, a trope whose use should be guided by principles of clarity and propriety, ostensibly the remedies for ideologically laden language. While simplistic, by saying that users of metaphors should be careful, Aristotle offered one the earliest pieces of advice for navigating the abstraction process and minimizing ideologically biased language.

Through much of the rhetorical tradition following Aristotle, rhetoricians maintained the same view of metaphors: useful at times, but mostly ornamental, and therefore to be used with caution. It was not until the late nineteenth century, and on into the twentieth, that rhetoricians began to expand the definitions of metaphor, deepening our understanding of them and how they work. This change appears most notably in Nietzsche’s 1873 essay “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense.” Rather than linguistic ornamentation or useful pedagogical device, in Nietzsche’s view, metaphor is an essential feature of the human condition. He contended that, “The drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would thereby dispense with man himself” (p. 1177). In his understanding, then, all language is metaphoric. As such, metaphors are not possible impediments to “truth,” they are “truth” – or as close as we can ever get.

Nietzsche’s (1873/2001) idea that metaphors are “truth” rather than impediments to it highlights their ideological nature. For Nietzsche, it is all tautological – words become thoughts which become images in the hearer’s mind which conform to some conceptualized definition of the thing already located in the mind. We both define and compare things metaphorically. This means we are limited 39 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 in our understanding of things, allowed only to go so far, to say only that a thing is like some other thing, a comparison that is never equal. Nietzsche writes:

It is this way with all of us concerning language: we believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things – metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities. (p. 1174)

Nietzsche contends that this metaphorical aspect of language is frequently forgotten, or never understood, encouraging humanity to mistakenly believe that there is indeed essential “truth” in words and things, when actually “truth” is only what we make it.

This later view of metaphoric language as prescriptive did not necessarily supplant the older one. Instead, there was a conflation of the two. This can be seen in the work of Kenneth Burke, a rhetorician who saw how metaphors and other figures of speech worked ideologically, being simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive. Burke (1945/1969) defines metaphor as a “device for seeing something in terms of something else. It brings out the thisness of a that, or the thatness of a this” (p. 503). In his definition, Burke highlights the descriptive feature of metaphor, pointing out its ability to help us understand one thing by way of another. At the same time, though, he recognized that metaphor creates a lens – an ideological perspective – that both shapes and affirms meaning. While Burke doesn’t address euphemism specifically, we can see how it works in a similar fashion to how he understands metaphors work. Some words bring out the coarseness, the taboo, or the technical nature of a thing, while others obscure it. In this way, euphemism is a lens through which we view and makes sense of the world, too.

The idea that language is prescriptive rather than descriptive is the fundamental concept for the work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980/2003), perhaps the most important contemporary scholars working with metaphor. For them, metaphor is the foundation of our cognitive processes. They explain that “[o]ur ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (p. 3). In other words, metaphors are not used exclusively to explain something to someone else, as Aristotle believed, but, rather, how we explain and understand ourselves. That

40 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 we are embodied means that this understanding relies upon an ideological bias that references and favors the human body. “Up” and “front” are metaphorically and ideologically good, because the human head and face are up and front. Conversely, “down” and “back” are the lesser in these binary options, because they are the “lesser” parts of the body.

There are too many other contemporary linguists, scholars, and theorists who advocate this view of language as prescriptive to fully discuss in this review. Nevertheless, even without a complete review of the scholarship, it is fair to say that most rhetoricians have come to recognize metaphor as something much more powerful than simply decorative language. Foss (2009) summarizes this condition succinctly and cogently:

In contrast to the view of metaphor as decoration, metaphor now is seen as a major means for constituting reality. We do not perceive reality and then interpret or give it meaning. Rather, we experience reality through the language by which we describe it; description is the reality we experience. Metaphor is a basic way by which the process of using symbols to construct reality occurs. (p. 268)

It’s interesting to note the language Foss uses here and how it helps to establish the connection between abstraction, a mostly visual concept, and figures of speech. She likens metaphor to a “process of using symbols to construct reality” (p. 268). Whether those symbols are letters and words or lines and shapes, the process is similar. Visualization, just like language, is not what we think about, but, rather, how we think. Just as it is impossible to fully grasp all the visual aspects of an object, so, too, is it impossible to grasp the totality of a thing or concept with language. There is no “truth” in words or images, only our abstracted circumscription of something close to it with ideologically encoded signs articulated in words and images.

Figures of Speech in Technical Communication The identification of language generally and figures of speech specifically as ideologically encoded has profound ramifications for the ways we communicate. This is due in no small part to the ability of language to inspire action and exert control. There are few, if any, areas where this possibility for influence and control on human 41 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 action has more impact than technical communication, a field directly involved with the creation of instructions and predicated on the idea that communication should be clear, concise, and free of bias. While most have come to realize that the last one is impossible, the expectation for it persists. As such, users of technical communication are unlikely to be as critical of technical communication and its ideological biases. It becomes a bit paradoxical, a case of not looking for something because we don’t expect it to be there, thus, never finding ideological biases because we weren’t looking for them. Clearly, this is a problem, but not one that has escaped the attention of many technical communication scholars.

In their 1998 study, for instance, Graves and Graves analyzed the metaphoric use of “dead-on-arrival” and “master” and “slave” in electronics handbooks. The former is meant to describe electronic devices that have never worked properly, while the latter pair refers to the synchronization process of packet transfer in a computer network. These metaphoric terms, the authors argue, are so often used that they have become transparent, inducing readers and users to ignore, or at least fail to recognize, the very human subjects they draw from. Graves and Graves acknowledge that recognition of the ideological encoding that occurs during the abstraction process with these metaphors and ones like them has value for technical communicators, especially in a pedagogical sense. They argue, rather than attempt to avoid all figurative language, technical communicators should instead try “to assess the appropriateness of particular terms and to evaluate whether these terms will facilitate or hinder the readers’ understanding of the technical material” (p. 391). Even after such an evaluation, the possibility for ideologically biased language and its harmful effects is high, though “conventional language choices that are otherwise correct, concise, and clear can become problems because they invoke a reality that is too limited or ethnocentric” (p. 395). They go further: “Linguistic constructions can also embody social or cultural assumptions, stereotypes, or ideologies that perpetuate exclusionary categories” (p. 395).

For the reasons laid out by Graves and Graves (1998), ensuring that the role social context plays in technical communication is understood by the technical 42 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 communicator is both an issue of epistemology and ethics. They argue that the responsibility of redressing this issue falls upon the technical communication instructor, for whom they provide some guidance. The first step is to raise awareness of the likelihood of ideologically biased language. Graves and Graves recommend teachers of technical communication assign readings that explain how metaphors work ideologically as well as writing exercises that challenge students to write without gratuitous ideologically biased metaphors or to edit the work of others to remove such figurative language.

Unlike Graves and Graves’ (1998) study, Baake’s (2003) research on the problematic nature of metaphors was not limited to just a selection of metaphors, but, rather, the use of the trope in many different ways by faculty working at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI), a scientific think-tank employing scientists, educators, and other luminaries. Baake showed that the researchers working at the SFI are acutely aware of both the benefits of using metaphors to explain complex systems and the inevitably of ideological connotations for doing so. Accordingly, the scientists Baake interviewed at the SFI expressed mixed opinions about the use of metaphor to explain scientific concepts. For some, metaphor only clouds the positivistic understanding of things exposed by scientific study; for others, metaphors are an essential tool of the scientist, helpful for communication between scientists as well as between scientists and general audiences. Indeed, Baake showed that some scientists even find metaphors useful for their own understanding of certain scientific concepts.

While Baake (2003) does not refer to them as such, we see in his work the same importance that I have placed on the process of abstraction and ideological additions when figures of speech are used. Baake writes, “it is difficult to measure and explain what happens in the mind as it creates or responds to metaphor. Human cognition remains a mysterious process, but it is clear that metaphor has a deep and integrative role in that mystery” (p. 68). This quote shows that, like the scientists he interviewed, Baake finds metaphors to be valuable and conceivably an inseparable part of scientific discourse. Yet, unlike the scientists he interviewed, Baake is concerned with the problems that arise with the flood of connotations that occur when 43 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 metaphors are used. He writes, “Whenever scientists use figurative language, they run the risk that the image it evokes in the minds of an audience may be different from what they intended, especially if the audience contains people of various disciplines” (p. 122). Baake refers to these problems caused by differing ideologies as problems of “incommensurability.” While this term has an explicit function in scientific discourse, meaning disparate studies that rely upon different measurement systems for analysis and can therefore not be reconciled, the term is also meant to describe the differences between scientific discourse subset communities, ones whose members hold different values and define the criteria for saliency differently. In other words, while he may not call it such, the risk of an idea not being properly communicated by a scientist and correctly received by an audience is the risk of ideological bias created during the abstraction process necessary to create these figures of language.

Like the other scholars concerned with figurative language used in specialized discourses, Baake (2003) acknowledges the impossibility of consistent guidance for using figures of speech. Abstraction is simply too multivariate for universal directives. Nonetheless, he does offer a metaphor of his own, one meant to assist technical communicators as they navigate the rhetorical situations they encounter in scientific discourse communities. This is the metaphor of harmonics. Borrowed from music theory, Baake’s concept of harmonics likens metaphor to a song, wherein there is a central identifiable sound but also various other musical connotations. A metaphor may carry with it several other meanings, but there is a central implication for its use, and this central implication is important for communication and understanding. The ideological implications are impossible to avoid, but, by comparing figurative language to music, Baake hopes to heighten the possibility that its users and audiences will recognize it as such and respond accordingly.

Giles (2008) also explored the role figurative languages plays in scientific communication. Using the “an atom is like a solar system” simile, also referred to as the Solar System Analogy (SSA), and Dolly, the famous cloned sheep, as case studies, Giles showed how figurative language use in technical and scientific communication can be prescriptive, shaping the understanding of a scientific concept while also 44 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 enhancing the figure’s own prevalence and popularity. Specifically, he traces the narrative history and development of the SSA through the work of six renowned physicists, starting with Lord Kelvin and ending with Niels Bohr. Analyzing these physicists’ writing on atomic structures research, Giles was able to identify a clear thread of usage, one that spans decades, for the “an atom is like a solar system” analogy. This simile has become so valuable for explaining how the solar system works that it persists in many contemporary high school chemistry and physics textbooks. He believes that it has been accordingly resilient and pervasive because it is so useful.

Like others concerned with the use of figurative language in scientific discourse, Giles (2008) acknowledges the inevitability of using figurative language in technical communication, and therefore suggests we just embrace it. Metaphor, he points out, “provides a unity to thought and expression” (p. 31) powerful enough that it “transmogrifies the abstraction to the concrete” (p. 39). Despite figurative language’s helpful ability to do so, Giles points out that it is not without its problems. His study shows how the SSA trope and the disparate ones used to describe Dolly and cloning had direct and tangible effects on how the research was viewed by other scientists and the public at large. What he found is that the ideological assumptions and biases that influenced the use and reception of these scientific endeavors also influenced reactions to them. Funding, publication, continuation of the study, and public reception of its findings were all influenced by the cultural, religious, and scientific values held by different discourse communities. Rather than some sort of positivistic findings or value to society, these studies were shaped by the ideologies of those involved in them. Additionally, the results of these studies needed to be abstracted and presented to an audience, further encoding ideological biases.

Garwood (2013) identifies many of the same benefits and problems of using figurative language as these other scholars, although she comes to it by way of analyzing a much larger sphere of figurative language than just metaphor. Her study deals with all types of metonymies and how they affect the methods and goals of plain language writing so commonly sought after by technical communicators. In her study, 45 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Garwood refers to the “metonymic substitution process” and explains how it presents three particular difficulties for communicating. The first is that metonymies require readers to infer. Consequently, there is no guarantee that their inferences will match the author’s intentions. Secondly, metonymies constrain meaning as opposed to specifying it. Metonymy relies upon highlighting one feature or part of the meaning of a thing or object at the cost of another – i.e. abstraction. Here again, there is the possibility of misinterpretation. Lastly, readers must be a member of a specific discourse community to fully understand the text and its metonymic substitutions, a membership that cannot always be depended on.

These three problems identified by Garwood (2013) are the same as those that occur with abstraction and ideology. They are also the same that occur with euphemism, itself a “metonymic substitution.” Indeed, “metonymic substitution process” is simply yet another way to refer to abstraction. Neither “metonymic substitution process” nor “abstraction” offer any guarantees of correct reception of communication. Further complicating matters is the exclusion of features considered not salient. It is a necessary part of metonymic substitution and abstraction that some features are emphasized while others are deemphasized. This circumstance means that users of figurative language can never give a full account of their topics. Accordingly, technical communicators must hierarchize information, a process reliant on a number of things, not least of which is the ideological underpinnings of the rhetor and their audience.

Despite the outward impediments and possible ideological mismatches that abstraction creates when employed for plain language communication, Garwood (2013) does not believe that figures of speech can necessarily be removed from technical communication or that they should be. Instead, like many other scholars, she advocates a heightened awareness of their use in our field. She writes:

Studying these kinds of challenges provides us with an opportunity to further our advocacy for plain language while at the same time enabling us to explore the intricacies of human language and what individual readers bring to it. (p. 177)

46 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Clearly, some technical communication scholars have accepted the challenge and opportunity of exploring metaphor, and the closely related figures of analogy, simile, and metonymy, but not so much with other figures of speech. There is one notable exception, however: Fahnestock’s (2002) Rhetorical Figures in Science. In her book, Fahnestock considered the ways antithesis, incrementum/gradatio, antimetabole, and ploche/polyptoton influence communication and epistemology. Despite moving the focus away from metaphor, Fahnestock arrives at many of the same conclusions studies of metaphor arrive at: form and content cannot really be “untwined” (p. 22). “[T]actics of using opposites, series, reversals, and repetitions is intended as an illustration of the common stuff of human reasoning” (p. 44), making figures of speech inseparable from epistemology. Also like others, Fahnestock advocates conscious use and understanding of their effects to mitigate the problems associated with their use. She writes, “Since it is impossible to argue without exploiting the structures identified in the rhetorical tradition, consciously or unconsciously, it would be better to use these devices consciously” (p. xii).

Even though focused on different figures found in different artifacts and within different contexts, the studies reviewed above all share in the attempt to answer a question articulately expressed by Fahnestock (2002): “To what extent does language do our thinking for us?” (p. vii). Their answers are similar: We know that figures of speech are closely tied, inseparably so, from the content they convey. Thus, the level to which they shape epistemology is difficult, likely impossible to measure. All we can do, really, is become more cognizant of the power of figurative language and work to minimize its inherent ideological bias. We need to do this, so that we can minimize its unwanted and unavoidable consequences while we harness its epistemological value for understanding. As I will explain in the succeeding sections of this chapter and the other chapters in this dissertation, this is exactly what a critical framework for visual euphemism is intended to do, only with visual communication.

Visual Rhetoric in Technical Communication Trends in the study of figures of speech in technical communication show that there is an effort to understand and mitigate the problems caused by abstraction and 47 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 ideology with figurative language. Recent studies of visual communication as it appears in technical communication replicate the same trends. While there has been much scholarship conducted on the ideological underpinnings of visuals in technical communication, the work of Barton and Barton (1993a, 1993b) stands out.

Like the scholarship on figurative language reviewed above, Barton and Barton’s (1993a, 1993b) work grapples with the complex process of abstraction and the inevitability of layering ideology onto the communicative artifact once produced. Causing further problems, ideology works through dissimulation. By appearing neutral, the visual hides its ideological meaning at the same time that it asserts its ideological dominance. The visual in which we see this most at work, according to Barton and Barton (1993b), is the map. Maps appear as fact, simply the reproduction of geographic space into a two-dimensional form; however, as the authors point out, this is a ruse. Like all communication that requires abstraction, maps are the result of choices concerning inclusion and exclusion. This process involves the ordering of geographic features, ostensibly, the salient ones as determined by a human actor. Barton and Barton point out “saliency [is] associated with legitimation of hegemonic interests” (p. 127). Being such, the map represents a process, not a product. It is not hard to imagine the problems produced through this process. Most notably, whole groups of people are “othered,” a condition that can – and has – lead to war, invasion, genocide, and other atrocities.

In other research, Barton and Barton (1993a) investigated the role ideology plays in additional types of technical communication visuals: charts, diagrams, and tables. Using Foucault’s concepts of synoptic and analytic power, produced through surveillance as analogized by the panopticon, the authors show how power is exerted over others via visual communication. Visual communicators, specifically those included in the field of technical communication, valorize certain types of visuals for their ability to abstract both micro and macro information simultaneously. Visuals that do this instill in their observers a sense of omnipotence, a god-like ability to see both individual data points and the bigger picture they comprise – the forest and the trees. That they do so is empowering for viewers. But, as Barton and Barton rightly point 48 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 out, the empowerment of one comes at the expense of another, making technical communication visuals mechanisms of control. To correct for this, the authors advocate the design of maps as collages or palimpsests to help ensure that future map- making is more inclusive and more easily recognized as an interpretive practice subject to human ideological bias.

Brasseur (2003) makes an effort to redress the ideological asymmetry of visuals in her book Visualizing Technical Information, too. Visuals, she argues, should never be viewed as simply transparent conduits, but, instead, should be considered as cultural artifacts, representative of the dominant ideology placed upon them during the abstraction process. She substantiates her claims by way of applying genre theory to a selection of visuals to include charts, tables, and maps. In a manner counter to what one might think, Brasseur defines genre not so much as classificatory, meaning isolated conventions that describe the type of visual and where it appears, but, rather, as an intrinsic part of the discourse communities that use them. Brasseur contends that discourse communities are made up of members who share broad common goals and aims, mechanisms of intercommunication, a specific lexis, and relevant content. A generic artifact, then, “can only be understood by a human being or group of human beings operating within a particular social structure” (p. 7).

It is in this same work that Brasseur (2003) makes perhaps the most explicit description of how abstraction and ideology work in regards to technical communication visuals: “One of the central and overriding features of the technical visual genre’s form and structure is the use of abstraction” (p. 11). The reason abstraction, with its consequent processes of inclusion and exclusion, is advantageous for technical communicators is because the work we do is meant to be expedient and usable. We pick out the important parts and use them to convey meaning efficiently. While useful, this does not exclude technical communication from ideological bias, or, as she calls it, subjectivity: “individuals, groups, and bodies who created, managed, and packaged the information that the graph [and other technical communication visuals] represents had to make subjective decisions along the way and this greatly influenced the information that is displayed” (p. 34). 49 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

To counter this subjectivity, Brasseur (2003) offers seven questions for assessing the cultural significance and rhetorical nature of visuals by way of genre theory:

• What is the genre? • How has the genre developed? • What categories exist within it? • How is the genre written about and taught? • What is the relationship of text to the genre? • What theory underlies the genre? • How is the genre designed?

Answering these questions, Brasseur posits, will encourage technical communicators to consider more closely the influence of ideology on the use and production of data visualizations as they appear in the generic conventions of technical communication visuals. Recognizing the importance of abstraction and ideology for technical communication visuals, Brasseur did not limit herself to just genre theory as way to analyze them. In what proved to be a very influential article, Brasseur (2005) explained how abstraction and ideology factored into Florence Nightingale’s creation of her rose diagrams, ultimately helping her to achieve her goal of the implementation of stricter sanitation practices throughout the entire British Army medical ranks. Through this example, Brasseur demonstrates how a visual rhetor can abstract data into a visual form that achieves its rhetorical aims and incites others to action. Nightingale, Brasseur shows, was acutely aware of her standing in Victorian society, and the resultant biases held against her for being a woman and an outsider to the political and military discourse communities. She was also aware of her broader audience’s unfamiliarity with statistics and the visual conventions used to display them. Taking all this into account, Nightingale was able to abstract data and design a set of technical communication visuals that showed the reasons behind the large number of English Crimean War (1853-1856) casualties: poor sanitation leading to deaths from dysentery, infection, and other preventable diseases. She was also able to 50 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 show with her rose diagrams how her improved sanitation practices helped mitigate these deaths. The visuals proved to be so persuasive that Nightingale was able to get her reforms implemented army-wide, something she failed to do with words alone. From this Brasseur concludes that Nightingale’s rose diagrams are “an important example of how visual abstraction of data can help further an argument” (p. 180).

For Brasseur (2003, 2005) ideology is a tacit understanding of power and knowledge attached during the process of abstraction and manifested in either the generic conventions that help technical communicators understand and design technical communication visuals or the visuals themselves. The work of prolific technical and visual communication scholar Charles Kostelnick exhibits similar arguments for the consideration of technical communication visuals as ideological. To varying degrees, Kostelnick has explored abstraction and ideology in the visual rhetoric of professional communication (1988/2003), the visual language of textual design (1996), the function of convention in creating and interpreting visuals (2003), maps (2004), whole text document design (2007), and many other issues concerning the role of society, culture, and context in professional and technical communication. For him, despite how ubiquitous or how ostensibly transparent some visual conventions appear, they are never arhetorical.

Nowhere is this focus on the ideological nature of visuals more apparent than in his book, co-written with Michael Hassett, Shaping Information: The Rhetoric of Visual Conventions. In Shaping Information, Kostelnick and Hassett (2003) set out to “build a framework for structuring visual language around a wide range of conventional practices” (p. 5). For them, visual language is comprised of socially constructed conventions manifested in visuals ranging from pie charts to architecture. Like others, Kostelnick and Hassett find that ideology influences the appearance of these visual artifacts as much as the visual artifacts reify ideology. Using exploded view diagrams, cut away drawings, charts, graphs, and a variety of other technical communication visuals, Kostelnick and Hassett consider the types of discourse communities in which visual conventions are born and used, the rhetorical functions of

51 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 such visual conventions, and the external factors, like technology, that also influence their design and use.

Throughout their book, Kostelnick and Hassett (2003) attribute the sustainability and eventual evolution of visual conventions to abstraction very explicitly. They point to the role that memory plays in the abstraction process, and therefore the role it holds in designing and interpreting visual artifacts. They even directly cite Arnheim to explain this: “Rudolf Arnheim shows how memory shapes perception, as experience enables us to construct our knowledge of the visual world” (p. 12). Using a circuit diagram as example, the authors expose the ideological power imbalances that inevitably come about through the process of abstraction and the necessary inclusions/exclusions it requires:

Through an array of discipline-specific codes, the diagram visualizes the conceptual design of the circuit, obscuring tangible elements such as wires, hardware, and other physical components. By representing only selected pieces of reality at a high level of abstraction, the codes on the diagram act as a gatekeeping device, enabling members of the discipline to make meaning efficiently while concealing much of that meaning from lay readers. (p. 89)

Unlike the other scholars reviewed in this section, Edward Tufte is not explicitly identified as a scholar of technical communication; nevertheless, his work has had a significant impact on our field. Like the others, however, Tufte (1983/2001) considers the necessary role of abstraction in visual communication, notably its processes of inclusion and exclusion. His work focuses much more on the actual design and use of visuals than it does their ideological underpinnings. Instead, he provides a heuristic for identifying “graphical excellence,” meaning interesting, complex, and truthful data communicated with clarity, precision, and efficiency and able to give viewers the largest amount of understanding in the shortest time and with the least amount of ink (p. 51). The foundation for his criteria is rooted in design principles and statistics. These, he believes, are universal: “the principles of information design are universal – like mathematics – and are not tied to unique features of a particular language or culture” (p. 10).

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While Tufte’s (1983/2001) standards and guidance often do, in fact, encourage the design and recognition of “beautiful” visuals, it is simply not true that certain design values, his are someone else’s, are universal and therefore not encoded with ideology. Even though he laments the fact, Tufte contradicts himself and acknowledges that he knows this as well. When addressing the possibility of distortion and deception, two factors always hovering around the use of visuals, Tufte admits that “Different people see the same areas somewhat differently; perceptions change with experience; and perceptions are context-dependent” (p. 56). Here, again, “perception,” “experience,” and “context-dependent” are essentially just different ways of referring to what others, me included, have called ideology. Even without this explicit contradiction, though, readers can recognize the ideological quality of Tufte’s design principles. It is evident in his estimations of “excellent,” “beautiful,” and “mediocrity,” and the many other personal aesthetic principles he employs to shape his assessments of visuals. These, as most recognize, are highly subjective terms, open to interpretation. For specific example consider his review of Charles Joseph Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow graphic. He finds this graph to be perhaps the “best statistical graphic ever drawn” (p. 40). And he makes a good case for it being so. Nevertheless, it does not make his claim a true one. He fails to recognize his own ideological position, and, instead, erroneously attributes his personal aesthetic sensibilities to wide swaths of people and cultures, scattered over the globe and separated by centuries of time.

A refutation of Tufte’s (1983/2001) claim for arhetorical design is a good place to end this review of scholarship on technical communication visuals, for it shows that even one of the most renowned scholars in the field of visual communication cannot effectively deny the influence of ideology on the abstraction process required by visualization. While there are semantic differences that preclude us from labeling “genre,” “convention,” “experience,” “perception,” and “context” completely synonymous with “ideology,” at the heart of each of these terms is a shared reference to the bias that will always come into play when human actors communicate with each other. Despite Tufte’s clear disavowal, the fact remains that visual communication

53 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 relies on abstraction and ideology for design, meaning, reception, evaluation, and use. We’d be better off to recognize this than try to work around or refute it.

The Link between Visuals and Figurative Language So far I have attempted to establish links between scholarship concerning figures of speech in technical communication and scholarship concerning technical communication visuals. This link is the role that abstraction and ideology play in the construction and reception of both. I have attempted to define and describe this linkage by reviewing a sample of relevant scholarship located in the larger rhetorical tradition and inside the field of technical communication. Specifically, I have endeavored to conflate this scholarship and bridge the gap between language and visuals. I have done this in an effort to justify my use of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory for the study of visual euphemism, which, by its very name, is a conflation of language and visual communication. It should not be taken for granted that all theories of language are applicable to the study of visuals, and vice versa. These different forms of communication are just that – different. As such, they require their own theories for explication and analysis, or at least some justification of cross-applicability, as I have attempted to do so far in this review of literature.

Despite this disparity, it is interesting to note just how often and for how long figurative language has been linked with visual communication. Starting with Aristotle and working its way up to some of the contemporary studies described previously, there is evidence that many scholars found parallels between figures of speech and visuals. More interesting still, is that some of these rhetoricians and theorists have argued for this similarity in ways different from my own. That is, while some identify the link as that of abstraction and ideology, not all do so; there are other features shared by figurative language and visual communication. I argue that these additional considerations further justify the use of verbal-based theories for analyzing visual artifacts. In this section I review some of these other parallels between figurative language and visual communication made by these scholars. I do so in continuation of my effort to validate the use of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory for the study of visual communicative artifacts. 54 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Aristotle established one of the earliest links between figurative language and visualization, albeit in an elementary way, when he equated the visual qualities inherent in metaphor with “learning” and “understanding.” At one point in On Rhetoric, he writes, “one can choose a word that is more proper, similar and pertinent than another, to bring the matter before the audience’s eyes” (p. 221). Later, he repeats this assertion, writing that metaphors bring understanding “before our eyes” (p. 236). These quotes imply that seeing is commensurate with knowing. Metaphors are the great heuristics they are because they allow us to see meaning.

Burke (1945/1969) also makes a connection between figurative language and visualization, albeit in a more complex fashion than Aristotle did. He writes:

Sensory representation is, of course, synecdochic in that the senses abstract certain qualities from some bundle of electro-chemical activities we call, say, a tree, and these qualities (such as size, shape, color, texture, weight, etc.) can be said ‘truly to represent’ a tree. (p. 508)

Burke’s best example of the connection between figures of speech and visual communication occurs when he addresses the metonymic substitution that transpires between internal emotions and their visible physical expressions, most conspicuously in a person’s experience of shame. Shame involves an infinite number of processes – biological, social, historical, etc. Yet, Burke points out that shame, despite the complex systems that inspire it, can be manifested in the blush of a cheek or the twinge of an eye. Essentially, then, the seemingly intangible concept of shame is abstracted and communicated by visual metonymy.

Baake (2003) also characterizes the function of metaphor as inherently visual. He draws a direct conclusion from his study of linguistic metaphors to show how they possess an inherent visual-ness: “humans comprehend their world through metaphor by developing mental images that extend beyond the literal meaning of individual words” (p. 66). Although he claims that the imagistic quality of metaphors seem to be more prevalent in “fresh” metaphors, their visual quality explains their frequent and recurring use. Furthermore, he attributes this quality to the complex process of abstraction while still noting the influence of ideology: “this process of creating

55 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 mental images helps them to produce and understand knowledge. But the way in which individuals deal with metaphoric images is subjective and depends upon what could be seen as intangible factors” (p. 67).

Fahnestock (2002) offers what I believe to be the most cogent explanation of how figures of speech are analogous to visuals. As an early premise to her study of figurative language, she explains that “scientific arguers often resort to visual persuasion, so it is possible to follow certain figures of speech into their expression as ‘figures’ in another sense” (p. xi). She theorizes:

It is only one step, then, from the verbal iconicity of some of the figures to visual iconicity, to a representation of the ideational patterns epitomized by verbal figures in purely visual codes. Hence it is possible for the figures to be presented in diagrams and illustrations as well as in the verbal arrangements defined as figures. (p. 42)

She goes even further in establishing the connection between the two:

The movement from verbal metaphors to literal images has been an easy one to understand. Images are consistently read metaphorically, usually from signs of blended semiosis. It is not difficult to take the schematic relations among ideas codified in the topics and epitomized in the figures and render them in other ways. Gestalt psychology warrants the dominance of such overall patterns in the ‘reading’ of visuals. Furthermore, an extension of the figures to visual representations helps to explain the role of the ‘figures’ in another sense in scientific arguments where visual modes of argument are preferred. (p. 42)

To show how figurative speech lends itself to visual figuration, Fahnestock (2002) points to antimetabole. This figure of speech, which juxtaposes clauses featuring the same word but in different places, displays an easily recognizable visible pattern when written out: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Other figures of speech are also often arranged in ways that present a visibly identifiable pattern, something she refers to as “figural logic.”

The similarity works both ways, though. By this, I mean, while figures of speech display an inherent visual quality, so, too, do visuals share some features of figures of speech. For instance, a diagram that shows a rising scale of temperatures is akin to the figure of gradatio. This relationship is predicated on two things. First, the

56 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 arguments epitomized in figures of speech already lend themselves to visual construction. Second, visualization is a preferred method of scientific explanation. And, since the figures themselves are cognitively constructive, it is easy to see why Fahnestock (2002) asserts that figures of speech and visualization are related.

Arnheim (1969/2004) also recognized that visuals can work as figurative language does. He explains how visual thinking helps us to understand not only objects, but larger, sometimes theoretical or scientific, concepts as well. To explain and understand complicated concepts or mathematics, the human mind resorts to what Arnheim calls “pure shapes.” These shapes are comprised of the salient features of an object, a result of abstraction. Arnheim explains:

Man, in perceiving the complex shapes of nature, creates for himself simple shapes, easy on the senses and comprehensible to the mind. One function of these shapes is that of producing physical equivalents of non-mimetic images harbored by the mind – “abstract” paintings, scientific diagrams, arithmetical concepts. (p. 216)

What Arnheim (1969/2004) describes here is seemingly the reverse of what Baake (2003) described. By reducing complexity to its salient features, metaphor helps scientists communicate with each other and with lay audiences. The result of doing so is many times a cognitive visual image. Conversely, visuals, as Arnheim explains, also reduce complexity to its salient features, enabling the perception of the complexity. The result of doing so is an actual image. Put simply, whether it is from figure to visual or from visual to figure, the processes represent two sides of the same coin.

Politeness Theory In the preceding sections, I used a review of literature to argue that the shared focus on abstraction and ideology as it involves figurative language and visual communication validates the use of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory for studying visual communication. In this section, I provide a thorough explanation of this theory, further explaining and validating its use in a critical framework for visual euphemism.

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Politeness theory explains why participants in a communicative exchange often times divert from direct language and, instead, rely on indirect language. It is predicated on a “dyadic model of two cooperating MPs” (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004, p. 58). An MP is a conjectured “model person,” “a willful fluent speaker of a natural language, further endowed with two special properties – rationality and face” (p. 58). The authors define rationality as a specific mode of reasoning that guarantees inferences from ends or goals to means that will satisfy those ends (p.64). It’s easy to see how polite language works rationally: I want some money, so I ask for it nicely, so that I am more likely to get it.

Essentially, face is shorthand for one’s public self-image, and there are two types: positive and negative. The former represents a person’s desire to be liked and/or respected. In practice, making a person feel good, either through flattery or deference, or simply practicing what is often referred to simply as “common courtesy” appeals to positive face. Negative face, on the other hand, is characterized by a person’s “basic claim to territories, personal preserves, [and] rights to non-distraction” (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004, p. 61). Basically, people exhibit negative face in their desire to be unimpeded by others in their thoughts and actions. When a speaker asks too much from their audience, that speaker is imposing upon their audience’s negative face. A good way to understand the face dyad is to consider positive face as a person’s wants (I want to be respected, liked, and understood), and negative face as a person’s non- wants (I do not want to be imposed upon, insulted, or restricted).

In general, people cooperate and assume each other’s cooperation in maintaining face in communication because they are rational and assume the mutual vulnerability of face. That is, since people can be expected to defend their faces if threatened, it is in everyone’s best interest to maintain each other’s face (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004, p. 61). When a speaker fails to cooperate and does not respect face, they have committed a face-threatening-act (FTA). FTAs can be either in the form or the content of communication. They can be words or actions – or the failure to say certain words or perform certain actions – that could damage a person’s face. And they are different relative to a person’s positive and negative face wants. FTAs against 58 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 a person’s negative face typically occur when the speaker asks too much of the hearer, usually as it relates to time and material goods. FTAs normally occur against a person’s negative face when a speaker threatens, orders, or openly discusses taboo or overly complex topics with their audience, causing them discomfort.

FTAs are intrinsic to communication (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004). If for no other reason, this is true because every time a speaker communicates with a hearer, they necessarily impose upon that hearer’s time and thoughts. That is, the speaker imposes upon the hearer’s negative face. Depending on the form and content of the communication, sometimes there is a very low threat of an FTA, other times it can be very high. The authors refer to this level as the FTA’s “weightiness.” An FTA’s weightiness is determined by the qualitative measures of three sociological variables: social distance, power, and rank of imposition. When the qualitative measurements of these three factors are low, so is the seriousness – the weight – of the FTA. When this is the case, communicators will likely speak with each other directly and in line with Grice’s (1967) four maxims of conversation: 1) quantity – be succinct; 2) quality – be truthful; 3) relation – be relevant; and 4) manner – be clear and orderly. When the threat of an FTA is high, communicators will likely divert from Grice’s maxims by employing a politeness strategy that relies upon indirect communication. Further explanation of Brown and Levinson’s three sociological variables explains why.

Social distance describes the level of familiarity shared between the speaker and hearer. It is easy to see how this variable affects the type of language used by participants in a communicative exchange. Many of us speak in a way with friends and family that is distinctly different from the way we speak with strangers. Because social distance is determined, essentially, by the shared knowledge speaker and hearer possess of each other, the figurative distance it describes is symmetrical. And it is limited to the party that possesses the lesser understanding of the other. Say that a speaker knows a great deal about the hearer by reputation. They can still only communicate with a hearer to the extent that the hearer knows them. An FTA occurs when one party fails to recognize this symmetry. When a speaker speaks in an inappropriately informal way, say by asking too personal a question of someone they 59 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 just meet, they breach the social distance and contribute to an FTA. The speaker will be accused of being “overly familiar,” a direct reference to the important role social distance plays in our communications with each other and its relationship to FTAs.

In Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) conception, the sociological variable of power “is the degree to which [one participant] can impose his own plans and his own self-evaluation (face) at the expense of [the other participant’s] plans and self- evaluation” (p. 77). The authors identify two common sources of power: “material control (over economic distribution and physical force) and metaphysical control (over the actions of others, by virtue of metaphysical forces subscribed to by those others)” (p. 77). Power, then, is determined by relative wealth, authority, status, and sometimes even physicality. Power is usually associated with, though not limited to, the role a person holds in his society. Here again, it is easy to recognize how power influences communication. Consider the quotidian examples of it we see in our own conversations and those of others. Few citizens speak to the police or a judge as they would a friend. Few speak to their boss as they do their family members. This is because these people, in these power roles, have the ability to thwart or advance many of the goals a speaker will hope to achieve through communicating with them. But, of course, context matters: when threatened with a gun, a speaker is likely to be polite to their potential attacker because they have power over them. This is true even if under normal circumstances the victim and the role they hold would be expected to wield more power in that society.

The final sociological variable that influences the possibility and level of an FTA is the rank of imposition created by the communicative act. Rank of imposition is a “culturally and situationally defined ranking of impositions by the degree to which they are considered to interfere with an agent’s wants of self-determination or of approval” (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004, p. 77). In other words, imposition refers to an actual, stated request made by a participant to another, in the sense of a request for a favor or a loan, as well as the mode of communication. The level of imposition created is relative to the culture of the participants, and it relates to both positive and negative face wants. As rank of imposition concerns negative face wants, the authors 60 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 explain, “a ranking of impositions in proportion to the expenditure (a) of services (including the provision of time) and (b) of goods (including non-material goods like information, as well as the expression of regard and other face payments)” (p. 77). And as rank of imposition concerns positive face wants, the authors explain, “For FTAs against positive face, the ranking involves an assessment of the amount of ‘pain’ given to [the audience’s] face, based on the discrepancy between [the audience’s] desired self-image and that presented (blatantly or tacitly) in the FTA” (p. 78). So, while social distance is always symmetrical, the power relationship between participants is always asymmetrical. This makes sense, for what is power except an imbalance of some significance arising between one person or group over another person or group? But issues of symmetry and balance are not involved in the evaluation of rank of imposition. The difference resides in the fact that social distance and power concern the relationships between people, while rank of imposition relates to the form and/or content of their communications with each other. Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) created the following equation to calculate the (W)eightiness of an FTA as it regards the conflation of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition:

Wx = D(S,H) + P (H,S) +Rx They explain:

Wx is the numerical value that measures the weightiness of the FTA x, D(S,H) is the value that measures the social distance between S[peaker] and H[earer], P(H,S) is a measure of the power that H has over S, and Rx is a value that measures the degree to which the FTA x is rated an imposition in that culture. (p. 76)

These sociological variables and the formula for calculating weightiness represent a deliberative and often tacit mental process a speaker will engage in to calculate the possibility of offending their audience. When weightiness is low, they are likely to simply talk as directly as possible. When weightiness is high, however, the speaker is likely to use a politeness strategy that includes a higher level of indirectness. Excluding the option to not speak, and therefore not risk an FTA, a speaker has four options for a politeness strategy: bald on-record, positive politeness, negative

61 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 politeness, and off record (indirect) speech. Communication of the bald on-record type is communication “in the most direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way possible” (p. 69). This strategy embodies Grices’ (1967) four Maxims of efficient conversation.

As its name suggests, the positive politeness strategy is when a speaker appeals to the hearer’s positive face. The positive politeness strategy is defined by:

linguistic realizations…representative of the normal linguistic behavior between intimates, where interest and approval of each other’s personality, presuppositions indicating shared wants and shared knowledge, implicit claims to reciprocity of obligation or to reflexivity of wants, etc. are routinely exchanged. (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004, p. 101)

These “linguistic realizations” include expressing interest, avoiding disagreement, or establishing common ground. A statement like “We’re all in this together” shows how such a positive politeness linguistic realization could appear in actual usage.

Both the bald on-record strategy and the positive politeness strategy are common when the speaker is familiar with the hearer, when the power imbalance favors the speaker, or when difference in power between them is negligible, and the rank of imposition is low; however, when speaker and hearer are familiar with each other and their power imbalance is negligible, but the rank of imposition is high, a speaker is likely to employ the third strategy: negative politeness. This strategy is an appeal to the hearer’s negative face and “performs the function of minimizing the particular imposition that the FTA unavoidably effects” (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004, p. 129). It manifests itself in questions, such as “Could you please pass me the salt?” and through other verbiage that minimizes the imposition: “If it’s not too much trouble, pass me the salt.” Unlike the first two, this third strategy of negative politeness involves a great deal of indirect speech, but it is not completely comprised of it. This is because the possibility of an FTA or its seriousness is not high enough to call for it.

When all three variables are high, indicating the likelihood of a particularly egregious FTA, a speaker is likely to employ the fourth politeness strategy: off record.

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Because euphemism is part of the off record politeness strategy, it is important to give Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) full explanation of it:

A communicative act is done off record if it is done in such a way that it is not possible to attribute only one clear communicative intention to the act. In other words, the actor leaves himself an ‘out’ by providing himself with a number of defensible interpretations; he cannot be held to have committed himself to just one particular interpretation of his act. Thus if a speaker wants to do an FTA, but wants to avoid the responsibility for doing it, he can do it off record and leave it up to the addressee to decide how to interpret it. (p. 211)

Off record communication requires a trigger, something that clues the hearer in to the fact that what the speaker says is meant differently than its literal meaning, and inference, the hearer must have the ability to discern what this other meaning is. As such, off record talk like euphemism often relies on context a great deal.

Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) present several forms of off record language. Metaphor, tautology, rhetorical question, contradiction, overstatement, and, of course, euphemism are some of the ways a speaker speaks off record. Actually, their explanation of off record speech is practically synonymous with definitions of euphemism. Euphemism as off record speech is used to communicate in ways that enable plausible deniability of an FTA for speaker at the same time that it minimizes the FTA’s egregiousness. Depending on the weightiness of the FTA, the plausible deniability afforded by euphemism can range from the innocuous and simply polite to the deceptive and controlling. Where a given euphemism falls in this range depends upon a confluence of the social distance maintained between communicative participants, the balance of power between them, and the rank of imposition caused by the form or content of the communicative act. Once these factors are taken into account, the resultant euphemism is only possible, and the FTA avoided or minimized, if the speaker recognizes the trigger and the hearer infers it correctly.

While euphemism is primarily meant to minimize FTAs against a hearer’s positive face, its use is actually motivated by the minimization of FTAs against both positive and negative face. These threats to face are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many times an FTA threatens both negative and positive face. For instance, the hearer

63 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 becomes threatened when the speaker asked for too much (negative face threat) at the same time that they feel threatened that the speaker didn’t think of hearer’s self-image and asked in the first place (positive face threat). By not using a euphemism, speaker reveals that they do not care about hearer’s sense of self, their wants or needs. This overlap is not unique; many other FTAs can impose on positive and negative face (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004, p. 67).

An off record politeness strategy like euphemism inspires a bit of cognitive dissonance. It would seem that the need to recognize clues and infer correct meaning is likely to hamper or obstruct effective communication. One would expect that direct language is the best strategy for rhetors to employ in their communicative efforts. And this would seem especially true in technical communication, were straightforwardness and perspicuity are expected. Nevertheless, face complicates this goal. Because of the necessity for an FTA in communication, there are many cases in which off record language like euphemism is actually the more effective way to communicate. Euphemism is used to mitigate that FTA, and thereby assist in the furtherance of the speaker’s aims. Euphemism helps convey meaning without offense by circumventing the impediment of affronting language or content. In this sense, euphemisms are productive, useful, and even necessary rhetorical devices. Rather than imped effective communication, euphemisms can facilitate it.

Politeness Theory in Technical Communication Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory first appeared in 1978 as a part of a larger work on language and social interaction: Goody’s (Ed.) Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. Nine years later it was fully explained and established into the book Politeness Theory: Some Universals in Language Usage (1978). A recent Google scholar search shows that their work has been cited over 13,000 times, substantiating its effectiveness for researchers who investigate the social qualities of communicative acts between humans in a multitude of rhetorical situations and media. Moreover, a great deal of this research involves the study of politeness in professional communication, computer-mediated-communication (CMC), and other areas related to technical communication. The scope of research using Brown and 64 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Levinson’s politeness theory, even if just limited to that which concerns professional and technical communication, is too large to review comprehensively in this dissertation. Therefore, I have limited the following review of literature to a selection of representative works and ones that frequently appear when politeness theory is discussed in the discipline of technical communication.

Friess (2011) has recently written that politeness theory in technical communication typically falls into one of three “veins.” While I disagree with her and find that many of the works she designates as being part of one vein or the other could actually be seen to overlap a great deal, and her claim that “these studies…do not investigate how politeness strategies are used in decision–making meetings and collaborative sessions of established work teams” (p. 116) is incorrect, her taxonomy is still a useful way to organize the literature on this topic. I will later discuss two more “veins” of politeness theory in technical communication – collaboration and computational – that I think could be added to Friess’s taxonomy, but first I review the literature via her taxonomy.

Friess (2011) identifies the first vein as the application of politeness theory to formal written texts of professional correspondence, such as letters and memos. This is a departure from the theory’s original verbal-centric approach. The first researcher to use it this way was Cherry (1988), who applied politeness theory to a set of letters written to a university president by faculty members and students regarding the denial of tenure to a seemingly deserving professor. Through his study, Cherry found that Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness strategies were sometimes purposefully transgressed in order to communicate the urgency or importance of the matter. This result compelled Cherry to conclude that, while Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies were valuable for communication, they should never become prescriptive. Instead, they should always be applied and adjusted as necessary for their unique rhetorical situations.

Hagge and Kostelnick (1989) also applied politeness theory to a corpus of professional letters, but, this time, to ones written within large corporations and done so under the guidance of the corporations’ in-house writing manuals. Typically, these 65 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 manuals presented the outdated Conduit Model of professional/technical communication, an approach Hagge and Kostelnick found contradictory to the examples included in the manuals. These example letters often showed evidence of the politeness techniques described by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004), leading the authors to suggest that such books should add a third “C” to the Clarity, Conciseness and Confidence requirements they so often espoused: “C”ourtesy. In practice, business writers make “trade-offs” between these goals, and, as such, business communication pedagogy should incorporate lessons and guidance for “analyzing situational contexts, including power and status differentials, according to Brown and Levinson’s scheme” (Hagge & Kostelnick, 1989, p. 335).

Myers (1991) uses politeness theory in a way unique from the other entries in this taxonomy. He essentially flips the theoretical framework, looking at the way discourse strategies shape social relations, rather than the way social relations shape discourse strategies (p. 44). Using a year’s worth of memos exchanged between three geographically separated researchers working on a computerized language parser, Myers shows that, sometimes, “participants’ relations, roles and acts are created in their interactions, not given before them. For each of the ‘sociological variables’, there is not one value, but a tension between at least two interpretations of the situation” (p. 44).

Graham and David (1996) applied Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory of linguistic politeness to memos they received from administrators over a ten year period at the land grant university where they teach. They found that administrators would typically employ indirectness, tentativeness, indebtedness, and personalization techniques as part of a politeness strategy in their written communications (p. 13). Even though familiarity, power, and rank of imposition still influenced the linguistic realizations of these politeness strategies, the researchers suggest that it would be different if the same type of memos were written in a corporate environment, where propriety and hierarchy are likely to matter more. This circumstance compelled the researchers to believe that, like Cherry (1987) and Hagge and Kostelnick (1989),

66 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 politeness in communication is still a function of the rhetorical situation and shouldn’t be ignored by teachers or practitioners of professional communication.

Friess’s (2011) second vein of politeness studies in technical communication also involves written communication, but the corpus is usually comprised of less formal, computer-mediated correspondences, such as emails or instant messages. Her first example of this type of scholarship is Brennan and Ohaeri’s (1999) “Why do Electronic Conversations Seem Less Polite? The Costs and Benefits of Hedging.” In it, the researchers compared the instances of hedging and questioning as politeness strategies in communications between two groups, one using face-to-face communication and the other using computer-mediated channels. They found that users of computer-mediated communications media do, in fact, use less politeness strategies, but only hedges and not questions. They speculate that this is because hedging often requires more words and therefore more time to type than questions, and is not necessarily because computer-mediated communication is less personal than face-to-face communication.

Rogers and Lee-Wong (2003) also compared the communications between two separate groups to identify instances of politeness techniques, however theirs were distinguished not by medium, but rather, experience and culture. They explain their approach and their goal:

We analyzed two quite different data sets – responses from Asian and U.S. undergraduate students to workplace reporting scenarios and actual reports from experienced and culturally diverse teams of MBA students to superiors about company projects over time – to develop a politeness framework that would be applicable across reporting situations and populations. (p. 390)

Their proposed framework for pedagogical application and analysis of communication between superiors and their subordinates builds on Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory, extending into six communicative dimensions for subordinate reporting: deference, nonimposition, solidarity, confidence, direction, and individuality (p. 395).

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Vinagre (2008) also performed a study of the politeness strategies used by two distinct groups of people. Using the corpus of 11 introductory emails sent and received by primarily English speaking students and primarily Spanish speaking students, she investigated how these two groups mitigate FTAs. Like Brennan and Ohaeri (1999), Vinagre found that CMC does not necessarily support Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) claims for universal principles of politeness; there are less than expected instances of linguistically realized politeness strategies in CMC. Unlike Brennan and Ohaeri, who speculated that the reduction was a result of time, Vinagre suggests that the lower instances of redressive language were a result of the students’ need to be direct when communicating in an unfamiliar language and their desire to establish solidarity with their email partner.

The third vein of politeness research in technical communication is truer to Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) original conception of politeness theory, as it concerns spoken communications. Moore’s (1992) well-known article “When Politeness is Fatal: Technical Communication and the Challenger Accident” is the quintessential example of scholarship in this vein. Using the transcripts created from the audio recordings of NASA engineers and program managers working on the shuttle launch, Moore was able to show how the same politeness strategies enumerated by Brown and Levinson were responsible for the “blurring” of information that would’ve prevented the launch. He argues that there was a tremendous amount of pressure on these men and women to launch on the scheduled date. This circumstance affected the behavior of the leaders of the project, which, in turn, caused their subordinates to couch and hedge their concerns about the problematic icing of the fixed service structure holding the shuttle and providing an escape route for the astronauts in the event something went wrong before the countdown’s completion.

In two separate but related articles, Riley and Mackiewicz (Riley & Mackiewicz 2002; Mackiewicz & Riley, 2003) also showed how clarity and politeness can clash and cause miscommunication, a circumstance they call the “directness dilemma.” Although with a great deal less at stake than the launch of a shuttle and the lives of its astronauts, editors and other reviewers of technical documents must learn 68 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 to balance their possibly affronting editorial directives with respect for the writer’s face. While this is complicated for writers who share the same language (Mackiewicz & Riley, 2003), it can be even trickier when the writer is a nonnative speaker (Riley & Mackiewicz, 2002). While the authors do not offer empirical evidence for their efficacy, they do provide several helpful strategies, based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004), for mitigating the inevitable FTAs that will arise when editors and reviewers work with writers to create technical documents. These strategies include complimenting the author on what was done well, using downgraders like “should” and “probably” when making revision suggestions, and using inquiries like, “Do you think it would be better if you did x?”

The fourth category of politeness theory in technical communication, one not included in Friess’s (2011) taxonomy, yet one her own work with politeness theory attempts to create and contribute to, is the use of politeness theory in collaborative efforts in technical communication. Depending on the way one defines “collaboration,” an argument could be made that virtually all of the previously reviewed scholarship is, indeed, collaborative. Even with a traditional or narrow definition of the term, works like Myers’s (1991), Brennan and Ohaeri’s (1999) and Vinagre’s (2008), originally included in Friess’s taxonomy but not under a separate category of collaboration, explicitly deal with politeness theory and collaboration.

It’s unclear to me why Friess (2011) did not include a fourth category of collaboration to her taxonomy, but, nevertheless, she does mention some of the work conducted in this vein, specifically Park’s (2008) article on politeness and efficiency in group interactions and its relationship to group satisfaction and performance. In order to test the hypothesis that groups who practice politeness strategies are more likely to perform better and report higher rates of satisfaction, Park conducted a study in which she gave separate groups the task of assembling a radio in 20 minutes. She compared groups instructed to be polite against those without such instructions, and found that politeness strategies in collaborative efforts do, indeed, increase satisfaction ratings, and, therefore, seemingly enhance the collaborative experience.

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In what might be the most extensive study of politeness and collaboration in the workplace, Holmes and Stubbe (2003) analyzed the emails, memos, voice mail, phone calls, team meetings, formal and informal face-to-face interactions, and briefings that took place between employees over a several month period at a wide range of workplaces in New Zealand. From this study, they were able to draw many practical implications, such as the importance of conveying directives clearly but also politely, the importance of social talk and humor to the workplace, and the role context plays in workplace communication. All of this they consider falling under the category of “polite talk,” a crucial skill for management and employees to exercise for effective communication.

Even though Friess (2011) points to the work of Holmes and Stubbe’s (2003), her own research actually contradicts theirs. Over the course of a year, Friess recorded the meetings between groups of professional designers, graduate students, and their leaders charged with redesigning a set of documents for the United States Postal Service. The results of her longitudinal case study showed that “successful collaboration is not entirely intertwined with politeness strategies” (p. 133). In a related study, Friess (2013) considered the way politeness strategies influence the assimilation process of a “newbie’s” integration into a professional design team. A review of transcripts from this group’s meetings showed that “Newcomers generally have a high concern for face in their conversational turns, while the existing group members generally have a low concern for face in their conversational turns” (p. 317). From this circumstance she concludes that students of technical communication should be prepared to deal with high social and power differentials when they first enter the workplace.

While analyzing the role politeness plays in formal and informal communications conducted either verbally or in writing, and the role it plays in collaboration are incredibly useful for technical communication teachers and practitioners, the most exciting work currently being conducted in technical communication with Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory involves attempts to make it machine-learnable. For instance, Burke and Kraut’s (2008) work with 70 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 politeness theory was predicated on the goal of creating a “politeness checker” for computer-mediated-communications. Using a corpus of comments retrieved from various online discussion groups, the researchers collected a very large amount of data they claimed could be used to inform a machine-applied algorithm capable of correctly identifying the politeness level of the language used in a text. This area represents a fifth vein of politeness scholarship in technical communication.

It is unclear whether Burke and Kraut (2008) continue to work on this project; a recent review of their scholarship does not indicate that anymore work has been accomplished towards the goal. Nevertheless, others have also recognized the importance of making politeness a quantifiably measured feature of communication, so that a machine can utilize it. In the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Politeness Research centered on this matter, Locher (2010) explains that it is important that researchers understand the role politeness plays in CMC, so they can exploit it. The articles following her intro attempt to do just that by looking at online newspapers and their comments sections (Upadhyay, 2010), blogs and email (Haugh, 2010), online bulletin boards (Nishimura, 2010; Angouri & Tseliga, 2010), interactive websites (Planchenault, 2010), and chat (Darics, 2010).

Locher (2010) is right; researchers in disciplines that focus on the communication between humans, such as linguists, rhetoricians, and technical communicators, should better understand the role politeness plays in CMC. However, she, along with many other researchers, failed to reference the ongoing work conducted at Smart Information Flow Technologies (SIFT), a Minneapolis based research and development company that specializes in human factors and artificial intelligence. Over the last several years, working under United States’ government contracts, SIFT has created and attempted to patent a computational approach to politeness based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory. In their words: “Our goal has been to develop a computational formulation of the Brown and Levinson algorithm for use in free-flowing conversation and social interactions between humans and agents in a simulation environment” (Miller, Wu, Funk, & Johnson, 2006, p. 4). Their reasons for doing so are manifold, but they can all be incorporated under the 71 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 goal of making computer characters, such as those used in games, instructions, or training modules, more believably human-like. Essentially, the engineers, scientists, and others working at SIFT are attempting to use Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory to help computers pass the Turing test.

To achieve this remarkable application of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory, SIFT has created a reliably accurate algorithm that can compare the FTA of statements against the redressive strategies used to neutralize them. Starting with American culture, the researchers and developers established numerical values for Brown and Levinson’s sociological variables of social distance, power, and rank of imposition as well as the techniques used to mitigate the FTAs that occur from these variables. They then fine-tuned these measurements through repeated testing of social- interaction vignettes. Essentially, human participants coded and evaluated politeness strategies relative to the social distance, power, and rank of imposition variables as they appeared in these vignettes. The politeness algorithm, what SIFT calls the “Etiquette Engine,” was adjusted to match these measurements. The result is a machine-calculable rating for qualitative measures and related redressive actions, a task once thought only achievable by human actors.

In later research and development, the SIFT team was able to expand their algorithm to include other cultures and languages, such as Lebanese, Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, and Pashto (Miller, Wu, Funk, & Johnson, 2006, p. 4). These modules allow computers to behave believably as humans from other cultures. SIFT has used this feature to train American military members tasked with communicating with members of other cultures. Basically, the Etiquette Engine was used to create a computer game called the Tactical Language Training System (TLTS). Players of this game attempt to communicate with members of a different culture and users of different languages. Players are free to respond however they like to the characters. The Etiquette Engine allows both the human agent and the non-human agent to “recognize the degree of politeness directed at them and to reason about the level of politeness to be used in an interaction they themselves issue in keeping with other goals the character may have” (Miller, Wu, Funk, & Johnson, 2006, p. 4). 72 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

The algorithm created from Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory by SIFT can also work in reverse. Using what they call the Assessment of Discourse Media Indicators of Relative Esteem (ADMIRE) tool, SIFT researchers were able to accurately predict the power relationship between participants in a communicative act. They explained:

Our ADMIRE tool was developed to infer relationships (we have primarily investigated power relationships, but others are possible) expressed in interactions between individuals (ranging from dyads to, potentially, hundreds of individuals and captured in textual records of those interactions. (Miller & Rye, 2012, p. 178)

Understandably, the significance of an operationalized politeness theory, and consequently politeness theory, is exceedingly valuable for many forms of research. Unfortunately, though, SIFT’s full coding manual is unavailable to those not working at the company; the inventers of this algorithm (Miller, Wu, Rye, Funk, Ott, and Schmer-Galunder) chose to patent (US 2014/0372362) their computational operationalization of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness model. This is not surprising, but it is disappointing for the current study and the possibility of others. Establishing a reliable way to apply Brown and Levinson’s qualitative constructs of sociological variables relative to the usage of politeness strategies in communicative acts is a significant challenge to researchers, myself included. I will discuss my own attempts to do so, and the techniques I employ to create rigor and reliability for the use of the qualitative framework in the next chapter of this dissertation, but, until then, it’s worth remembering how different researchers have addressed this challenge in their work with politeness theory.

Politeness Theory Methodology in Technical Communication Scholarship Just as Friess (2011) divided the types of research accomplished with Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory, can one divide it up into categories of methodology. The first type of methodology is akin to standard rhetorical theory, where readers trust the researcher’s evaluation of Brown and Levinson’s qualitative constructs as they appear in a text and the strength of the researcher’s claims are established through careful, traceable connections between the researcher’s corpus and 73 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 their conclusions. This generalized approach is used in the research of Cherry (1988), Myers (1991), Moore (1992), and Graham and David (1996).

The second methodology aims for legitimacy through formal coding systems, applied and tested with positive rates of interrater reliability. Studies of this type include Hagge and Kostelnick (1989), Brennan and Ohaeri (1999), Rogers and Lee- Wong (2003), Mackiewicz and Riley (2002, 2003), Vinagre (2008), Burke and Kraut (2008), Park (2008), Friess (2011, 2013), and the work of SIFT researchers and developers (Miller, Wu, Funk, & Johnson, 2007; Miller, Wu, & Funk, 2007; Miller, Wu, Funk, Wilson, & Johnson, 2006; Miller, Wu, & Funk, 2008; Miller & Rye, 2012). In this second approach, researchers will list or otherwise identify lexical realizations of politeness strategies, such as appearances of the word “please” or forming directives as questions, and then count and verify through additional raters the number of times such devices appear to calculate for a level of politeness.

Both approaches have value for our field, but it is my intent with the proposed study to enhance reliability through the use of external raters. This is despite the fact that Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory did not specifically call for or use additional raters for their data, and that some researchers believe it is unnecessary (Cherry, 1988; Myers, 1991; Moore, 1992; Graham & David, 1996; Friess, 2011). I explain further how I will do so in the next chapter of this dissertation.

Until then, there is one other item worth noting about the representative selection of politeness scholarship in technical communication reviewed above. This is the way researchers have adapted the theory and applied it to areas and in ways not initially specified by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004). Their theory was originally concerned with verbal exchanges without any contextual limitations besides the cultures in which these exchanges happen. As the preceding literature review shows, however, soon after their full explanation of the theory in 1987, did other researchers expand upon it, taking it outside its original verbal confines. The researchers above either applied the theory to writing, or applied it to a limited, professional context, or applied it to CMC, or did a mix of some or all of these.

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Readers will notice that while all of the reviewed literature expands Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) original, theoretical conception, none goes so far as to apply it to non-verbal texts, as I propose to do in the current study. Although a full review of all the research that has used politeness theory is far outside the scope of this project, my concerted effort to locate any research that showed its use in visual communication came up with zero results. Despite lacking a specific precedent for doing so, however, my proposal to use politeness theory in order to establish a framework for identifying euphemism in visual communication is bolstered by the many other studies that have applied it to diverse fields and artifacts, thereby legitimizing its multi-functionality and cross-applicability. In other words, that so much of the theory’s usefulness has been established from research that expanded upon Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) initial focus lends credence to my own claim that it can be used and applied to visual communication.

Critiques of Politeness Theory Despite the enduring popularity and proven multi-functionality and cross- applicability of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory, it still has its detractors. Little more than a decade after their initial explanation of politeness theory in 1978, and only shortly after their book was published in 1987, did Kasper (1990) create a comprehensive review of the research and opinion that contradicted the politeness theorists’ claims. Even though Kasper’s is only a single article, the amount of scholarship refuting, complicating, or otherwise detracting from Brown and Levinson’s theory she reviews is outside the scope of this literature review. Nonetheless, a limited evaluation reveals the common complaints and issues others have had and continue to have with politeness theory.

Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) collected an impressive corpus of linguistically realized politeness strategies across three separate cultures and languages: English as used in the United States of America, Tamil as used in South India, and Tzeltal as used by the Mayan Indians in Chiapas, Mexico. That the politeness strategies were so consistent across all three areas, lead Brown and Levinson to believe that their theory was universally applicable. Kasper (1990) shows 75 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 that many scholars found this claim unconvincing, and essentially untrue, especially regarding Eastern countries like Japan, Korea, and China (Ide, 1989; Hill et al., 1986; Matsumoto, 1988, Clancy, 1989; Gu, 1990).

Another charge against Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory is their simplification of the relationship between “power” and directness. “Studies by Holmes (1984), Preisler (1986), and Smith-Hefner (1988) demonstrate that greater politeness investment does not necessarily encode lack of power in conversational interaction” (Kasper, 1990, p. 201). Moreover, the role of gender in communicative acts complicates the “universality” of power and politeness. Kasper identifies several research projects (Kemper, 1984; Zimin, 1981; Brouwer, 1982; Holmes, 1986, 1989) that show how an interlocutor’s gender influences the nature of communication beyond the limitations established by Brown and Levinson’s three sociological variables.

An additional problem with politeness theory that Kasper (1990) points to is its ubiquity. Even at the time of her writing, it was clear that politeness theory was the primary way to investigate politeness strategies in sociolinguistics and other disciplines concerned with human-to-human communication. It is never good for any discipline to rely too heavily on a single theory, a condition that compelled Kasper to remind her readers that there were – and are – other ways to consider the issue of politeness. Lakoff (1973, 1975), Fraser and Nolen (1981), and Leech (1983) have all created somewhat similar but ultimately different frameworks for analyzing the subject. These theories are available for those that find Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory too simplistic, or for those that believe “the theory represents an overly pessimistic, rather paranoid view of human social interaction” (Schmidt, 1980, qtd. in Kasper, 1990, p. 194).

While all these concerns with politeness theory are valid, none preclude my proposal for adapting Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory into an analytical framework for identifying visual euphemism. For one, I make no claims of universality. The goal of this study is to create a reliable and usable critical framework for visual euphemism by which designers and technical communicators can use to 76 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 ensure efficient and ethical technical communication visuals, not to create a cross- cultural, universally-applicable one. I make no claims that the resultant framework is equally applicable to all other cultures and contexts, but, rather, that there might be an identifiable consistency we can expect and refer to when creating visuals. In fact, I expect that the imprecise nature of visual communication, that it is subject to many interpretations, would make any claim of a “universally” consistent analytical framework dubious, if not impossible. Nevertheless, as I’ll show further in the following chapters, regularity and reliability are possible.

As far as Kasper’s (1990) concern over a single theory dominating the study of a single issue, I can only agree. Other theories of politeness would be valuable to the study of politeness in visual communication, as well as many other forms of communication. Nevertheless, as Friess’s (2011), Kasper’s (1990), and my own literature review of politeness theory show, it is still the theory for understanding politeness strategies in communication. It would be beneficial to consider how other theories enhance our understanding of visual euphemism. It is quite likely that, provided the current study proves successful, others – or I – will do just this and adapt and apply some other politeness framework to visual communication in the future. Until then, it seems logical to start with the prevailing theory and extend any future research from there.

An issue not originally addressed by Kasper (1990) or the scholars she reviewed, but one that relates to its use in this dissertation, is politeness theory’s initial focus on a single speaker to a single hearer. Some of the artifacts used in this study are ones created by a single designer but intended for a mass audience. Some were created by a team, and intended for a mass audience. Again, in the following chapters I will show how. Meanwhile, readers should recognize that the different audience types complicates, but does not negate, the use of the theory for this study. As the previous review has shown, Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory is highly adaptable. And there is nothing that specifically precludes its use in ways different than what the authors originally intended. They say as much themselves:

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Although we refer to…‘linguistic realizations’, we have in mind also the broader communicative spectrum including paralinguistic and kinesic detail. But the apparatus for describing language is so much better developed that we organize our description around the linguistic categories. Nevertheless, it is interesting that many aspect of non-linguistic communicative behaviour can be naturally accommodated in the same scheme. (p. 92)

Verbal and Visual Euphemism Defined From the preceding chapter and the above review of literature, readers should understand that euphemism is motivated by the avoidance of a face-threatening-act (FTA), as calculated by the social distance and power balance between communication participants and the rank of imposition created by the communicative exchange. It is realized through the deviation of convention or expectation. Euphemism functions by way of abstraction, and therefore encodes ideology. Euphemism relates to both taboo and technical matters. And, lastly, euphemism has an ambiguous relationship with the “truth.” Hence, the definition of euphemism used for this dissertation is:

an abstracted and ideologically encoded substitution of a verbal sign for another, motivated by the avoidance of a face-threatening-act, as measured by social distance, power, and rank of imposition; typically related to taboo or specialized content; can range from mostly truthful to purposefully deceptive

A visual euphemism fulfills the same criteria as a verbal euphemism with one major adjustment. Verbal euphemism is mostly limited to substitutions between word- signs. In the case of visuals, however, what constitutes a sign is greatly expanded, as are the possibilities for exchange. A visual euphemism could occur when one image is substituted for another. A visual euphemism could also occur when a single visual feature of a larger image is changed, such as the rhetor’s decision to replace full color with black and white. Visual euphemism could also occur when an image is substituted for a word or words, as in the case of a diagram being used to explain a complex process instead of a lengthy textual explanation. Similarly, a visual euphemism could be the use of a graph instead of complex numerical data. Whereas linguistic euphemisms are mostly circumscribed by extant words, visual euphemism can employ signs from a seemingly infinite number of visual semiotic resources. Given this circumstance, I propose the following definition for visual euphemism: 78 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

an abstracted and ideologically encoded substitution of a visual sign for any other type of sign(s), motivated by the avoidance of a face-threatening-act, as measured by social distance, power, and rank of imposition; typically related to taboo or specialized content; can range from mostly truthful to purposefully deceptive

Conclusion In the preceding sections I explained the connections between figurative language and visual communication via their shared participation in abstraction and the consequence of ideological encoding. This was accomplished to support my adaption of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory into an analytical framework capable of identifying and analyzing visual euphemism. In line with this goal, I reviewed relevant rhetorical theory, visual rhetorical theory, and research in figurative language and visual communication in technical communication. Once I established that verbal-centric theories could be used for the study of visual euphemism, I thoroughly explained Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory, reviewed how it has been applied in technical communication scholarship, and pointed to its benefits and limitations, as well as the ways that my use of the theory would be different from the authors’ original conception. Ultimately, I presented definitions for euphemism and visual euphemism that conform to politeness theory and are more useful to a critical framework for visual euphemism.

Some readers may wonder why my review of literature did not cover visual metaphor, as this topic does have scholarly precedence (Aldrich, 1968; Lakoff, 1987; Danesi, 1990; Kaplan, 1992; Dake & Roberts, 1995; St. Clair, 2000; Forceville, 2002; El Rafaie, 2003; Proctor & Proctor, 2005). While the existence of this research certainly substantiates the possibility of using verbal-centric theories to investigate visual communication, none of these scholars approach the topic in the way I do. They do not point to abstraction and ideological bias as the justification for the analysis of visual artifacts through traditionally linguistic theories. Actually, most don’t even provide this justification, but instead just rely on the portmanteau of “visual metaphor” to rationalize the approach. This, I felt, was insufficient. Additionally, it’s true that metaphor and euphemism are both types of figurative language, but we cannot assume

79 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 that just because there is scholarship on visual metaphor there can be scholarship on visual euphemism. This too is insufficient. To mitigate these insufficiencies, it was necessary to create a better argument for the similarities between metaphor and euphemism – abstraction and ideological encoding – in order to justify the use of verbal-centric theories for visual communication. Hopefully, this is what I’ve accomplished above.

In the next chapter, I explicitly describe how I have adapted Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory into a useable critical framework for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism. I address more thoroughly and specifically the changes needed to make politeness theory useable for visual communication, how I mitigate the issue of subjectivity while enhancing reliability, and why and how this single speaker-to-hearer theory can still be utilized for visual communication with a mass audience.

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CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY In Chapter 2, I argued that abstraction and ideology create a link between figurative language and visual communication. This argument was presented in an effort to validate the use of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory for a critical framework for visual euphemism. While this literature review justified doing so, politeness theory still requires some changes and additions to become a useable tool for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism. These changes and additions include 1) adapting the weightiness formula from a mostly tacit deliberative process into an explicit forensic one; 2) adjusting the variable symbols used into ones suitable for visual communication; 3) diminishing the subjectivity of measuring for social distance, power, and rank of imposition for extant artifacts and the possibility of incurring a face-threatening-affront (FTA); 4) detailing the identification process of deviations from expected usage; and 5) adding social semiotics to account for the unique nature of visual communication. In the following sections, I more fully explain how these changes and additions were done in order to create the critical framework for visual euphemism.

To allow readers to consider the actual use of this framework, I begin this chapter with a presentation, explanation, and justification of the corpus used in this study. Alternately, I close this chapter with a discussion of the framework’s limitations and my attempts to minimize them. The primary limitation of this framework is the subjective nature of measuring for qualitative variables like social distance, power, and rank of imposition. Likewise, politeness theory was initially established on a model of two communicators, co-present with each other, and communicating verbally. To mitigate the issues caused by both, I used outside raters to establish interrater reliability and validate my measures.

The adapted methodology created from Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory presented in this chapter, with its reliance on the previously established definition of visual euphemism, and its inclusion of social semiotic terms

81 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 and concepts suitable for visual analysis comprises the critical framework for visual euphemism.

Artifacts The artifacts used in this study can be delineated into three sets of technical communication visuals. The first set is made up of the technical illustrations of renaissance engineer and artist Mariano Taccola. These illustrations include Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary, Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed, and Swing-arm Trebuchet. The second set includes two data graphics created during the “Golden Age of Statistical Graphics” (Friendly, 2008): Florence Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East rose diagram and Charles Joseph Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow graphic. The last set of visuals is anthropomorphic animation characters, the kind frequently used in pharmaceutical commercials to represent parts of the human body, the diseases that can befall it, and the drugs that can cure it. For this study I focused on two of these characters: Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus.

These visuals where chosen for many different reasons, ones that relate to both their homogeneity and their heterogeneity, but principally they were chosen because they fulfill the criteria of a technical communication visual outlined in Chapter 1. That is, they are artifacts of visual communication, which concern specialized and technical information, were created with technological tools, and serve rhetorical purposes. Also, all three sets of artifacts share in the conditions typical of euphemism; they all concern taboo and technical matters and were likely motivated by the avoidance of a face-threatening-affront. Moreover, each of the chosen artifacts represents an innovative display of abstracted specialized information, and I suspected this innovation was, at least in part, a result of the need to save face with a mostly unfamiliar audience, within a skewed power structure, and concerning taboo and/or specialized content. Given these similarities, I believe that these seemingly diverse artifacts are not as different as they may first seem and actually share significant features that make them useful for exemplifying a critical framework for visual euphemism. 82 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

However similar these visuals are, though, they are also very different. They were created at vastly different times, in different cultures, under different circumstances, and with different technological tools. Taccola’s illustrations were created during the early part of the fifteenth century. Golden Age graphics didn’t come around for another four hundred years or so, during the latter half of the nineteenth century. And while pharmaceutical companies have been using cartoon characters to sell their products for several decades now, the two chosen for this study are contemporary ones whose creation is aided by new-media technology. Rather than making them incompatible for a single study, however, these disparities make them representative of a broad range of technical communication visuals. A critical framework for visual euphemism is made more robust by its applicability to multiple artifacts, genres, times, and technologies – all conditions represented in my chosen corpus. That they are so different from each other enhances their value to the development of a critical framework for visual euphemism, demonstrating its use in different ways.

To summarize, I chose the artifacts I did because collectively they are all so alike at the same time that they are individually so different. Within each set, however, there are other specific reasons informing my choice. I provide additional reasons for each individual artifact’s value to the proposed study in the following sections.

The Technical Illustrations of Mariano Taccola Mariano di Jacopo detto il Taccola (1382-c. 1458) was a Sienese renaissance civil engineer, inventor, and artist. Taccola frequently illustrated his inventions and engineering solutions in order to explain and communicate his ideas to others. Due to the ongoing war between Siena and Florence, and because of the difficulty in bringing water to the city – it is on a hill – many of these illustrations featured war machines, aquatic devices, and hydraulic systems. I chose three of Taccola’s many illustrations for analysis in this study: Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary, Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed, and Swing-arm Trebuchet. These three were chosen because they represent distinctive and recurring features of

83 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 his work: made primarily for King Sigismund, featuring war machines, and featuring aquatic devices.

Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary (Figure 3.1) exemplifies Taccola’s meta-addressee King Sigismund. This drawing acts as a preface to his book of illustrations, De Ingeneis. Scholars have convincingly argued that this illustration represents his request to the king for military assistance in Siena’s ongoing war with Florence (Beck, 1968; Prager & Scaglia, 1972; Fane, 2003; Popplow, 2004, McGee, 2004; Lefèvre, 2004). This fact might make one wonder if the image is really a technical communication visual at all, and not just propaganda or visual flattery. If the image were by itself, there would be a good case for this view; however, Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary works as a preface to the rest of Taccola’s obviously technical illustrations. It is a sort of visual executive summary showcasing his artistic skills, technical abilities, and belief in the King’s power, as well as Taccola’s suitability for his court. In this sense, it helps establish his ethos as an illustrator, engineer, and inventor, and is, therefore, very much a part of the technical communication visuals that make up the manuscript.

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Figure 3.1: Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary (c. 1450) by Taccola

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Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-Bed (Figure 3.2) represents Taccola’s engineering work with aquatic devices. It is an excellent example of Taccola’s work with water-related devices and features many of the motifs common to his illustrations. These motifs include vignettes of workers using his inventions as well as the appearance of animals and mythical creatures on the page.

Figure 3.2: Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed (c. 1450) by Taccola

The final illustration of Taccola’s used in this study is Swing-arm Trebuchet (Figure 3.3). I chose this illustration primarily because it provides an example of Taccola’s work with war machines, of which trebuchets were a recurring subject. Moreover, this illustration features a mythical griffin creature. Mythical creatures like this one were common in Taccola’s work, but the reasons have perplexed researchers. The analysis provided later in this chapter, however, provides insight into Taccola’s repeated use of such images. 86 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Figure 3.3: Swing-arm Trebuchet (c. 1450) by Taccola

As individual artifacts for this study, each of these are useful for demonstrating how the critical framework for visual euphemism works; however, my choice of these visuals also conforms to a larger trend in the study of technical communication visuals. Given the newness of our field, and that design and visual rhetoric are an even newer and smaller part of that field, it has become common for researchers to look back in history to find early developments and early developers of technical communication visuals. Studies that fit this trend include Wainer’s (1990) review of graphs from William Playfair to John Tukey, Spence and Garrison’s (1993) history of the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram, Crawley’s (1994) analysis of Rudolf Modley’s charts and glyphs, Lupton’s (1996) discussion of Neurath’s Isotypes, Hankins’s (1999) research on Maurice d’Ocagne’s nomograms, Camerini’s (2000) study of Heinrich Berghaus’s maps of human disease, Friendly’s (2002) review of Charles Joseph Minard’s catalog of figures, Palsky’s (2002) work on Emmanuel de Martonne’s ethnographical cartography, Koch’s (2004) work with John Snow’s maps, Kostelnick’s (2004) analysis of early maps of the United States of America, Brasseur’s (2005) research on Florence Nightingale’s rose diagrams, Friendly and Denis’s (2005) study on the scatterplot, Spence’s (2005) review of William Playfair’s graphs, Hankins (2006) work on John Herschel’s celestial graphs, Kimball’s (2006) analysis of Charles

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Booth’s maps of London poverty, Friendly’s (2007) study of A. M. Guerry’s maps and tables, and Friendly, Valero-Mora, and Ibanez Ulargui’s (2010) research on the first known statistical graph created by Michael Florent van Langren. Taccola and his illustrations are a necessary addition to this trend.

Golden Age Graphics Michael Friendly (2008) has called the years between 1850 and 1900 “the Golden Age of Statistical Graphics.” This period of time was characterized by an increase in the interest of statistics and innovations in the use of graphs and charts to display them. The work of many influential statisticians and information designers appeared during this time, but two stand out: Florence Nightingale’s (1857) Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East rose diagram (Figure 3.4) and Charles Joseph Minard’s (1869) Napoleon’s March on Moscow graphic (Figure 3.5).

All three of Nightingale’s rose diagrams have already received a great deal of attention from visual rhetoricians (Wainer, 2000; Brasseur, 2005; Small, 2010; Christianson, 2012). While all three diagrams are valuable examples of how visuals can persuade an audience, for the purpose of this study I chose to focus on only a single one: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East. This graph compares the rates of death caused by combat against those caused by disease and other non-combat related reasons. It has been called the “most dramatic” (Brasseur, 2005, p. 161) and it seems reasonable to assume that, because of this, it was the one most responsible for persuading Nightingale’s audience and getting her sanitation reforms implemented army-wide.

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Figure 3.4: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East (1858) by Nightingale

Minard’s (1869) Napoleon’s March on Moscow graphic visualizes multivariate data regarding troop numbers and movement over geographical terrain. Specifically, it is a colored band whose area is representative of the number of troops Napoleon began his ill-fated incursion into Russia with and the much smaller number of troops with which he returned. This band and its area are linked to dates and geographic location, which gives those who view it a sense of the rate at which Napoleon’s troops diminished and also where and when they did so. Taken all together, the graph displays troop numbers, the distance and directions traveled by them, the places they crossed, the low temperatures they endured, and the dates during which they did so.

Given the dense amount of data Minard was able to make accessible through visualization, and that he did so through the innovation of his own unique graphic technique, it is little wonder that so many have praised his work. Polymath and pioneer of photography Etienne-Jules Marey said that Minard’s graph “defies the pen of the historian in its brutal eloquence” (qtd. in Friendly, 2005). Howard Wainer (2003) has excessively praised the graph, calling it the “World’s Champion.” And 89 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Tufte (1983/2001) claimed that Minard’s graph “may well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn” (p. 40).

Figure 3.5: Napoleon's March on Moscow (1869) by Minard

There are many graphs from the “Golden Age of Statistical Graphics” that could be used for this study. I have chosen these two because of their popularity and use for understanding contemporary graphic design techniques, particularly as they regard technical communication visuals. They are both innovative technical communication visuals. They are both concerned with the taboo topic of death and disease. As much as they are alike, however, is there a clear distinction between the contexts for these graphs. Minard was a well-respected and well-known visual designer by the time he created Napoleon’s March on Moscow. He was under no specific order or working for some larger group or agency when he created it. In light of the pending war with Prussia, the brutally eloquent graph was something Minard felt compelled to create to remind the leaders of his country, who so eagerly sought war, just how costly it can be. As such, it has a unique genesis, and would be interesting to see how, or how not, visual euphemism comes into play.

Conversely, Nightingale had a very specific reason for creating her diagram and a very specific audience for it. She wanted to redress the inaction from military leaders and politicians that followed her earlier report on the avoidable deaths of 90 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

British soldiers in the Crimean War (1853-1856). Like Minard, Nightingale was also well-known; however, her reputation came from her nursing skills more than her statistics or information design abilities. Additionally, she was a woman trying to make changes within a rigid patriarchal system. In fact, she is the only woman who appears on Friendly’s list of Golden Age designers. These unique circumstances of Nightingale’s diagram suggested that it, too, would be useful for exploring visual euphemism.

Animated Ailments Recently, there seems to be a trend in pharmaceutical commercials of using animated characters to stand in for either the product or the ailment it treats. They are often used to stand in for unsightly diseases or the symptoms of an unsightly disease. What’s interesting about these characters is that they must fulfill a dual function. They must be both imposing enough to motivate consumers to buy the product that remedies the unsightly condition, at the same time that they are not so imposing that viewers are repulsed by unsightly images and fail to watch the commercial. I have labeled these animations animated ailments. The examples of such imposing-but-not-too-imposing characters I chose for this study are Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus.

In 2003 the Deutsch NY advertising agency created Digger the Dermatophyte (Figure 3.6) as part of a campaign to advertise Novartis’s prescription medication for toenail fungus, Lamisil. Essentially, Digger is an abrasive, yellow monster, created as a visual metonymy for toenail fungus.

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Figure 3.6: Digger the Dermatophyte (2003) by Deutsch NY

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Initially created in-house by the makers of Mucinex, Adams Respiratory Therapeutics, in 2004, Mr. Mucus (Figure 3.7) is a green, gelatinous blob meant to visually represent human mucus. Like Digger, Mr. Mucus is a visual metonymic substitution for the ailment that the advertised product cures. In this case, the product is Mucinex, an over-the-counter medication meant to help with congestion.

Figure 3.7: Mr. Mucus (2004) by Adams Respiratory Therapeutics

Readers may wonder whether these animations and ones like them can be technical communication visuals or if they aren’t just advertising gimmicks. Perhaps both assertions apply. They are clearly advertising devices, yet they also signify complex, frequently misunderstood biological processes and malfunctions in terms people can understand. In the central tradition of technical communication, they articulate complex information in simple terms. Consider a standard technical definition for dermatophytosis (toenail fungus), which Digger represents: “an infection of the hair, skin, or nails caused by any one of the dermatophytes. The lesions may occur at any site on the body and, on the skin, are characterized by erythema, small popular vesicles, fissures, and scaling” (“Dermatophytosis,” 2006).

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And the same for mucus, represented by Mr. Mucus: “the clear viscid secretion of the mucous membranes, consisting of mucin, epithelial cells, leukocytes, and various inorganic salts dissolved in water (“Mucus,” 2006). From these definitions, readers can see that Digger and Mr. Mucus are highly abstracted, even greatly simplified, visual metonymies for their referents. But, as Opsteegh (2008) argues in his article justifying the use of comics and comic art – of which Digger and Mr. Mucus qualify – for technical communication, “When comic art is simple or abstract, the artist [or technical communicator/designer] hasn’t eliminated detail as much as he or she has amplified certain aspects or features by including them” (p. 6) in the visual. In this case, the technical nature is, admittedly, greatly reduced, but not eliminated, while some of the “ugly” features of these ailments are amplified.

The high level of abstraction, simplification, and amplification that occurs with Digger and Mr. Mucus means that, without context, the relationship between what these animations look like and what they are intended to represent can be hard to discern. They could be images from a children’s book, Saturday morning cartoon characters, or monsters in the next Pixar film. Indeed, without some context or clues, viewers would likely never be able to identify what each character is meant to stand for. This is true of many visuals, though, and speaks to what Barthes (1977) found intrinsic to them: visuals are polysemous. To fix the meaning of these visuals and establish them as metonymies for the complex biological processes described in the definitions above, designers must use anchorage and relay. Which is exactly what happens with Digger and Mr. Mucus.

Anchorage is a linguistic message attached to an image, one that isolates the designer’s intended meaning from all of the many other possible meanings (Barthes, 1977). Relay operates the same way, but is accomplished verbally. While Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus appear in both print and television ads, their visual manifestation and the designer’s use of anchorage and relay to establish them as visual metonymies for dermatophytosis and mucus is consistent. The following image is typical of the print ads featuring Digger (Figure 3.8).

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Figure 3.8: Lamisil advertisement (2003) by Deutsch NY

His name – Digger the Dermatophyte – anchors the visual signifier to the signified most clearly, but there are other ways anchorage is established in this ad. The quotation marks, proximity of the text, and the typeface – jagged like Digger – connects what’s being said to the character and anchors the designers’ intention to identify Digger with the infection. Additionally, Digger’s juxtaposition near the image of an infected toenail further establishes him as a sign for toenail infection. The correlation between the visual of Digger and dermatophytosis is established similarly in Digger’s first commercial, but this time with relay. Digger begins the minute-long spot by saying, “Ah, hey. Hi, I’m Digger. Don’t mind me; I’m just a Dermatophyte. You know, a nail infection.” After introducing himself, Digger lifts and climbs under a toenail, signifying that he is the dermatophytosis responsible for the process of infection.

Likewise, Mr. Mucus is established through anchorage and relay. Like Digger the Dermatophyte, Mr. Mucus’s name anchors him as visual signifier for the signified of mucus. Furthermore, while not always the case, he is frequently portrayed wearing a dirty undershirt with “Mr. Mucus” written across the front, as he is in the preceding image, or “Mucus Rocks” as he is in other images. Even those that haven’t ever seen

95 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 the Mr. Mucus character before would likely interpret his signification correctly from this anchoring text. Even still, in one of Mr. Mucus’s early commercials, an announcer does the job of relay. He says, “When you’re congested, mucus can settle into your chest,” at the same time that Mr. Mucus appears on the screen for the first time. The verbal-visual juxtaposition establishes the referent for the image of Mr. Mucus; he is “the clear viscid secretion of the mucous membranes, consisting of mucin, epithelial cells, leukocytes, and various inorganic salts dissolved in water” (“Mucus,” 2006) settling into a human chest.

Through anchorage and relay, these animations then become metonyms for biological processes – the infection of a human toe, the congestion of a lung – and the product of these biological processes, namely fungus and mucus. In doing so, they fulfill the criteria established for technical communication by the leading professional organization in our field: The Society of Technical Communication (STC). This organization identifies technical communication as any form of communication that exhibits one or more of the following characteristics:

• Communicating about technical or specialized topics, such as computer applications, medical procedures, or environmental regulations.

• Communicating by using technology, such as web pages, help files, or social media sites.

• Providing instructions about how to do something, regardless of how technical the task is or even if the technology is used to create or distribute that communication. (STC, 2015)

Regarding the first criterion, Digger and Mr. Mucus aren’t “medical procedures,” per se, but in their context in the commercials they are the ailments remedied by the procedure of pharmaceutical ingestion. In this case, the animated characters’ creators are using Digger and Mr. Mucus to communicate information on the specialized topic of human health. Regarding the second characteristic of technical communication, Digger and Mr. Mucus were created “using technology.” In this case, among many other tools, the technology used was computer-generated imagery (CGI). Moreover, they are then viewed on a television or computer screen – technological

96 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 tools too often thought transparent. The third criterion is fulfilled in a similar fashion to the first. These characters don’t specifically tell viewers how to do something, but they are a significant part of a larger attempt to instruct viewers on how to rid themselves of toenail fungus or mucus. Taken all together, Digger and Mr. Mucus are technical communication in visually animated form.

The designers’ goal with these animations is to makes viewers recognize the connection between signifier and signified at the same time that they are somewhat imposed upon by it. More specifically, the goal is to make viewers just imposed upon enough that they are compelled to buy the remedy, yet not too imposed upon as to be repulsed and turn away from the commercial. In other words, they must operate in a unique rhetorical circumstance wherein the designer must strike a balance in form and content that is imposing, but not too much so. As such, they seem highly useful to a study of euphemism, which must also often strike such a balance. Moreover, their use of color and shape to create connotations is skillful, and something technical communicators could learn from, even if they never plan to use animation in their work.

Politeness Theory Changes and Additions In the following section I outline the changes I made to Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory in order to make it part of a viable framework for the analysis and identification of visual euphemism.

Calculating for Weightiness in Reverse: In its original conception, Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) formula was intended to illustrate the tacit cognitive process a speaker performs to identify and apply an appropriate politeness strategy when communicating with someone else. This process is represented by the equation:

Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) +Rx

The sum of the measurements for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition indicates the (W)eightiness of the face-threatening-act (FTA). When it is low, a rational person is expected to speak directly. When it is high, a rational person

97 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 is expected to use off record language like euphemism to avoid offending their audience, or at least leave themselves an “out” for introducing the FTA.

This formula, then, is a deliberative one. Yet, given its mathematical-ness, it stands to reason that it can be reversed, in a sense, and used to assess the probability of visual euphemism for an extant artifact. That is, it can be altered into a forensic formula, one that can help determine if what occurred was or was not a euphemism. In practice this means that if a researcher knows the realized communicative artifact, but does not know if it was intended as euphemism or not, then they can investigate and establish the measurements for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition related to the artifact’s context and determine the probability of it being a euphemism. If (W)eightiness is high, then the speaker had motive to employ a euphemism. If it is low, then the speaker had little motive to deploy a visual euphemism.

Names and Symbols for Visual Communication: In order to make the application of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) formula more suitable for visual artifacts, and for the sake of clarity, it is necessary to adjust the names and symbols used. Brown and Levinson identify the participants in the communicative act as speaker, represented by an “S” and hearer, represented by an “H.” To accurately reflect the participants in visual communication, it is necessary to replace the verbal-centric language of (S)peaker and (H)earer with (C)ommunicator and (A)udience. This is a minor change, but one needed for accuracy and clarity. Thus, instead of:

Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) +Rx I use:

Wx = D(C,A) + P(A,C) +Rx

To further enhance clarity, I will continue to indicate that the terms social (D)istance, (P)ower, (R)ank of imposition, (C)ommunicator, and (A)uidence are specialized and meant to be understand as Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) defined them or as I have done above by writing them in this first-letter-capitalized and in parentheses format throughout the rest of this chapter and the succeeding ones.

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Measuring for Social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition: The outwardly mathematical approach to measuring the severity of an FTA belies the fact that these variables are representative of qualitative and highly contextual evaluations. The theorists acknowledge this: “The numerical values are here intended only as a model of relative measures of proportions of P, D, and R, and not of course as absolute values of sort” (Brown & Levinson, 1987/2004, p. 287). These variables and this equation “are not intended as sociologists’ ratings of actual power, distance, etc., but only as actors’ assumptions of such ratings, assumed to be mutually assumed, at least within certain limits” (p. 76). As such, the numerical values of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition are relative and assigning numerical value to these factors is done in order to accommodate analysis.

While Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) explain that each variable has a value of 1 to n, they do not actually create a numerical scale for each of these variables or indicate what exactly a “high” value is or what a “low” value is. To minimize the subjectivity of evaluating the sociological variables represented by social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition and to lend credence to my own study, I found it necessary to delimit their ranges and to provide examples that substantiate their numerical value. For the purposes of this study, I chose to create scales of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition that range in numerical value from 1 to 5. I chose this range because it allows for a common categorization of evaluative measures used in Likert scales, such that 1 = very low; 2 = low; 3 = moderate; 4 = high; and 5 = very high. Also, as I show below, it conforms to Brown and Levinson’s conception of five possible politeness strategies: don’t do the FTA, on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record (which includes euphemism).

In practice these ratings mean that a low value for social (D)istance indicates very familiar participants, such as that between family members, while a 5 indicates far, or high, social (D)istance, as in the case of strangers. Of course, sometimes we know a person even if we don’t know them. Meaning, sometimes a person’s reputation precedes them. Or, sometimes we might feel we know someone because they come from a particular background, geographic area, or share our ideology. In light of these 99 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 possible conditions, a good way to determine social (D)istance would be to not rely only on stable social roles, but to also ask, “How much does (C)ommunicator know about (A)udience?”

A low (P)ower measurement indicates that the (A)udience has little ability to prevent or promote (C)ommunicator’s goals, while a 5 indicates the total ability to prevent or promote the (C)ommunicator’s goals. Often, (P)ower will relate to the official ranks or positions (A)udience and (C)ommunicator hold relative to each other, but that isn’t always the case. Material goods, wealth, physical strength, and several other contextual elements shape the asymmetrical (P)ower relationship between (A)udience and (C)ommunicator. To properly assess for (P)ower, then, it’s important to not just rely on the authority given to the person or the position by society, but to consider other factors that might figure into this imbalance.

So long as we know something about the relationship between (C)ommunicator and (A)udience, social (D)istance and (P)ower can be measured for one-to-one communication between rational people with face – model persons (MPs). This is the original model used in Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory. With visual communication, however, the interchange often occurs in a one-to-many model. This complicates measuring for social (D)istance and (P)ower, but it doesn’t make it impossible, for it’s conceivable to characterize a group in the same ways that MPs are characterized. This is particularly true if they can be said to share certain beliefs or knowledge relevant to the rhetorical situation. For instance, a derisive illustration of President Obama shown to a small group of avowed conservatives is not likely to create as high of a (R)ank of imposition as it would for a small group of avowed liberals. Just as we expect MPs to act and respond a certain way to our communications with them, do we expect groups to respond and interpret things in certain ways. Knowing this about the group allows (C)ommunicator to make certain assumptions that will influence their communication with them. As the group gets bigger, and more heterogeneous, the possibility of making accurate assumptions diminishes. When speaking in mixed company, it’s likely that (C)ommunicator will ere on the side of caution, and speak as though there is a far social (D)istance with the 100 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 group or that some member holds more (P)ower over them. Like Brown and Levinson’s MP, this concept of treating a group of people as rational and possessing face is a reasonable construct necessary for the current study; however, in the Limitations of the Framework section of this chapter, I discuss more how this change affects the critical framework for visual euphemism.

Because (R)ank of imposition affects both negative and positive face, there are two ways it needs to considered. As it relates to negative face, (R)ank of imposition is measured by the level of required goods or services, including time. The request for a small monetary loan or a favor requiring minimal time or effort would be low, a 1, while the request for a large amount of money or a favor requiring a substantial amount of time or effort would be high. As it relates to positive face, (R)ank of imposition is measured by the amount of “pain” the communicative act causes the (A)udience. I believe that “pain” is better described as “discomfort,” but with either word, what the author’s characterize is the difference between how (A)udience perceives themselves – their self-image – and how (C)ommunicator perceives (A)udience. As a question, it would be something like, “How does (C)ommunicator regard their (A)udience?” or “What “type” of person is the (A)udience?” For a useful example, consider the often euphemized request for sex. While the sub-text of “Would you like to come inside for coffee?” at the end of a date is likely understood as an invitation for sex by both parties, it’s less imposing to the (A)udience’s positive face than baldly saying, “Wanna have sex?” Likewise for the current trend in euphemistic requests for sex: “Want to watch Netflix and chill?” In light of this view of (R)ank of imposition, it’s understandable why we have the clichéd, indignant response to such questions: “What type of person do you think I am?” In visual communication, (R)ank of imposition upon negative face might be the difference between a subtle, sexually suggestive image and an explicitly pornographic one. Again, and as always, context matters.

I have created the following scales for social (D)istance (Figure 3.9), (P)ower (Figure 3.10), (R)ank of imposition on negative face (Figure 3.11), and (R)ank of imposition on positive face (Figure 3.12) to assist in measuring these hard to pin down 101 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 variables. The examples I provide and use in these scales are a combination of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) initial descriptions of the categories and my own estimations of what is a high or low value of each to fill in the gaps. Again, context matters, but these scales work well as guides.

Figure 3.9: Scale for social (D)istance

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Figure 3.10: Scale for (P)ower

Figure 3.11: Scale for (R)ank of imposition on negative face

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Figure 3.12: Scale for (R)ank of imposition on positive face

As I stated earlier, the sum of these measurements equates to one of five possible politeness strategies, and these relate to levels of directness. The lower the combined sum, the lower the severity of the FTA, the more direct language (C)ommunicator is expected to use. Conversely, the higher the combined sum, the higher the severity of the face-threatening-affront (FTA), the more indirect language (C)ommunicator is expected to use to mitigate that FTA. In sequence from low/direct to high/indirect the strategies are: on record (direct), positive politeness, negative politeness, off record (includes euphemism). A fifth strategy is to avoid the FTA all together, and just not communicate at all.

Using 1-5 increment Likert scales effectively conforms to Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) strategies. So, for the purpose of this study, to create consistency across the 5-interval Likert scales, and to correlate numerical value with politeness strategies, I have created the following (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table (Table 3.1):

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Table 3.1: (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation (W)eightiness Value Politeness Strategy

12-15 Off record (includes euphemism)

8-11 Positive politeness

4-7 Negative politeness

1-3 On record

0 Do not commit the FTA

Euphemism is the quintessential realization of off record communication. Therefore, those artifacts whose (W)eightiness falls into the highest, 12-15 (W)eightiness range will be recognized as artifacts whose contexts are conducive to and likely to produce off record communication to include euphemism. While there may be some type of indirect communication occurring in those artifacts whose contexts measure lower than this range, they will not be considered as off record communication or euphemism.

Deviation from Expected Usage Although a high (W)eightiness measurement that falls with that 12-15 range signifies the likelihood of visual euphemism, it does not make it so. Just because a (C)ommunicator engages in communication with an (A)udience unfamiliar to them, one that holds power over them and on a topic that ranks high on the imposition scale, does not mean that everything they say or visualize is euphemistic. Instead, what this means is the (C)ommunicator is in a context for communication conducive for off record communication and is likely to employ it. It doesn’t mean they have to, though. Some (C)ommunicators, for any number of reasons, could choose to still communicate in this weighty context with varying levels of directness. Thus, in order to create a critical framework for visual euphemism it becomes requisite to include one other criterion by which to identify and judge the possibility of visual euphemism: deviations from neutral and/or expected usage. By deviations from neutral and/or expected usage I mean to describe those communicative artifacts that divert from or 105 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 otherwise defy conventions of direct communication, ultimately subverting the (A)udience’s presumptions, causing them to infer the (C)ommunicator’s real meaning. Another way to consider it is to view the deviations as those that go against at least one of Grice’s (1967) four maxims of effective communication: quantity, quality, relation, and manner. This isn’t to say that all deviations are necessarily euphemisms, as much of the communication conducted between humans deviates from Grice’s maxims, but rather, deviation suggests the possibility of euphemism. Further steps in the critical framework can corroborate it as such.

When a (C)ommunicator recognizes a deviation from expectations, they are prompted to consider why. Likely, this will all be tacit. However, the deviation is a clue or trigger that initiates a process of inference in the (A)udience. A verbal example would be when a (C)ommunicator uses the phrase “a visit from Aunt Flo” instead of simply saying “having her period.” The latter is clear and direct, the former ambiguous and off record. In the case of visual communication, an example would be the use of a pie chart instead of a line graph to show quantity over time. Convention dictates that quantity over time is best displayed in a line graph, therefore, one presumes that this type of data be displayed in this form. When it appears in a pie chart instead, the (A)udience should wonder why and possibly suspect the use of visual euphemism. Another, perhaps more salient example is the blue liquid so often used in television advertisements to signify urine. Urine is expected to be yellow; when it’s blue, the (A)udience recognizes the disparity and begins the process of inference to obtain (C)ommunicator’s intended meaning.

Certainly, there are cases where these example phrases and graphs aren’t euphemistic. Again, with euphemism context matters a great deal. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this study and its methodology, when (W)eightiness is high and (C)ommunicator uses an unconventional or otherwise unexpected figure to convey their message, one whose use cannot be adequately explained by other reasons, it will mean they are employing euphemism. To determine deviations, it is necessary to consider what options (C)ommunicator had available to convey their message, identify

106 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 those that are conventional, expected, and/or neutral, and then compare these against the actual visual used.

Social Semiotics as Visual Analysis Tool Kit While politeness theory can be adapted and used to identify and understand visual euphemisms, it is still a theory specifically concerned with verbal strategies of communication. As such, it lacks the terminology necessary to analyze visual communication. In order to adapt Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) formula for the study of visuals it is necessary to augment it with a heuristic more applicable to the study of visuals. Social semiotics provides such a system.

Social semiotics is not a theory, per se, but, rather an analytical toolbox that requires the observation of artifacts in authentic contexts, a system of recording those observations, and a system for analyzing those observations in order to identify larger patterns of meaning. Even though it is a branch of semiotics, social semioticians do not study signs, but, instead, semiotic resources (van Leeuwen, 2005, p. 3). Unlike “sign,” with its implication of inherent meaning, “semiotic resource” suggests that communicative artifacts can only have potential meaning and cannot be “divorced from the concrete forms of social intercourse” (Hodge & Kress, 1988, p. 18). Van Leeuwen explains further the intent behind using “semiotic resource” to describe the social semiotician’s basic unit of study:

in social semiotics resources are signifiers, observable actions and objects that have been drawn into the domain of social communication and that have a theoretical semiotic potential constituted by all their past uses and all their potential uses and an actual semiotic potential constituted by those past uses that are known to and considered relevant by the users of the resource, and by such potential uses as might be uncovered by the users on the basis of their specific needs and interests. (p. 4)

Van Leeuwen (2005) has systematized social semiotic analysis into three steps:

1. Collect, document, and systematically catalogue semiotic resources – including their history

2. Investigate how these resources are used in specific historical, cultural, and institutional contexts, and how people talk about them in these contexts – plan them, teach them, justify them, critique them, etc. 107 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

3. Contribute to the discovery and development of new semiotic resources and new uses of existing semiotic resources (p. 3)

Depending on the discourse, the type and number of semiotic resources is seemingly infinite, a fact van Leeuwen (2005) himself acknowledges when he writes, “By nature such inventories are never complete, because they tend to be made for specific purposes” (p. 5). Although it is true that the identification and collection of semiotic resources could seemingly go on forever, for the “specific purpose” of visual communication, social semioticians have identified several common and recurring semiotic resources. Many of these originated from Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996/2006) seminal work in visual social semiotics, Reading Images. Just to name a few, these frequently recurring visual semiotic resources include represented participants, vectors, distance, angles, information value, salience, framing, modality, and color.

When used together to create a visual artifact of an image, these semiotic resources and others comprise what social semioticians call a metafunction. This term and what it describes come from the progenitor of social semiotics, M. A. K. Halliday (1978), who conceived a tripartite metafunctional taxonomy for describing how linguistic communication works in a given semantic system: the ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual. The first, ideational, refers to what a texts means or represents. The second, interpersonal, refers to the relationships between people. And the third, compositional, describes the meaning of the first two metafunctions combined. Contemporary social semioticians continue to use Halliday’s concept of metafunction to investigate how texts work; however, in order to make it more accommodating for other, non-linguistic modes of communication, they have adjusted the nomenclature slightly. Instead of “ideational” it’s “representational.” And instead of “textual” it’s “compositional” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006). Regardless what they are called, though, they are meant to help us understand how a communicative artifact works. For the purpose of this study, they help us to see how an image works, for every rhetorical image has a representational metafunction, an interpersonal

108 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 metafunction, and a compositional metafunction. In crafting a single question for each type of metafunction, Harrison (2003) has simplified their meaning:

• Representational: What is the picture about? • Interpersonal: How does the picture engage the viewer? • Compositional: How do the representational and interpersonal metafunctions relate to each other and integrate into a meaningful whole?

The questions offered by Harrison (2003), the common and recurring semiotic resources identified by Kress and van Leeuwen (1996/2006), and the steps for social semiotic analysis were incorporated with elements of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory to develop the critical framework for visual euphemism.

Methodology of the Critical Framework The previously listed changes and additions combined with Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory establishes the following methodology for identifying and evaluating visual euphemisms:

Step 1: Catalog Semiotic Resources: Identify pertinent abstracted semiotic resources used in the artifact to determine its representational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction, and compositional metafunction.

Step 2: Investigate Context and Assign Value: Use extant scholarship relevant to the artifact – how it was created, transmitted, and received within specific historical, cultural, and institutional contexts – to determine credible assessments of and assign numerical value to social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition.

Step 3: Calculate Weightiness: Using the assigned numerical values for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, calculate the (W)eightiness of the Face

Threatening Act (FTA) x for the visual communicative exchange between a

(C)ommunicator and their (A)udience using the formula: Wx = D(C,A) + P(A,C) +Rx.

Step 4: Identify and Analyze Visual Euphemism: Working under the premise that higher values (12-15) for (W)eightiness indicate euphemism-conducive contexts and lower values do not, determine if artifact appeared in a euphemism-conducive context. 109 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

If the context is determined to be euphemism-conducive and the visual artifact deviates from expected usage, it is believed to be because it is a euphemism. If so, compare against established definition and criteria for visual euphemism to further establish it as such and determine its “truth” quality.

Step 5: Contribution: Review identified visual euphemisms to discover and develop new semiotic resources or new uses of existing semiotic resources; consider how ideology was articulated in the visual euphemism; identify other lessons for technical communicators as they relate to visual euphemism.

Taken all together, this methodology, the definition of visual euphemism it incorporates, its aim to identify the semiotic resources used for visual euphemism, and its intent to uncover the ideological motivations of doing so comprise and complete the critical framework for visual euphemism.

Limitations of the Framework While this framework will be valuable for identifying and analyzing visual euphemism, it still has its limitations. The most evident of which is the level of subjectivity involved in measuring for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition to determine (W)eightiness. Further complicating the possibility of a reliable measure of these sociological variables is the fact that the authors’ original theory is created upon a dyadic model of two cooperating model persons, who are co- present with each other, but I have used it to gauge the possibility of euphemism in artifacts that are sometimes intended for groups and other times meant for a mass (A)udience. These circumstances don’t negate the use of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory for this study; however, they do require a discussion of how I mitigate the problems caused by 1) measuring for highly subjective factors like social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, and 2) applying a theory for dyadic, co-present communication to artifacts intended for large, sometimes mixed groups of people. Considering the role of the “model person” (MP) in the authors’ theory helps redress both of these issues.

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An MP is an analytical construct, a “cardboard figure…a willful fluent speaker of a natural language, further endowed with two special properties – rationality and face” (p. 58). Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) found “that a dyadic model of two cooperating MPs (potentially with an audience) accounts for…cross-cultural regularities in language usage” (p. 58). In essence, Brown and Levinson found that the politeness strategies used by two rational people verbally communicating with each other are indicative of the way most members of an entire culture will speak with each other. They also recognized its potential applicability to more than communication that occurs between two, co-present participants, parenthetically suggesting that it can be used for one-to-many communicative exchanges.

While useful for politeness theory, some (Eelen, 2001) found the MP concept too conjectural to adequately extrapolate any kind of reliable conclusions from. The MP is an amalgamation of all members of a culture, a social construct without context, one “who is first framed in the scientist’s etic world, and then converted into ‘every competent member of a culture’” (p. 80). It would seem, then, that the MP concept lacks believability, ultimately undermining the possibility of reliability or regularity for Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory. But, Brown and Levinson anticipated this issue and preemptively addressed it:

there is intended no claim that ‘rational face-bearing agents’ are all or always what actual humans are, but simply that these are assumptions that make the most sense of the data, and are assumptions that all interacting humans know that they will be expected to orient to. (p. 58)

In other words, while one may be able to identify or imagine any number of people that don’t fit the model, Brown and Levinson’s data has shown that most participants in communication are likely to behave rationally and with respect to face. Even without their data, speaking anecdotally, most of us can attest to the likelihood of the MP. Every time we communicate with another person, we expect them to “get it” and to respond in a reasonable and expected fashion. Undoubtedly, we’ve all had instances of miscommunication, but they are the exceptions and not the rule. Furthermore, because miscommunication sometimes happens, we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of

111 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 theories or concepts that help us understand what happens in most communicative exchanges.

Even though it relies so heavily on the assumption of an MP, politeness theory has been incredibly successful. Certainly, Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) account of politeness in communication and its ties to the ethos of a culture are revelatory. I see no reason why a critical framework for visual euphemism cannot do the same, in the same way, and for the same reasons. Whereas they anticipate that actors in communication will be rational and respect face, a critical framework for visual euphemism holds that a group, even a massive one, can also be rational and be perceived by the (C)ommunicator to possess a type of collective face. The (C)ommunicator assumes that the (A)udience will share some common knowledge, or be possessed by the same ideology, with which they can rely on to receive the message as intended. In essence, the (A)udience takes on a group identity, a collective face, and the (C)ommunicator will use that as a reference to communicate with that group effectively. A group, no matter how large, is a collection of MPs, and, as such, we can use the same measurements of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition that Brown and Levinson used to characterize the communication that occurs between them and a (C)ommunicator.

Here again, one can identify transgressions of this expectation, but, more times than not, groups “get” the message when it is presented in this way. Listeners of a speech, employees in a corporation, and millions of television watchers will – and do – properly understand the (C)ommunicator’s message. And this is the case for both verbal and visual communication. It’s true that verbal language is a carefully delineated system, one more constraining than visual communication, and therefore well-equipped to facilitate successful communication, but this doesn’t mean that visual communication fails to operate in the same fashion. Hodge and Kress (1988) explain:

Readers of visual texts do seem to read the modality of such texts in a reasonably predictable fashion, and while the possible range of readings may be less narrowly constrained than in the case of the verbal code, it is constrained. Visual texts, no less than verbal texts, facilitate certain modality judgements [sic] and resist others. (p. 128) 112 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

The framework relies on the assumption that groups are comprised of the same MPs used in the dyadic, co-present model initially proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) and can be treated as such. Therefore, the creator of a visual text intended for a group or some other large (A)udience will expect the same from that group: that they are rational and have face. For the purposes of developing a critical framework for visual euphemism, it could be said, then, that, when the artifact is presented to a group, they are understood to be a Model Group, possessing rationality and face and with whom a (C)ommunicator can evaluate for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. To summarize, a critical framework for visual euphemism relies on the same assumption as Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) original theory: that both the creator and viewer(s) of a visual communicative artifact are MPs – rational people who possess face – and are more likely than not to recognize the intended meaning of a visual text. Consequently, a critical framework for visual euphemism can be used in a forensic fashion to identify the values of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition to determine if the artifact displays qualities of visual euphemism. Further research regarding the way politeness strategies work with groups would be a fruitful endeavor, but one outside of the scope of this dissertation.

Whether for a one-to-one communication exchange or one-to-many, I provide explicit explanations for my final measurements of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, in addition to using the scales introduced above. I do this to enhance reliability and regularity for the critical framework; however, to even further enhance the validity of the framework and justify its usability, I have chosen to use external raters. In doing so, I follow what many other users of politeness theory in the field of technical communication have done (Hagge & Kostelnick, 1989; Brennan & Ohaeri, 1999; Rogers & Lee-Wong, 2003; Mackiewicz & Riley, 2002; Riley & Mackiewicz, 2003; Vinagre, 2008; Burke & Kraut, 2008; Park, 2008). This is despite the fact that Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory did not specifically call for or use additional raters for their data, and that some researchers believe it is unnecessary to do so (Cherry, 1988; Myers, 1991; Moore, 1992; Graham & David, 1996; Friess, 2011).

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My estimations of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition will come from my own analysis and interpretation of the context in which they first appeared as established through outside research. I cannot reasonably expect outside raters to do the same. Conversely, I cannot provide them my selected materials or my justifications for the score and have them determine their own, as this would likely bias them. To remedy this dilemma, I created succinct and relevant descriptions of the actors and contexts associated with each artifact used for this study. After describing the nature of this study and relevant parts of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory, I asked two outside raters to assign social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition value for each artifact using the 1-5 Likert scales and based on the information provided. I then calculated for interclass correlation to determine interrater reliability, aiming for .75 or better. Rates at this figure or higher are considered indicative of reliability and regularity (Hallgren, 2012).

Despite the lengths at which I go to establish reliability in this study, it is still subjective. My interpretations of the context surrounding these visual artifacts will be credible but not immune to critique; however, as such, they are scarcely different from any other rhetorical theory that attempts to understand the ways humans communicate with each other and their motivations for doing so. Although there exists the possibility of bias (as there is in all scholarly research, qualitative or otherwise), a critical framework for visual euphemism can still provide a useful heuristic for helping us understand why and how technical communicators employ them in their work. Consequently, the methodology outlined in the preceding chapter can best answer the research questions presented in Chapter 1 of this document. It provides a useful system of analytic steps founded upon Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory and augmented with social semiotics to make it suitable for visual analysis. It also presents a method for making qualitative judgments on contextual, sociological variables more reliable than the original theory, ultimately helping us to understand the ideological sub-structure that manifests itself in different forms of technical communication visuals.

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CHAPTER IV

CRITICAL FRAMEWORK APPLIED In the following sections I apply the critical framework for visual euphemism to the artifact sets covered in Chapter 3. While there are seven artifacts in total, some artifacts were meant for multiple (A)udiences. Since euphemism is always relative to the (A)udience, and there was more than one (A)udience for some of the artifacts, I evaluated for (W)eightiness a total of 11 times, a sum greater than the total number of artifacts. Six of the eleven artifacts analyzed were determined to be visual euphemisms for a particular (A)udience: Taccola’s Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary for King Sigismund as (A)udience: Swing-arm Trebuchet for the engineers and craftsmen who would build it as (A)udience; Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East for Queen Victoria and other British military and political leaders as (A)udience; Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow for French political leaders; and both of the animated ailments, Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus, for mass (A)udiences. I present how, why, and to whom these technical communication visuals work as visual euphemisms in this chapter, as well as a discussion of what it means that they do so.

In order to substantiate reliability and regularity of this framework, I compared my evaluations of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition against those made by two outside raters. After I briefly explained the study and its use of politeness theory, I provided the raters a written description of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, along with scales and then asked them to code for these instances based on descriptions of the contexts in which each technical communication visual was created. A 1-5 Likert scale with applicable ratings was associated with each request. The full handout as it was presented to the raters can be found in Appendix A.

To avoid unnecessarily complicating and possibly biasing the coding process, I refrained from the specialized terms as defined by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004). For instance, instead of asking raters to rate the (R)ank of imposition placed on the (A)udience’s negative face by the (C)ommunicator’s request, I asked them to rate the

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“costs” incurred if the (A)udience were to fulfill (C)ommunicator’s request. Conversely, instead of asking the raters to determine the (R)ank of imposition placed on the (A)udience’s positive face, I asked them to rate the “discomfort” they expected the request to cause. Also, since (R)ank of imposition can relate to both positive and negative face, raters evaluated each. Since the highest (R)ank of imposition will dictate the (C)ommunicator’s response, the higher number was used to determine interrater reliability. For example, if a rater determined that a (C)ommunicator’s request rated a 1 against the (A)udience’s positive face, but a 5 against their negative face, then the higher 5 rating was used in the calculation for (W)eightiness. As readers will see in the following sections, my own analysis followed this same rule.

Once complete, the raters’ measurements were compared against my own and against each other’s to calculate for interclass correlation. While there was some variation, all rates of interclass correlation were very high, surpassing the .75 percentage indicative of reliability and reflecting positively on my own evaluations and the viability of the framework (Hallgren, 2012). The following table presents the interclass correlation for all artifacts analyzed for a specific (A)udience (Table 4.1). My ratings are associated with Rater 1.

Table 4.1: Interclass correlation for all artifacts analyzed

Raters Interclass Correlation Rater 1 and Rater 2 97.5%

Rater 1 and Rater 3 83.3%

Rater 2 and Rater 3 81.2%

Contributing further to the credibility of my evaluations and discernment of a euphemism-conducive context, as measured by a (W)eightiness total that falls within the 12-15 range of the (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation (Table 4.2), is the fact that both outside raters measurements for each artifact relative to a specific (A)udience also conflated to a (W)eightiness measurement in this tier of the scale. In

116 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 other words, we all agreed that the six artifacts identified as visual euphemism were presented in a context that was conducive for visual euphemism.

Table 4.2: (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation

(W)eightiness Value Politeness Strategy

12-15 Off record (includes euphemism)

8-11 Positive politeness

4-7 Negative politeness

1-3 On record

0 Do not commit the FTA

The Technical Illustrations of Mariano Taccola I applied the framework for visual euphemism to three technical illustrations made by Mariano Taccola. These illustrations are Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary, Instruments and Techniques for Removing Posts Implanted in a River-bed, and Swing-arm Trebuchet. Taccola created a great many illustrations during his lifetime, but I have chosen these three because they best represent recurring themes found in his work: war and water. These were the most common motifs of Taccola’s work for practical reasons. The first theme – war – was a result of the protracted battle between the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in Europe at the time. The Guelfs supported the papacy, while the Ghibellines supported the German (Holy Roman) emperors. This battle was the cause of chronic strife for the cities of northern Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (“Guelf and Ghibelline,” n.d.). Florence was aligned with the Guelfs, while Siena and Taccola supported the Ghibellines. Thus, it is not surprising that Taccola revered and sought the direct assistance of King Sigismund, as he was the Holy Roman Emperor.

The second theme that runs through much of Taccola’s work – water – is a result of Siena’s geographical position. Siena during Taccola’s time had different boundaries than it does now. During his time, it was a coastal city with a great many hills (“Siena in the Renaissance,” n.d.). This made the control of water a common 117 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 focus of Sienese engineers. Essentially, they were concerned with moving water upwards and making it available to the citizens of Siena as well as exploiting its value as a defensive barrier and a means of transporting material goods.

Artifact #1: Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary The reverence Taccola held for King Sigismund is clear throughout his book of illustrations, De Ingeneis. Indeed, Taccola’s veneration for the king is so high that he includes numerous visual semiotic resources and makes allusions to it throughout the entire book, appearing on multiple illustrations. Nowhere, though, is Taccola’s high regard for the King more on display than on the first artifact used for this study, Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary.

Step 1: Catalogue Semiotic Resources Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary (Figure 4.1) appears on the frontispiece of De Ingeneis. It contains three represented participants: King Sigismund, God, and a lion. Centered on the page is a large image of the crowned emperor. He is in battle armor, holding shield and sword and standing on the lion’s tail. Sigismund’s bearded face is turned upwards toward the top/right corner of the page, where the haloed head of God says these words to him: Defende oves meas ex quibus te custodem elegi, which translates to “Defend my sheep, whose custody I entrusted to you.” Aside from a single line representing a distant horizon, the three represented participants are surrounded by white space indicating a lack of setting.

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Figure 4.1: Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary (c. 1450) by Taccola

None of the represented participants gaze back at the viewer. King Sigismund looks upwards toward God, who looks back at him. The position of the lion’s head suggests that he is looking backwards, over his shoulder, towards the king; however, closer inspection confirms the lion’s gaze is actually directed away from the king and into the distance of the right side of the page. Since none of the represented participants look back toward the viewer, the image appears as an offer, meant to be considered by the viewer but not necessarily to demand action from them.

The representational metafunction is the story of a battle-ready and powerful king, with the divinely assigned duty to protect his people. “Battle-ready” and “powerful” are established by the king’s armor, weapons, and crown. The narrative is created through three prominent vectors in the image. One vector supporting this narrative is the diagonal one established by the shared gaze between Sigismund and God, and further supported by diagonal lines of text that connect the two represented

119 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 participants’ faces. This diagonal vector suggests that the king is divinely inspired. The words themselves – Defende oves meas ex quibus te custodem elegi (“Defend my sheep, whose custody I entrusted to you”) – further substantiates this narrative through textual anchorage.

The second vector runs vertically through Sigismund’s left foot. The third is created by the lion’s body and points in a diagonal angle away from the king. These two vectors intersect to establish the central element of the image’s narrative: King Sigismund exerting his power over the lion. The king’s left foot is pointed straight down and atop the lion’s tail, indicating that he has the ability to forcefully restrain the beast. The lion’s back creates a diagonal vector that points away from the king, indicating an attempt to retreat but the inability to do so. This narrative takes on special meaning when the viewer understands that the lion is meant to symbolize Siena’s enemy, Florence. The lion is an allusion to Florentine artist Donatello’s Marzocco, a marble sculpture symbolizing the Republic of Florence and its allegiance to the antipope John XXIII (Beck, 1968; Prager & Scaglia, 1972). The message in this illustration, then, is not just that Taccola viewed King Sigismund as a powerful, divinely inspired king, but a request for assistance and a reminder to Sigismund of his duty to restrain Siena’s enemy, the Republic of Florence.

Many citizens of Siena hoped King Sigismund would aid them in their fight against Florence, but Taccola seemed particularly motivated by this goal. In fact, it was this attempt to secure King Sigismund’s assistance against Florence that provided much of the motivation for De Ingeneis. Based on copies of the book that have been found in the decades following Taccola and references and allusions to him in the workbooks of the engineers who emulated him, namely Leonardo Da Vinci, researchers believe that reproductions of De Ingeneis were made and circulated between other Italian engineers. Nevertheless, the book was specifically made for King Sigismund. He was Taccola’s meta-addressee, the person to whom he directed his illustrations above all others. Scholars have credibly established the possible circulation of the book, as well as the fact that King Sigismund was the primary (A)udience (Beck, 1968; Prager & Scaglia, 1972; Fane, 2003; Popplow, 2004, McGee, 120 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

2004; Lefèvre, 2004). If one needs further prove, though, Taccola says as much on the recto side of Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary: “This book contains [answers to] many questions, posed to me by the most mighty ruler and most unconquered King of Rome, the lord, lord Sigismund, when about to be crowned by the grace of God with the diadem of the Empire.”

Further evidence for King Sigismund as Taccola’s meta-addressee occurs in the illustration of Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary itself, particularly in the placement of represented participants in their different informational value zones. The King is centered on the page and appears much larger than any of the other represented participants – even God – suggesting that he is the most important figure on the page. One could consider God’s position at the top of the page, Sigismund’s position below him, and the lion beneath both of them to designate a hierarchy of sorts, something like God > king > animal. In this scheme, King Sigismund would be the second most important represented participant, literally beneath God. There may be some validity to viewing the image this way, but, given Sigismund’s larger size, his placement at the center of the page and in the foreground, that he is rendered in sharper contrasts than the others, and that he displays a higher ink-to-image ratio, it appears that Taccola wanted to present an image in which Sigismund is the most important figure, even if he is positioned below God.

Aside from retaining the king’s support in the war against Siena, Taccola held Sigismund as his meta-addressee because he also sought employment in his court. There are several examples of Taccola’s request for employment within his book of illustrations, but Taccola’s recommendation of himself written on his illustration St. Dorothy and the Christ Child makes it clear: “May you be pleased to accept him [Taccola] as one of your family and court, and by the authority of your power to make him master of machines for waterworks.” Taccola’s technical illustrations were similar, then, to a contemporary designer’s portfolio, a collection of his work used to display his talents and abilities in an effort to win favor and secure employment.

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Step 2: Investigate Context and Assign Value From Taccola’s position as a subject of King Sigismund, Taccola’s own writings, and what scholars (Beck, 1968; Prager & Scaglia, 1972; Fane, 2003; Popplow, 2004, McGee, 2004; Lefèvre, 2004) have been able to infer about the possible meetings between these two men, we can reasonably surmise that they certainly knew of each other but did not actually know each other. Taccola would have had some general perception of King Sigismund as a leader and an awareness of his reputation. And, although Taccola never actually received admittance to the king’s court, Sigismund was likely aware of Taccola and familiar with his reputation as a capable engineer and inventor. The inscription Taccola wrote on the backside of the illustration indicates that Sigismund was interested in Taccola’s engineering abilities and “posed” questions to him. Despite this, there is no evidence that the two ever met. Thus, they were not complete strangers, but were somewhat acquainted with each other, if only by reputation. This suggests that a 4 is the appropriate measurement for the social (D)istance between the two men, as it represents a low level of familiarity between Sigismund and Taccola but not a complete absence of it.

Corroboration for the measurement of a 4 exists in the illustration itself. Taccola clearly knows what the King looks like, but the King’s body is turned away from the viewer, an oblique angle that presents the king’s right side where his hand holds a large sword. His eyes are turned away from the viewer as well, looking instead toward God, who speaks to him. God is likewise turned away from the viewer, appearing in three-quarters profile and looking in the direction of the king. Not only does King Sigismund look away from the viewer, but he is also positioned at a far distance and at an above medium vertical angle, indicating the viewer has less power than him. Taken all together, King Sigismund’s gaze, his vertical and horizontal positioning, and the distance at which he appears to the viewer substantiate the measurement of 4 for social (D)istance and reinforces an interpersonal metafunction of “him” and “us.” Viewers of this illustration, the “us,” see the king and can therefore know something about him; however, the powerful positions he holds in the image and in reality ensures that he will always be removed from “us.”

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Much of the interpersonal metafunction for King Sigismund is further established by his contrast to the lion. Whereas we looked up to the king’s obliquely turned face, the viewer looks down upon the lion, which is at the most oblique angle. His body is almost fully turned away from the viewer, yet the lion’s face appears in profile, turned unnaturally over his right shoulder. Despite how far his body is turned away, the lion is still able to look directly at the viewer. The effect is noteworthy, highlighting the use of a remarkable visual communication technique by Taccola. With the lion’s body turned so far away from the viewer, Taccola gets to create the “them” not “us” interpersonal metafunction again but with a different result. The lion’s otherness is established by his low vertical angle position and that he is at an even further distance away from the viewer than the king. The effect implies low familiarity with the lion, yet differently from the low familiarity the viewer had with Sigismund. We understand that the viewer’s interpersonal metafunction is meant as low familiarity because the king is exalted – he is literally higher than “us.” The lack of familiarity with the lion and what he represents is indicated by his baseness – he is literally lower than “us.” In addition to not being “us,” the lion is a threat to “us,” indicated by the beast’s threatening sneer and need to be restrained.

Many of the semiotic resources used in the illustration and representative of the interpersonal metafunction that reflect the social (D)istance measurement of 4 between Taccola and King Sigismund is indicative of the (P)ower imbalance between the two men as well. Saliency, placement, and angle all suggest a relatively high social (D)istance, as well as an imbalance of (P)ower that skews in the direction of King Sigismund. This visual evidence substantiates a high rating of (P)ower, but it is a bit superfluous for assigning value in this instance. A King and his subject are the definitive example of a (P)ower imbalance. Sigismund has all of the authority to fulfill or deny Taccola’s requests for employment and for war with Florence. This being the case, the rating of (P)ower for Taccola and King Sigismund is undoubtedly a 5.

Superficially, the image is flattering, obsequious even; King Sigismund is bigger than God and more powerful than a fearsome beast. Yet, knowing that the lion is intended to represent Florence, the compositional metafunction takes on a different 123 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 meaning from just a complimentary portrayal of the King restraining a vicious animal. Considered as a complete text, this illustration is Taccola’s request to King Sigismund to participate in Siena’s war against Florence. Taccola, then, is certainly making an imposing request, even if it doesn’t appear so at first viewing. If (R)ank of imposition upon King Sigismund’s positive face is measured by the amount of time, money, or other resources necessary to fulfill Taccola’s request, then war would certainly be an imposing one. Perhaps it is the most one person could ask of another, thereby justifying the highest possible measurement for (R)ank of imposition, a 5

Step 3: Calculate Weightiness From a review of how Taccola used certain semiotic resources in this illustration, how those resources work together to perform the technical communication visual’s metafunctions, and contextual information concerning the relationship between Taccola and King Sigismund, I made conclusions and assigned ratings for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. The two men knew of each other, but did not actually know each other, therefore social (D)istance was appropriately rated at a 4. Clearly, the (P)ower imbalance between the men was also high. In fact, it is the highest it could be; one is a king, the other his subject. Therefore, I assigned a 5 for the (P)ower imbalance between Sigismund as (A)udience over Taccola as (C)ommunicator. Lastly, the illustration is primarily a request to participate in war, conceivably the most costly human endeavor there is. As such, the (R)ank of imposition is high, again as high as possible, necessitating a 5 as well. When factored into the adapted-for-visual communication form of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) (W)eightiness formula, the result is:

14x = 4(C,A) + 5(A,C) +5x

In this case, then, the (W)eightiness for Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary is a 14. Given that the highest measurement possible is a 15, and that the highest tier of the (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table of 12-15 represents the most off record form of communication to include euphemism, Taccola’s illustration certainly appeared in a context conducive for producing a severe

124 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 face-threatening-act (FTA) and, therefore, one likely to motivate him to communicate off record, meaning with the use of euphemism.

The outside raters used for this analysis agreed; rater 1’s measurements equaled a 14 for (W)eightiness, while rater 2’s equaled the highest possible measurement, a 15. The disparity for the second rater concerned the level of social (D)istance between the two men. She believed that, even if they met once, Taccola would still be essentially a stranger to King Sigismund, thus she assigned a 1 for social (D)istance.

Step 4: Identify and Analyze Visual Euphemism Taccola abstracted his request for assistance in Siena’s war against Florence, into a highly symbolic visual depicting King Sigismund being guided by God and stepping on the tail of a lion that represents Florence. Even though centuries old, Taccola’s visual appears as an unexpected way to make such a request. He could have, for instance, created a visual depicting Siena’s army being led by King Sigismund into battle against Florence’s army. Or, he could have visualized King Sigismund fighting against a single Florentine soldier, or even their leader, antipope John XXIII. Indeed, it is even a bit unconventional to make a request like this one visually as opposed to verbally. Why did Taccola not simply write the request as he wrote so much other information in his book? Text is, after all, how he made his request for employment in the king’s court. Suffice it to say, there are much more direct ways of requesting the king’s assistance. Yet, instead of these relatively straightforward and direct ways of request, Taccola produced an ambiguous, ideologically encoded illustration of King Sigismund stepping on a lion’s tale. Taccola was motivated by his lack of personal familiarity with King Sigismund, the king’s immense (P)ower over him, and the highly imposing nature of the request to substitute a clearer, more expected form of communication with this ambiguous one. In other words, Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary is a visual euphemism that attempts to mitigate the FTA against King Sigismund’s negative face.

The question now concerns the visual euphemism’s modality. Is Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary mostly truthful and facilitative or is it purposefully 125 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 deceptive and misleading? In this instance, the answer seems clear: the divide between the image of King Sigismund coolly stepping on a lion’s tail and actual combat is too wide to believe that Taccola’s visual euphemism is anything but deceptive. War is costly, both in material resources and human lives. If imposition against negative face is measured by the amount of time or resources necessary to fulfill a request, then what could be more imposing than Taccola’s request for King Sigismund to go to war with Florence? Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary, however, does not even hint at the high costs associated with war. For these reasons, Taccola’s illustration is positively a deceptive visual euphemism.

Step 5: Contribution It is no surprise to find Taccola’s visual request for help with Siena’s war against Florence to be deceptively euphemistic. Indeed, his visual euphemism seems to be an early example of a trend that still endures: using euphemism to downplay the true costs of war. In its own way, Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary is little different from contemporary uses of phrases meant to diminish the violence of one group killing another: “police action,” “limited air campaign,” “greeted as liberators,” and “comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.” Herein lies the lesson for technical communicators, though. While many of us would be quick to recognize the manipulative intent behind verbal euphemisms that refer to war, we are less adept at recognizing them when they occur in visual communication. Prior to the application of the framework to Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary, it is unlikely that any would have recognized it as deceptive. Therefore, it is important that we realize visual vectors can tell stories and make requests, such as they do in Taccola’s illustration. Sometimes these stories and requests could literally result in the loss of a great many lives. Although it is important that technical communicators avoid inducing FTAs in our (A)udiences, it is also important that we consider the relationship between the images we create and the meaning behind those images. We want the modality of our work to be as “true” as possible, as well as recognize the humanity of all those involved with it. In other words, the true costs of the work technical communicators do should never be obscured.

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Artifact #2: Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River- bed While it is the conflation of the measurements for (P)ower with social (D)istance and (R)ank of imposition that ultimately contribute to a high (W)eightiness for and the recognition of Portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Hungary as visual euphemism, it would seem that a high (P)ower imbalance between (A)udience and (C)ommunicator can influence even the most innocuous of technical communication visuals. This is clear in the second artifact analyzed for this study: Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed. As readers will see in the following sections, while the framework disproved this illustration as a visual euphemism, the inclusion of outwardly odd visual elements within it – a drawing of a pelican specifically – is best understood as motivated by Taccola’s lack of (P)ower relative to King Sigismund.

Further evidence for this claim on the important role (P)ower plays in communication comes from a juxtaposition of (A)udiences. Taccola intended Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed for King Sigismund, of course, but he also anticipated that it would be seen by at least one other (A)udience type: other engineers and craftsmen. The illustration was not determined to be euphemistic for either, but with this latter group as (A)udience, we see that Taccola had little to no cause to add the seemingly superfluous pelican drawing that he did. As readers will see in subsequent sections, Taccola included certain elements in an effort to show his respect for the king’s (P)ower. Consequently, a single person out of what could have been many was the impetus for Taccola’s design decisions. In this way it was a case of quality trumping quantity, something that seems possible to still occur in contemporary rhetorical situations, especially those involving groups of people.

Step 1: Catalog Resources Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed (Figure 4.2) depicts just what the title says it does: post pulling devices and how to use them in a river-bed. Taccola’s conception of a post-pulling instrument is basically a type of hinged metal claw similar to tongs or pliers. The post-pulling device has a fixed arm joined with a moveable arm, attached together with a pin at the fulcrum. A 127 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 metal ring is available to slide down over the closed levers and secure their grasp. Like pliers, the device uses leverage to amplify the user’s force, allowing them to grasp and hold onto an object firmly. Contemporary viewers would find it similar to post-hole diggers in shape and appearance, even though it essentially performs the reverse function.

Figure 4.2: Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed (c. 1450) by Taccola

To describe the device in its multiple forms and the technique for extracting posts from a riverbed, Taccola divides the illustration diagonally across the page into two parts. On the upper/left side of the barrier between the two are close-up illustrations of different types of post-extracting devices. The first image appears in the center left of the page. It shows only the levers and ring, without a handle, grasping a rock. Slightly above this image is another version of the post-pulling device. Unlike the first, this one shows a handle. Attached to it are two tripartite claws, one of which is moveable and attached to a string running up through a hole on the 128 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 device’s handle. In close proximity to this image, and therefore expected to be part of the device, is a single metal ring. The last image in this set appears in the upper right corner of the page. It is a close-up of what we would now call pincer pliers, a device that works by the same principle of leverage as Taccola’s post-puller does.

Taken either individually or as an unstructured group, the three images appear only as conceptual graphics meant to explain Taccola’s idea. The pincer pliers, claws with single arm, and close-up of the device with ring secured around the levers and a rock in its grasp all show conceptual information about the device: how it works, what shapes it can take, and what devices it is similar to. If, however, we consider the vector created by the placement of the images – a diagonal line running between the center/left side of the page and the upper right corner – the instrument images are connected and meant to be read in either an upwards or downwards sequence. Depending on the direction one reads the images, the narrative changes slightly. When read from left/down to right/up, the independent conceptual images combine in a vector to tell the story of the evolution of an idea. If read from up/right to down/left, the vector suggests a historical tracing from the post-puller to its inspiration, the pincer pliers. In either sense, conceptual or narrative, Taccola used the pincer pliers to represent the concept of leverage and how it enables its user to grasp an object firmly.

The other image that appears on the page functions distinctly as narrative. Taking up roughly half of the entire page and appearing at the bottom right side is a visual vignette depicting a man at work removing posts by the water’s edge. The edge between the land and the water appears as a diagonal line running from the center right side of the page to the bottom left corner. Instead of a vector, however, this line constructs a frame for the vignette, separating it from the three conceptual images of the device. In the foreground of the image is the device at work: a post-puller grasps one of the many posts secured in the water and assists in its removal. Attached to the post-puller is a long lever, whose fulcrum is a pillar, attached to a raft floating on the water. A represented participant of a man with his back turned to the viewer pulls the other side of the lever down, effectively lifting the post-pulling device on the other end

129 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 up to remove the post. A pelican in the center of the illustration watches all of this action from the water’s edge.

Despite being represented as a concept, as in the case of the devices, or a narrative, as in the evolution of the device or in the vignette of a man working to remove posts while being watched by a pelican, the image act created by both is that of an offer. None of the represented participants – object, animal, or man – demand attention from the viewer. None gaze back at the viewer. Instead, viewers are offered the opportunity to consider the post-pulling instrument’s functionality in theory and in practice. The offer is further established through the intimate distances of the represented participants. Even though the close-up depictions of the instruments could be said to be at an intimate distance, they are more accurately described as being at a far distance in the image, because they are the “whole figure with space around it” (Harrison, 2003, p. 53). The man and his work also fulfill the criteria of a whole figure with space around it and are, therefore, also at a far distance. Since Taccola placed the represented participants at a far distance and none demand the viewer’s attention, it is fair to say that the interpersonal metafunction accomplished is not intimate, not specific to the viewer, and not indicative of some expectation on the viewer’s part besides an understanding of the post-pulling instrument and how it works.

Further substantiating the claim for an uninvolved viewer and completing the inventory for semiotic resources indicative of the interpersonal metafunction are the angles at which the represented participants are presented: frontal angles for the objects and oblique ones for the man and pelican. Frontal angles create unity, while oblique ones suggest separation (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006). In the case of Taccola’s post-pulling instrument, even though the objects display a front-facing horizontal angle, none truly involve the viewer. The oblique angles at which the man and the pelican appear suggest the viewer is not necessarily important either; the pelican’s profile and the man’s back are turned away from the viewer, creating a sense of “them” rather than “us.” The vertical angles of the represented participants are all at an even viewpoint, indicating that none are looking up or looking down at the viewer.

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This suggests that Taccola viewed himself and those he anticipated viewing the illustration as equals.

Taken together, the representational metafunction and the interpersonal metafunction create a compositional metafunction that further suggests a limited sense of involvement on the viewer’s part. In other words, the full composition of Taccola’s illustration is less about the viewer than it is about the idea. A review of the technical communication visual’s use of salience as a semiotic resource further substantiates this claim, particularly as it relates to the size of the represented participants in the illustration. The instruments, as they appear in the top of the page, are slightly larger than the man using them in the center right, indicating the importance of the instrument over the person using it.

Contemporary western readers have been trained to recognize the information value of different zones within an image. For instance, social semioticians Kress and van Leeuwen (1996/2006) have posited that, because we read words left to right, we expect visual communication to present information similarly. This fits the typical pattern of subject preceding the verb – the given followed by action or change – used in basic sentences. The left zone of the page presents established or preexisting information, while the right side offers the new or adjusted information. We see this visual convention commonly as a before/after set-up used in numerous contemporary advertisements for diet and exercise products. Top zone/bottom zone suggests ideal and real, respectively. In advertising, this convention manifests itself in the way the romanticized image of the product with the glamorous people who use it is often positioned above the “real” information of the product, like a close up of the product or text denoting its price and where it can be purchased.

We cannot assume that these contemporary information value zones meant the same thing for Taccola and his (A)udience as they do to present-day, western (A)udiences. Nevertheless, considering his drawing against these currently established conventions reveals some interesting insight into his illustration. First, the frame created by the water’s edge cuts a diagonal line between the conceptual images of the instruments and the vignette of the man using one. As such, the instrument images are 131 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 mostly both on the left and top, while the vignette is mostly on the right and bottom of the page. If we allow ourselves to consider the contemporary information values discussed in the preceding paragraph against this figuration, we get a somewhat solid understanding of how the images are composed to create a higher level meaning. If one considers the instruments to be on the left, and the vignette on the right, then it makes sense that the instruments are the given, a reminder of how levers and fulcrums work as seen in the well-known device of the pincer pliers. The vignette of the man working on the right would then suggest the “new” way with which to apply this knowledge to a current problem. If, however, the viewer interprets the instrument grouping and the vignette as appearing in top/bottom information zone, then the instruments are ideal; they become Taccola’s way of signifying “what might be.” Conversely, the vignette on the right/bottom side then becomes the “real,” a factual representation of how the device is intended to be used.

The modality, or “realness,” of Taccola’s illustration is established by the context of the represented participants. Highly contextualized images, meaning images that appear within a fully and realistically portrayed setting, have a high modality (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006). A less contextualized setting, as in a represented participant that appears on a page surrounded by unadulterated white space, sometimes indicates a low modality. In Taccola’s Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed the instruments appear this way – as objects isolated from their environments, floating in space. However, the vignette corrects for this in two ways. First, it provides some modality markers indicating a setting. Though they are not realistically portrayed, the man appears on a raft floating in a riverbed. Squiggly lines represent the river; cross-hatching and shading indicate its bank. Even though the markings that indicate setting are rudimentary, they still enhance the modality of the entire illustration. The result is a technical communication visual that is “real” even though some of its features are not realistic.

This duality of reality/possibility is further substantiated by three more depictions of the tool and a brief bit of linguistic exposition Taccola provides on the

132 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 backside of this image, in which he refers to them as “crampons.” Of removing the “real” posts pictured in the vignette, Taccola writes:

a lake, with many posts in it, due to which it cannot be navigated or in any way passed. In such case let two boats or vessels be provided, which are joined together and carry a vertical post with a transverse beam and with iron crampons, as shown in the design. If a man cannot extract the posts by his own strength, let him use the capstan shown in back, better known as a winch.

Conversely, Taccola suggests the possible applications of the device – the ideals, the “what might be” – when he writes, “What concerns all other crampons additionally designed on this sheet, they are useful for lifting stones, wood, and mud.” Implicit in this description is possibility. We see Taccola’s imagination at work at the same time that he encourages viewers to use theirs, a fact further evidenced by the appearance of some fantastical snake/eel type creature caught in the grasp of one of the three crampons pictured on this same, backside page.

Step 2: Investigate Context and Assign Value While the illustrations in De Ingeneis were intended as proof of Taccola’s abilities and justification for full employment in King Sigismund’s court, they were also meant to operate as schematics for the actual construction of the device. Thus, while King Sigismund was Taccola’s meta-addressee for this illustration, as he was for all of Taccola’s illustrations in this manuscript, he was not his only (A)udience. As the above inventory of semiotic resources used to create the representational and interpersonal metafunctions suggests, there is evidence of Taccola’s assorted (A)udience types in the illustration itself. Based on the angles at which the represented participants are displayed, the (A)udience for Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed is someone Taccola was familiar with and someone he viewed as an equal, such as fellow engineers and craftsmen who would actually construct the device. This claim is partially substantiated by the absence of any real measurements for the device, a common convention at the time. Other engineers were expected to be more concerned with the concept than its physical construction, while fabricators were expected to fill in the gaps, (Prager & Scaglia, 1972; Lefèvre, 2004; Popplow, 2004).

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The dual (A)udiences means dual measures for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. In the case of King Sigismund the measure of social (D)istance remains unchanged at 4. In the case of an artisan or a fellow engineer, however, the measurement of social (D)istance is different. There is evidence that Taccola was acquainted with Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), architect of Florence’s famous cathedral the Duomo (Fane, 2003; Lefèvre, 2004; King, 2013). Also, we know that Taccola was generally known and accredited in Florence’s community of engineers and craftsmen (Prager & Scalia, 1972; Fane, 2003; Lefèvre, 2004; King, 2013). Based on this information, it is fair to say that Taccola was not a stranger to or otherwise unfamiliar with the many people he worked or shared ideas with. This means that social (D)istance is likely not a 5 or 4, the measurements for strangers and acquaintances respectively. Conversely, these men were not his family members; thus, social (D)istance is likely not a 1. It’s possible that Taccola was friends with some of his fellow engineers and the craftsmen in the Florentine community, which would make social (D)istance a 2, but it’s impossible to say to what extent. Also, it’s unlikely that he was friends with everyone in the community. Based on this, then, it is best to consider the relationship other engineers and craftsmen shared with Taccola by the roles they filled. Accordingly, they are best described as co-workers, making 3 – the measurement indicative of people who work together – a reasonable measurement of social (D)istance.

Likely, Taccola could have made the device on his own, but in this instance he wanted to make the device – or at least show his idea and enhance his ethos – for King Sigismund. So, as before, the measure for (P)ower between King Sigismund and Taccola remains unchanged at 5, the highest possible measurement in this category and the one most representative of the (P)ower a king holds over his subjects. In the case of the fellow engineers and craftsmen as (A)udience, the level of (P)ower imbalance is much lower. They had no real power to prevent him from making this device and he wasn’t proposing to make it for them. In this case, then, the measure of (P)ower for Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed with this latter group is the lowest it can be, a 1.

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The (R)ank of imposition for this illustration is also low. This is true for both (A)udiences. The technical nature of the device is easy to understand, especially so for anyone who has an understanding of how pliers work. This would likely be a large group, one that would certainly include other engineers and craftsmen. But, even if a person did not know how pliers work, Taccola’s combined use of conceptual and narrative representation along with his close-ups of the device makes it easy to understand. Accordingly, regardless whether it is King Sigismund or a fellow engineer or craftsman, the (R)ank of imposition for this illustration is low. The device pictured does not tax the viewer’s mental capacities too heavily, taking up time and causing an FTA to negative face, nor is it an unpleasant or graphic image or concept that would threaten an affront to their positive face. Taken all together, the appropriate measure of (R)ank of imposition is a 2; some resources are necessary to understand the concept, but nothing too esoteric that the viewer is likely to feel imposed upon or insulted for not knowing.

Step 3: Calculate Weightiness to Identify Euphemism When King Sigismund is the (A)udience for Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed, the (W)eightiness equation is:

11x = 4(C,A) + 5(A,C) +2x

For other engineers and craftsmen as (A)udience, the equation is:

6x = 3(C,A) + 1(A,C) +2x

In line with the (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table outlined earlier, these measurements of 11 and 6 indicate that neither context is the type to engender visual euphemism. Only those measurements that land in the highest, 12-15 tier are expected to be part of a euphemism-conducive context, as euphemism maintains a high level of ambiguity, i.e. indirectness, and is therefore part of the off record strategy for communication.

Both rater 1 and rater 2’s measurements for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition for the context of Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed relative to King Sigismund match my own: 11. Rater 1

135 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 and I also had the same (W)eightiness measurement with engineers and other craftsmen as the (A)udience. Rater 2’s measurement was 2 points higher, at an 8. The discrepancy is attributable to her belief that other engineers and craftsmen would still have some sway over Taccola making the device because of their status as craftsmen. Despite this disparity, though, all both raters and myself identified the (W)eightiness in the (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table lower than what typically produces euphemism.

Step 4: Identify and Analyze Visual Euphemism Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory posits that there are five strategies a speaker can employ in relation to their tacit interpretation of and response to the confluence of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition in a given rhetorical situation. These strategies are inversely proportional to the level of directness used by the speaker. In other words, the higher the measurement for (W)eightiness, the less directly (C)ommunicator will communicate. Since euphemism epitomizes off record speech, I maintain that (W)eightiness measurements which fall within the highest tier of possible measurements, the 12-15 range indicate a euphemism-conducive context. (W)eightiness measures that fall below this range, especially within the next (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation tier of 8-11, may inspire the use of some other mitigating semiotic resources, but they are unlikely to produce euphemism. Here, with Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed we have an example of such a situation. Given that it only measured an 11 and a 6 for the (A)udiences of King Sigismund and other engineers and craftsmen, respectively, the context is not euphemism-conducive and the illustration is unlikely to be a visual euphemism for either.

Further substantiating this claim is that the illustration appears as a rather direct way to explain the concept of the pole removing device. Viewers are provided close-ups of the device in several forms. They are also provided a vignette that shows how a person uses such a device. Yet, (W)eightiness being an 11 for King Sigismund suggests Taccola might have employed some sort of strategy or specific semiotic resources to accommodate for what is the second highest measurement tier of the

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(W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table, 8-11, and therefore the second highest possibility of an FTA. In fact, Taccola did respond to this circumstance when he decided to include in this technical communication visual the image of a pelican. In the next section I explain further why Taccola’s choice to include the bird was actually a very clever way to pay respect to the king’s face, even though it appears odd at first and was not used to euphemize.

Step 5: Contribution The lesson for technical communicators here is two-fold, but both involve juxtaposition as a semiotic resource. Taccola juxtaposed conceptual information with narrative. The result is a clear and useful visual description of what the post-pulling device is and a depiction of what it does. Taccola shows that conceptual and narrative semiotic resources are not mutually exclusive, and can indeed co-exist in the same image. This is a useful example for contemporary technical communicators who must also show theoretical depictions of an object or concept along with its practical application.

Even though the illustration proves not to be a visual euphemism, it still displays an interesting feature that is perhaps explained by its relatively high (W)eightiness for King Sigismund. Specifically, I’m referring to the seemingly peculiar presence of the pelican in this image’s composition. Every semiotic resource used in the illustration except the pelican has an exigence. The close-ups of the instruments are so Taccola can show the concept behind his idea for a post-puller. The vignette shows how the device works. Together, the whole illustration presents a message of “This is the instrument and this is what it does.” But what function, then, does the bird fulfill? Many of Taccola’s technical communication visuals included images of animals, real and imagined, on the marginalia of his pages and in the visual vignettes he crafted around his ideas. Scholars have found these images fascinating, but they disagree over what motivated Taccola to include them. Fane (2003) suspects the pelican, like many of the creatures that appear in his illustrations, is simply a part of Taccola’s sense of humor. He finds in them “a sense of playfulness” (p. 140). He points out that Taccola’s animals are “drawn with great charm” and “take part in a

137 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 curious and perhaps witty sort of ballet” (p. 140). Prager and Scaglia (1972) have a similar take on Taccola’s seemingly superfluous use of animals, particularly birds. They find that such images “give charming ornaments to the pages” (p. 184). However, they also note “Nature studies of birds and animals…were popular at this time at the courts of northern Italy” (p. 185). Accordingly, knowledge of animals was interpreted as a sign of erudition and drawing them a sign of ability, both of which Taccola might be trying to capitalize on with the pelican.

Of course, it is also possible that he was alluding to God with a pelican in this illustration. There is a long, artistic tradition in Christianity of using the pelican to symbolize Christ, particularly his sacrifice. This tradition itself comes from an even older one, rooted in ancient mythology that depicts the animal puncturing its own breast to provide its blood as sustenance for its children (Gauding, 2009). Given the time and place, as well as Taccola’s intellect, it seems likely that he would’ve known this, so it is possible this was the allusion he was trying to make. He represents his own piety in the image through the pelican. This is conceivable but it must be noted that, when used as a symbol for Christ, there is typically some indication of the breast being punctured. And, of course, Christian symbolism doesn’t explain the many additional types of animals found in Taccola’s other illustrations.

During the abstraction and production of this image, Taccola choose to include the pelican. It could represent Christ. It could represent the illustrator’s skill. And it could represent a common, expected motif. Or it could represent all three. Taken together, the pelican in the composition of Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-Bed suggests a godly, skilled, culturally aware illustrator and inventor, one capable of understanding the ideas behind his complicated machines, as well as the people he expected to use and benefit from them. In this sense, Taccola’s use of the pelican is an attempt to pay respect to his meta-addressee, King Sigismund’s positive face. Or, perhaps Taccola was paying respect to his own positive face, and showing his fellow engineers and craftsmen a sign of his knowledge and value.

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In any of these ways, Taccola’s ostensibly unnecessary placement of the bird between the conceptual and narrative images is actually quite helpful to him. The pelican allows Taccola to show respect for his (A)udience, and it allows him to do so without drastically influencing the modality of his illustration. It is reminiscent of a corporate logo or other types of contemporary branding. A logo, like Taccola’s pelican, can add credibility to an illustration, while it also enhances the ethos – the face – of the designers, their creations, and the clients who may use them. Contemporary design practices mostly discourage the use of extra or unnecessary elements, but this example reminds us that our visuals are intended for other humans who have face. And, so long as it does not undermine ethics or efficiency, then the juxtaposition of a seemingly unnecessary feature, what some call “chartjunk” (Tufte, 1983/2001), might be a productive way to employ visual euphemism and show respect to our (A)udience’s face.

Artifact #3: Swing-arm Trebuchet Swing-arm Trebuchet is distinct from the other Taccola artifacts used in this study in several ways. For one, it suggests a third (A)udience type: military leaders. Although, there is nothing that explicitly proves Taccola presented this illustration to Siena’s military leaders, it’s feasible that he did. As I explain further in the second step of the framework applied to this artifact, there is circumstantial evidence suggesting it’s likely he would have done so because so many war machines appear in his work and we know that he was a man motivated to both find employment and see Siena’s enemy Florence beaten on the battlefield.

Another factor distinguishing Swing-arm Trebuchet is that it is the only illustration of the three that would seemingly benefit from visual presentation. As I stated earlier, Taccola could have made his request to King Sigismund to help Siena in its war with Florence linguistically. Certainly, this would seem the conventional choice. Similarly, Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-Bed is a remarkably elaborate illustration for such a simple device. While the applied critical framework for visual euphemism explains why he drew the drawing as he did and shows there were other contextual factors Taccola needed to address in his

139 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 work, the level of detail and exposition he included seem somewhat excessive for the purpose of explanation. The illustration is very good at explaining how the post- remover works, but was the level of visual detail really necessary for what is essentially a big pair of pliers? Swing-arm Trebuchet, unlike the preceding artifact, is a complicated device. It makes sense to abstract the salient parts and present them visually. Taccola’s creation of this technical communication visual, then, represents a very similar exigence for contemporary technical communicators and one that is seemingly not present in the previous artifacts: visualization allows for the comprehension of complex information quickly.

Step 1: Catalog Resources The final artifact in this set, Swing-arm Trebuchet, (Figure 4.3) features one of Taccola’s many war machines. Unlike the other illustrations, this one takes up two pages. On the left page, at the top and slightly right of center, is a full-body profile of a griffin. Below him, and to the right, is a winch attached to a rope. The rope intersects the book’s gutter where it attaches to pulleys at the bottom of the right side page. Above the pulleys and the rope is the trebuchet itself. The device is centered and takes up most of the page. It is made up of a hefty center pillar with a large, Y shaped lever arm attached to its top. At the top of each end of the Y is a crescent-shaped counterweight, reminiscent of a battle-ax blade. At the other, narrower end of the battle arm is the sling to which a rock is attached with a rope. Both the rope and rock lay in the channel. The trebuchet is a brichola type indicated by the word “brichola” hovering over the top of the trebuchet. A brichola is a trebuchet that uses a light, single angled pole with two separate swiveled counterweights. Aside from this label, the machine appears decontextualized; there is no setting and both the griffin and the machine are surrounded with white space.

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Figure 4.3: Swing-arm Trebuchet (c. 1450) by Taccola

Although the illustrated rope running through the trebuchet suggests the possibility of movement, there are no actual vectors employed in this illustration suggesting a narrative or action. The griffin and the trebuchet are intended to be conceptual images, reflective of an idea more than a story. This is substantiated by the position and angle of the represented participants, who make no demands of the viewer. The griffin looks away, past the left edge of the paper. He and the trebuchet appear at straightforward angles and at a far distance. Without vectors, a direct gaze at the viewer or hierarchizing angles, the interpersonal metafunction is one of balance with the viewer.

The relationship between the represented participants is not balanced, though. The large size of the trebuchet, that it is centered, and that it appears by itself on a page gives it greater salience than the smaller images of the winch and the griffin that share the left side page. Actually, if a viewer only saw the right page, it would be easy to think that it was a complete illustration. Knowing that it isn’t, and that the winch and the griffin are indeed parts of the whole, does not change this much, however. The illustration exhibits a high modality in its depiction of a common war machine, even though it happens to appear near an apparently unrelated picture of a mythical half- lion half-eagle creature.

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Step 2: Investigate Context and Assign Value As with the other two illustrations, Swing-arm Trebuchet is intended primarily for King Sigismund. Accordingly, the relationship is the same and the social (D)istance and (P)ower imbalance for Taccola and him stay the same: social (D)istance equals 4 and (P)ower equals 5. There is a new (A)udience, however, for this visual, one closely associated to King Sigismund: the military strategists and leaders who would deploy the device against Siena’s enemies under Sigismund’s command. However, without historical information regarding to whom Taccola may or may not have spoken with in Siena’s military, it still seems very likely that they would have known of each other. We know that Taccola’s illustrations were intended as proof-of-ability and that he frequently sought advancement and employment inside Sienese society. This drive led him to the highest authority: King Sigismund. We also know very clearly from text located in his manuscripts that Taccola wanted Siena’s enemy Florence to be reckoned with militarily. Lastly, we know that war machines and devices frequently appeared as subjects in his illustrations. Given all this, it’s plausible that Taccola knew of and was known to Siena’s military leaders and strategists. Nonetheless, given their different occupations and statuses in Sienese society, it is unlikely they were very familiar with each other. Therefore, even though speculative, it is reasonable to assign the measurement of 4 for the social (D)istance between the two. They likely were not strangers with each other, which would indicate a 5, but they also were not at the same level of familiarity that would exist between frequent collaborators or co-workers, which would be a 3.

(P)ower is also skewed in favor of the military leaders and strategists, but not to the extent that it is with King Sigismund. It’s true that the military leaders could likely advocate for Taccola and his inventions, perhaps letting Sigismund know they approve or disapprove of Taccola’s ideas or that they could or could not use his war machines. This would suggest a high measurement for (P)ower. Yet, the final approval was the king’s alone, suggesting that there is a higher level of (P)ower possible over this exchange. As such, it is reasonable to rate (P)ower for Taccola and Sienese military leaders a 4, 1 below the measurement for Taccola and King Sigismund. They could progress or prevent his goals, but not to the same degree as the king. 142 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

The trebuchet is a relatively complicated device to make and operate, even for modern day engineers. It involves numerous calculations of many different physical forces and measurements. The trebuchet’s complexity presents an interesting circumstance for calculating the (R)ank of imposition. This is because the technical information is only relevant to one (A)udience type: the craftsmen who would construct the device. Explaining the trebuchet through a mathematical equation would probably be a great imposition on the king’s mental faculties, as it likely would be for any non-physicist or non-engineer. But this would have never been an option for Taccola. The highly complex technical aspects of the trebuchet would likely be of no concern to King Sigismund or to Siena’s military leaders and strategists. All these (A)udiences sought was some confirmation that Taccola was familiar with and able to engineer the already well-known war device. In fact, it is likely that Sigismund probably requested, or at least expected, that Taccola would draw such a machine (Prager & Scaglia, 1972). All of this suggests a very low (R)ank of imposition. In fact, far from imposing, Taccola is fulfilling a request and offering a gift to these men. That it is an offer resonates in the image itself: conceptual images presented at straightforward angles and at far social distances are usually indicative of visual offers (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006). Certainly, there would be costs associated with making the device, but they would not be prohibitive. For King Sigismund and military leaders the trebuchet is all to their benefit; it is going to help them win wars and/or defend themselves. As such, the (R)ank of imposition for King Sigismund as (A)udience and military leaders as (A)udience is low, a 1.

It is a much different story for the other engineers and craftsmen, however. They were intended to infer the complex information left missing from the illustration (Prager & Scaglia, 1972; Lefèvre, 2004; Popplow, 2004). Taccola was capable of calculating the intricate measurements for the trebuchet’s operation. Proof for this claim is seen in other of his images, such as Measuring Elevations Prior to Excavating a Tunnel for an Underground Water Conduit and Measuring Height with a Quadrant and Plumb-line. But he did not include measurements in this technical communication visual, as well as many others, for a couple of reasons, one of which being a fear of

143 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 plagiarism (Prager & Scaglia, 1972; Fane, 2003; Lefèvre, 2004). Among other things, these illustrations were a type of Renaissance-era intellectual property, and, consequently, a useful negotiating tool for Taccola. Being one of only a few people who understood physics and how to actually make a device like the trebuchet work, it was certainly in Taccola’s interest to guard this knowledge and keep the measurements undisclosed. More so than the prevention of plagiarism, though, Taccola elided measurements from the majority of his illustrations because to illustrate devices and inventions without this information was the convention of the time. Lefèvre (2004) explains “renaissance engineers could apparently confine themselves to telling the craftsmen in charge of execution some decisive details and leaving the concrete shaping of the machine parts to them” (Lefèvre, 2004, p. 7). McGee (2004) points to the very same condition as it specifically pertains to Taccola’s illustrations. Of the absence of measurements, he writes, “Taccola does not expect to make these machines himself. He expects they will be made by experts who can complete the design and determine final dimensions for themselves” (p. 73).

Even though an adherence to convention explains why Taccola did not include measurements, we can only speculate why this was the convention to begin with. Both Lefèvre (2014) and McGee (2014) agree, aside from a worry over plagiarism, the convention was likely a condition of the dual (A)udiences most illustrations of this type necessitated: the patron and the craftsmen. For each person, the measurements were superfluous. For the former, this was because he wouldn’t need them to decide to fund the project or not; for the latter, this was because he was an expert who was expected to figure them out on his own.

In the case of a trebuchet, “the concrete shaping” of the device would’ve been a challenge, even for an expert who was expected to have the tools and skills to do so. There is little extant evidence of how Renaissance craftsmen went about making trebuchets or how difficult it was for them to do so; there is little recorded about such topics and no actual trebuchets from this time existed for very long. They were too big to house indefinitely, and being primarily made of wood meant they were susceptible to deterioration as well as being fodder for fire (Saimre, 2006). Nevertheless, some 144 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 modern day engineers have constructed them, and, even with the aid of computer calculations, found them to be “a rather complicated machine” (ibid. p. 61) to construct. Consider that the construction of a functioning trebuchet involves correctly calculating the distance between the end of the beam’s counterweight and its fixed pivot; the distance between the end of the beam’s payload and the fixed pivot; the length of the rope carrying the payload; the length of the cable holding the counterweight; and the distance between the payload end of beam and the center of the pillar. The builders of the trebuchet would also need to calculate for its many angles, such as the vertical angle of the beam, the angle between the beam and the rope carrying the payload, and the angle between the beam and rope holding the counterweight. Additionally, they would need to calculate for gravitational pull, momentum, and force. This list of necessary calculations, while extensive, still only hints at the work required to build a properly functioning trebuchet; the full computations are too onerous to explain here and not necessary to make the point. Suffice it to say, the construction of a trebuchet would require a good deal of time and effort, even for an expert craftsman, and even more so for one without an orthographic description of the device. Thus, I conclude the (R)ank of imposition put upon the engineers and craftsmen’s negative face by the illustration of this complicated machine sans measurements is a 5, the highest level of imposition possible in the (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table.

Typically, the first two variables, social (D)istance and (P)ower, are static relationships between participants in the communicative act; however, as Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) explained, certain circumstances and contextual factors can change this. I believe this is one of those cases, specifically as it regards the (P)ower imbalance between Taccola and fellow engineers and craftsmen. That the trebuchet is such a complicated device, much more so than the post-pulling device, and that convention of the time dictated Taccola need only be the “idea man” and leave the building to others (Lefèvre, 2004; McGee, 2004) means he would have to rely on a skillful craftsman’s willingness and ability to make the machine. In this sense, then, the fabricator has a great deal of (P)ower over whether or not the device gets made.

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Certainly, there are many imaginable scenarios for how the device could be made, especially once the king decides he wants it so; ostensibly, a capable craftsman could always be paid enough, or even forced, to construct the device. Nevertheless, if one considers that Taccola’s illustration is simply an idea, not even a schematic really, then it’s clearer why and how it raises the level of (P)ower held by the engineers and craftsmen over Taccola. It’s reliant on their decision and ability to make it. The modern day equivalent would be something like building a tank. Someone could draw a picture of a seemingly functioning and battle-ready tank. They could be certain it would work the way they wanted it to. They could even have the background and experience to substantiate their concept. And, surely, there are people who could build it even from an elementary drawing. But will they? And with what level of difficulty? Again, given the trebuchet’s complexity, I believe that this gives any possible fabricators of this device a significant amount of control over Taccola, making 4 a sound evaluation of their (P)ower to progress or prevent Taccola’s design being fabricated.

Step 3: Calculate Weightiness to Identify Euphemism With King Sigismund as (A)udience, the social (D)istance and (P)ower remain the same, a 4 and a 5, respectively. (R)ank of imposition is 1, because the trebuchet is more a gift to him, than a task. These measurements complete the equation in the following way:

10x = 4(C,A) + 5(A,C) +1x

The (W)eightiness for Swing-arm Trebuchet with King Sigismund as the (A)udience is 10.

With military leaders and strategists as (A)udience, the social (D)istance is a 4, the (P)ower imbalance is also a 4, and, also because it is essentially a gift to them, the (R)ank of imposition is a 1. This makes (W)eightiness calculable as:

9x = 4(C,A) + 4(A,C) +1x

The (W)eightiness of Swing-arm Trebuchet with military leaders and strategists as an (A)udience is 9.

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With craftsmen as (A)udience, the social (D)istance is a 3, the (P)ower imbalance is a 4, and the (R)ank of imposition is a 5. Thus:

12x = 3(C,A) + 4(A,C) +5x

The (W)eightiness of an FTA for Swing-arm Trebuchet with craftsmen as (A)udience is 12, a number lower than others for artifacts determined to be visual euphemism but still within the highest tier of the (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table, and therefore of a context likely to produce euphemism.

While there was a slight disparity between the final (W)eightiness measures for this artifact with King Sigismund and Sienese military leaders between the raters and me, the difference was only a single quantity and none of us had (W)eightiness falling into the highest, euphemism-conducive tier of the scale. Regarding the (W)eightiness of Swing-arm Trebuchet for other engineers and craftsmen, we all came to the same figure: 12. Consequently, there is complete agreement between the three of us that this artifact occurs in a context conducive for euphemism when engineers and craftsmen are the (A)udience, but not when King Sigismund and Sienese military leaders are the (A)udience.

Step 4: Identify and Analyze Visual Euphemism (W)eightiness measurements of 10 and a 9 for King Sigismund and Siena’s military leaders and strategists, respectively, indicate that Swing-arm Trebuchet is not likely to be visually euphemistic for them. And, as with the previous artifact, this illustration represents its subject directly and neutrally; it simply shows these (A)udiences that Taccola was familiar with the machine, had some understanding of its dimensions, and was offering his services to help them build one or many, if they so desired. For the engineers and craftsmen who would fabricate it, though, the device is a visual euphemism. In part, this is evidenced by the 12 (W)eightiness measurement, which suggests a context conducive for euphemism; a 12 being within the range of (W)eightiness measurements that are likely to inspire off record communication like euphemism. Normally, it would be a deviation from convention that would further solidify the recognition of visual euphemism. However, in this case, the absence of measurement figures for the machine was the convention of the time. In 147 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 other words, it was an expectation not a deviation. Nevertheless, their absence contributes to obscuring its complexity, ultimately making it an imposing request on the engineers and craftsmen who would fabricate it. Actually, the machine’s complexity is reduced so much during abstraction, I argue that it is, ultimately, a deceptive visual euphemism.

At a superficial level, the mechanics that operate the trebuchet appear understandable and the machine appears constructible. Yet, the complexity of its operation is hidden by an illustration that otherwise would appear to have a high level of modality. That the drawing is abstracted in a way that downplays this difficulty does not make it unachievable per se. And it does not mean that Taccola had nefarious reasons for eliding the measurements. However, it does mean that the trebuchet looks easier to make than it actually is. The result in this disparity between the drawing and its actual construction creates a greater imposition upon the negative face of those who would build it than if the measurements had been included. In short, the trebuchet is going to take longer and be more difficult to build than Taccola’s illustration portends, and this sort of reductionism is typical of euphemism, visual or otherwise. Consider, the nurse who uses the euphemistic “just a pinch” to prepare a trypanophobe for an injection, or the politician who says they want to engage in a “limited campaign” when really they mean launching a full-scale war, or even the CEO who speaks of “restructuring” to describe mass layoffs. There may be good reasons why a (C)ommunicator would participate in this sort of reductionism, as there were good reasons for Taccola to minimize the difficulty of a trebuchet’s construction through an elision of its measurements, but, regardless of each (C)ommunicator’s intent, the result is the same: euphemism.

Step 5: Contribution That Swing-arm Trebuchet is a visual euphemism for the engineers and craftsmen who would fabricate it holds several important lessons for designers of technical communication visuals. The first is a reinforcement of a previous lesson: the value of juxtaposition as a semiotic resource. If, like the pelican in Instruments and Techniques for Extracting Poles Implanted in a River-bed, the griffin is intended to

148 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 pay respect to face, then we have another example of how doing something as simple and easy as juxtaposing one image against another can engender visual euphemism and mitigate threats to face. Again, it becomes a sort of branding, a marker of ethos, suggesting that, while the measurements are absent, the designer’s ability is not. The seemingly superfluous mythical creature actually shows that the illustrator is a learned man, one who can imagine – and draw – things his viewers might not even understand, like griffins and trebuchets.

The second lesson to take away from Swing-arm Trebuchet as visual euphemism concerns the relationship between (P)ower and abstraction. By excluding the necessary physical dimensions of the machine, Taccola essentially gave (P)ower over to the engineers. He put it in their hands, and thereby gave them the ability to create it or not, and to his intended specifications or not. Undoubtedly, even without the measurements, someone was capable of making the machine. Yet, by not including the measurements, Taccola reduced that pool of people who could do so while simultaneously making it more difficult for those remaining capable people to do so. Ensuring that technical communication visuals abstract a useable level of information, then, becomes an issue of user experience and its relationship to (P)ower. Sometimes it might be worthwhile to empower users in this way; sometimes it might not be. The technical communicator should at least know which is appropriate for their work.

Yet another other valuable lesson to be learned from this illustration and its euphemistic quality is the role polysemy plays in the determination of meaning for visual communication largely and visual euphemism specifically. Swing-arm Trebuchet has multiple meanings, none of which are fixed. Instead, meaning is retrievable by the (A)udience based on their needs. These needs, in turn, reflect whether the artifact is seen as euphemistic or not. For King Sigismund and various military leaders Swing-arm Trebuchet meant that Taccola was capable of engineering and providing them with a trebuchet, even if he didn’t list the measurements. The result was a technical communication visual with a low (R)ank of imposition. Had, for some reason, the meaning they sought been an explanation of how trebuchets actually work, then there might be more cause for labeling Swing-arm Trebuchet as a visual 149 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 euphemism for them. But they weren’t after that information, and therefore it was not a visual euphemism for them. Conversely, the illustration was a visual euphemism for those who would build it; eliding the measurements from the illustration exacerbates the difficulty of constructing the machine while simultaneously making it look easier to construct than it is. Had Taccola included the measurements, he would have reduced the (R)ank of imposition but not eliminated it. It would still be imposing to construct this machine, and that imposition would still be put upon the fabricator – just not to the same degree. As technical communicators, then, it is important that we know what meaning our users seek in our technical communication visuals and balance that with our own goals and restrictions. Furthermore, it is important that we recognize the possibility of visual euphemism even when there is not a deviation from convention, for, as it appears in the case of Taccola’s Swing-arm Trebuchet, leaving off the measurements was the convention.

Golden Age Graphics Ostensibly, I am making a big jump in moving from the technical illustrations of Mariano Taccola to data visualizations created in the latter half of the nineteenth century, otherwise referred to as the “Golden Age of Statistical Graphics” (Friendly, 2008). As one would expect, the tools and materials available to Nightingale and Minard, are much different than those used by Taccola. Moreover, Nightingale and Minard’s technical communications are data visualizations, a very different type of technical communication visual than Taccola’s illustrations. Thus, one might expect to find a different type of visual euphemism, if it appears, in this artifact set. As readers will discover in this section, though, this expectation is a specious one. It’s true that the technological affordances and the genre can influence the way visual euphemism manifests, but, as more analysis of differing artifacts begins to show, it isn’t the appearance of a certain semiotic resource in a technical communication visual that makes it a visual euphemism, rather, it is the sociological variables – the social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition – and the (C)ommunicator’s response to those circumstances that are the motivating force behind the realization of visual euphemism. In this way, Taccola’s illustrations and Nightingale and Minard’s data

150 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 visualizations are very similar. Just like Taccola and his illustrations, Nightingale and Minard created their technical communication visuals for monarchs. Similar, too, are the topics depicted, namely war and death, their imposition on face.

Artifact #4: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East Like most wars, the causes of the Crimean War (1853-1856) are complex and multifaceted. And, also like most wars, this complexity does not persist in the general public’s knowledge. The entry for the Crimean War in the United Kingdom’s National Archives (n.d.) confirms this disparity. It begins, “In Britain, the Crimean War is principally remembered for three reasons: the Charge of the Light Brigade, maladministration in the British army [sic], and Florence Nightingale” (“Crimea 1854,” n.d., n.p.). While it’s unfortunate more people don’t know the Crimean War was fought between an alliance of the United Kingdom, France, and Turkey against Russia over regional access and religious differences, the tripartite “remembered” features are more pertinent for the purposes of this study. And, of those, only the latter two matter: maladministration in the British Army and Florence Nightingale.

The Crimean War has been referred to as the first “media war” by at least one historian (Lambert, 2011). Why and how this label came about is interesting, to say the least, but, again, it’s not applicable to the current study. What is useful, though, is the recognition that being a “media war” meant that the failures and setbacks incurred by the British Army during it, particularly those concerning the poor conditions and treatment of wounded soldiers, were extensively reported on and provided to an outraged public (“Crimea 1854,” n.d., n.p.). More importantly, this knowledge and outrage resulted in a public outcry that eventually became the impetus for sending Florence Nightingale and her team of nurses to the army-field hospital in Scutari, Turkey.

What contemporary readers should appreciate about Nightingale’s arrival in Scutari and her subsequent success reducing soldier casualties through sanitation reforms is their controversial nature. The sanitization of people and tools for the purpose of medical care seems something like common sense to us now, but this was not always the case. Nightingale’s ideas were controversial and did not have the 151 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 mostly universal acceptance they do now (Kopf, 1916; Cohen, 1984). Combine with this Nightingale’s role as an outsider to the British Army’s medical specialists and the defensiveness of those in charge of this war, and it becomes easier to appreciate why her success at Scutari did not automatically lead to the army-wide reforms she later advocated for. Considering that there was so much at stake for so many people, and important, influential people no less, it’s also easy to see why Nightingale’s rose diagram is a good subject of analysis for visual euphemism.

Step 1: Catalogue Resources Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East (Figure 4.4) shows Nightingale’s successful minimization of preventable, disease-related deaths for British soldiers fighting in the Crimean War through improved sanitation practices. This technical communication visual does not feature any human actors. Instead, the represented participants are two rose diagrams. Positioned on each side of the page, the diagram on the right is approximately twice as large as the one on the left. Each diagram uses spatial comparisons of color-coded wedges to show the relationship between three data sets over a year’s time: deaths caused by disease, deaths caused by wounds, and deaths from all other causes. Each wedge represents a month in the year, and 12 wedges comprise each rose diagram to complete a year’s data. Within each wedge, there is a colored area whose size is relative to the data represented. Areas that represent rates of deaths caused by disease are colored blue. Areas that represent rates of death caused from combat are red. And areas that represent deaths from other causes are black. There are no numerical representations of the data associated with each area’s size. The name of the month each wedge represents appears around its outer edge.

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Figure 4.4: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East (1858) by Nightingale

Both diagrams are numbered, but not in the traditional left to right fashion most contemporary Western (A)udiences would anticipate; the smaller, left diagram is numbered 2, while the larger diagram on the right is numbered 1. The diagram numbered 1 represents the time between April, 1854 and March, 1855. The second diagram represents the same range of months but for 1856. Titles reading “April 1854 To March 1855” and “April 1855 To March 1856” are positioned above each diagram. Above these sub-titles and centered on the page is the title of the whole document: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in The Army in the East. All letters for these three titles are capitalized. The words themselves, however, are written in a mix of ornate and utilitarian serif and sans serif typefaces, in varying sizes, and with irregular use of bold lettering.

A dotted line runs from the tip of the March wedge of diagram number 1 to the tip of the April wedge in diagram number 2. The line is meant to indicate the continuation of a timeframe; “April 1855 To March 1856” picks up in April 1855 where “April 1854 To March 1855” left off in March of 1855. At the beginning of the 153 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

1854-1855 diagram, indicating when Nightingale and her team first arrived in Scutari, the blue areas are much larger than both the red and black areas. As time progresses and Nightingale’s sanitation reforms are implemented, this changes. Although there is some variance, the blue areas begin to shrink in the 1855-1856 diagram, ultimately becoming smaller than either the red or black areas.

In the bottom left corner of the page there is a block of anchoring text that uses hanging indents and a slanting, script typeface that reads:

The areas of the blue, red, & black wedges are each measured from the centre at the vertex.

The blue wedges measured from the centre of the circle represent area for area the deaths from preventable or mitigable zymotic diseases, the red wedges measured from the centre the deaths from wounds, & the black wedges measured from the centre the deaths from all other causes

The black line across the red triangle in Nov’ 1854 marks the boundary of the deaths from all other causes during the month

In October 1854 & April 1855, the black area coincides with the red, in January & February 1856, the blue coincides with the black

The entire areas may be compared by following the blue, the red & the black lines enclosing them

In this block of text, Nightingale offers an explanation of the data presented in the graph as well as how that data is visually represented. In this way, the text is anchoring Nightingale’s intended meaning and establishing the purpose of her graph. This suggests that Nightingale was cognizant of her (A)udience’s lack of familiarity with her new graphing technique.

Arguably, one could construe the technical communication visual as displaying a narrative representational metafunction; the reduction in wedge size for deaths caused by diseases tells the story of Nightingale’s successful sanitation reforms. Nonetheless, these diagrams are intended to show the relationship between data sets, and, therefore, perform a conceptual representational metafunction. Rather than actors doing something and creating meaning through their gaze or vectors in the image, the represented participants are the diagrams themselves. Thus, the concept described is 154 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 analytical. “Analytical processes relate participants in terms of part-whole structures. They involve two kinds of participants: one Carrier (the whole) and any number of Possessive Attributes (the parts)” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006, p. 50). In the rose diagrams, the carriers are the whole diagrams and their attributes are the different colored wedges. These wedges combine as attributes to establish the carrier as an augmented spatio-temporal analytical structure, defined as “Two dimensional charts [that] create a conjunction between a set of…analytical structures and a timeline, for the sake of comparative analysis along an ordered timescale” (p. 101). Rather than a conventional straight line, though, time is portrayed as a circle.

Typically, in “contemporary Western society, squares and rectangles are the elements of the mechanical, technological order, of the world of human construction” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006, p. 54); however, here the attempt to make order is conveyed by wedges and circles. This reflects Nightingale’s attempt to abstract the horrific and preventable deaths of soldiers during the Crimean War into statistics and literally give shape to the numbers. A similar effort is reiterated in the intratextual features of the text Nightingale uses to anchor and describe her diagrams. The title – Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East – is written on the diagram, but the words are divided between two lines; “Diagram of the Causes of Mortality” sits atop “in the Army in the East.” All of the letters in both parts of the title are capitalized; however, different words appear in different sizes. “Diagrams” and “Mortality” are a point or two larger than “of” and “the.” “Army” and “East” are displayed in a bigger size than both uses of “in the.” Further accentuating the differences between the prepositional phrases in both parts of the title is that “Diagrams,” “Causes,” and “Mortality” are written in an ornate, Victorian style (a title given after the era). The words “of the” are in a similar style, but do not display quite the same level of ornamentation as the nouns in the title. The titles of the graph are also written in this way.

The second part of the title displays a similar disparity between the nouns and the articles but in a completely different typeface than the Victorian typeface used initially. The phrase “in the Army in the East” appears in a font similar to Helvetica, 155 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 even though Nightingale’s diagram pre-dates the invention of this typeface by almost a century. “Army” and “East” are a point or two larger than “in” and “in the.” It may just be a result of the size increase, but the nouns “Army” and “East” look to be darker in color and thicker than “in” and “in the.” The names of the months that hover around the outer edge of each rose diagram are also in this bolded style. The text written in the bottom left hand corner exhibits a similar mix of signs. It is written in a script style, comparable to a person’s handwriting. Yet, the order of the sentences is obviously measured and clearly delimited. This text, along with the offset subsequent lines, and the design of the titles creates a theme for the compositional metafunction of the technical communication visual: conflict.

The mismatched types, discordant fonts and sizes, and seemingly random use of bolding would be a contemporary designer’s nightmare. For Nightingale’s technical communication visual, though, they contribute to a greater compositional metafunction, one that reflects her own struggle for the exaltation of logic, medical science, and, most importantly, statistics against a discourse community predominantly concerned with style, etiquette, and proper convention. Nightingale is attempting to abstract certain elements of her experiences in Crimea in order to bring logic and rationalization to bear on the chaos of war, death, and disease that she encountered there. As such, this compositional metafunction of conflict is supported by an interpersonal metafunction that is neither intimate nor distant, but, instead, right in the objective middle. Too close, and the data seems personal, excessively emotional. Too far, and the data appears indifferent and possibly minimizes the harsh reality of the deaths behind Nightingale’s figures. By positioning the diagrams at a moderate distance, she creates a connation of impartiality and objectivity. This connotation is also reflected in the lack of any angle or perspective on the diagrams.

Straightforwardly presented, without any vertical angle, and at a medium distance, the actual rose diagrams on the page work as an offer of objective data and contribute to the technical communication visual’s high modality. Nightingale’s technical communication visual looks objective and truthful. It is ornate enough to fulfill the (A)udience’s design expectations, but still utilitarian enough to provide 156 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 relevant factual explanation for the reasons behind the British Army’s high loss of lives due to non-combat related causes. This shows that, despite being sometimes referred to as the “Passionate Statistician,” Nightingale’s rose diagrams are presented rather dispassionately.

Step 2: Investigate Context and Assign Value Charged with investigating the sanitation practices performed in British field hospitals of the Crimean War, Nightingale arrived in Scutari during November of 1854. Perhaps needless to say at this point, she found the care soldiers received and the facility they were housed in deplorable. Poor hygiene, overcrowding, inadequate ventilation, and the lack of a proper sewer system were responsible for the spread of several deadly infectious diseases and fatal cases of dysentery. After implementing proper hygiene practices, increasing ventilation, and working to get the malfunctioning sewer system repaired, Nightingale was able to drastically reduce the death rate for non-combat related causes.

Nightingale’s two-year experience in Crimea compelled her to investigate further into the health and hygiene practices of the entire British Army. Through this investigation she found much of the same dysfunction and disease as she had in Crimea. She discovered that poor sanitation practices in the British Army’s medical ranks resulted in mortality rates for soldiers nearly double that of civilian men in the same age range (Kopf, 1916). Motivated by this knowledge, Nightingale created an 830 page report detailing her experiences in Crimea along with statistics that showed how her reforms had worked in an effort to get them implemented army-wide (Rehmeyer, 2008). In this report, she advocated for a Royal Commission to investigate the medical and sanitation practices of the British Army, a request she reiterated when she spoke directly with Secretary of State for War Lord Panmure about her report and reforms (Kopf, 1916).

Despite her success in Crimea and her exhaustively researched report, Nightingale’s call for a Royal Commission was slow to materialize, and slow to act once it did. Frustrated, Nightingale pre-empted the commission by creating her diagrams and sending them directly to Queen Victoria and other “influential people” 157 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 in Britain’s political and military leadership (Rehmeyer, 2008). This group included “leading members of Parliament and medical and commanding officers throughout the country, India, and in the Colonies” (Kopf, 1916, p. 48). A few months later, in January of 1858, she released the rose diagrams to the general public.

Due to her success in Crimea, Nightingale was well-known in England. Furthermore, she was known to have met with Queen Victoria on at least one occasion, and she exchanged correspondence with her afterwards (Bloy, 2012). It would be inaccurate to say they were very familiar, but, evidently, they were not strangers either. As such, a 4 is the appropriate measure of social (D)istance between Queen Victoria and Nightingale. They were not complete strangers, which would indicate a 5, but neither was as familiar with each other as those who regularly work together, which would be a 3.

There was a mix of people within the group of “influential people” to whom the diagrams were circulated, and therefore there are varying levels of social (D)istance between each member of this class and Nightingale. Some, such as Lord Panmure, were known to her. Others, such as those geographically separated by large distances, such as the “influential people” in the Colonies and India, were likely complete strangers to her. Furthermore, being a large and heterogeneous mix, it’s unlikely she could categorize them as a single type. In a situation like this, wherein a (C)ommunicator must communicate with a mix of familiars and strangers, it’s feasible that Nightingale would adopt the position to treat them all as strangers. It would be a case of being careful about speaking in mixed company. Baring other factors, when rational individuals with face communicate with groups, they are likely going to err on the side of caution, so to speak, and treat everyone in the group only as familiar as the person with whom they have the furthest social (D)istance. Thus, in the case of Nightingale’s rose diagrams presented to “influential people” of the British government and military, the social distance is a 5. By this same logic, Nightingale’s social (D)istance with the general public is also a 5.

Regarding (P)ower, Queen Victoria over Nightingale is a 5. This is for obvious reasons. The Queen held total (P)ower to thwart or advance Nightingale aims. (P)ower 158 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 between Nightingale and “influential people” and the public is slightly lower, though, at a 3. (P)ower entails the (A)udience’s ability to implement their own plans over the (C)ommunicator’s plans. Based on this, the measurement of their (P)ower over Nightingale becomes an issue only if they were able to follow their own plans at the expense of hers. We know that they were slow to react, but, this didn’t stop Nightingale’s sanitation reforms from ultimately being implemented. That she was able to do so shows they did not have a high degree of (P)ower over her, thus negating higher measurements of 4 and 5. Conversely, that they were able to delay her plans shows they possessed some power over her goals, thus negating low measurements of 1 and 2. This leaves 3, a moderate imbalance, as a reasonable evaluation of the (P)ower this group of “influential people” held over Nightingale.

Unlike with social (D)istance, (P)ower is not the same for “influential people” as it is with the public, even though they are both groups. While she often worked through governmental channels, Nightingale was not an elected or appointed government official. Not being so means that the public held little (P)ower over her. Moreover, the public would have had very limited ability, if any, to stifle her plans or implement their own at the expense of hers. Conceivably, a mass revolt could perhaps suppress the implantation of even a queen’s plans, but that was not the case here. It’s possible that some members of the public may have felt this way, but using the archetypal “model person,” we can assume that the average member of the public would be a rational person with face. Improved sanitation practices for the British Army were not the type of changes likely to result in an insult to this group of model person’s faces and rouse them into a revolutionary fervor. Indeed, it seems more likely that the public would hope to see her plans implemented rather than suppressed. At any rate, the public could not actually prevent Nightingale from achieving her goal, thus, a reasonable measurement of the general public’s (P)ower over Nightingale is a 1.

For both the Queen and the political and military leaders to whom Nightingale sent her graphs, the (R)ank of imposition is very high. For them, the message embedded in these diagrams is one that highlights their failures at the same time that it 159 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 exhorts them to correct them. Nightingale’s Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East shows that her reforms worked; she was able to reduce the number of soldiers’ deaths greatly. She managed to change the trajectory of the Crimean War, making her a hero to the British. Based on this knowledge, the implication of the diagram for Queen Victoria and other secondary leaders becomes an assault on their negative faces. The connotation of this diagram is that other deaths can be prevented...if only you would do something. The “you” in this statement being Queen Victoria and other leaders. The rose diagrams, then, become more than just objective conveyances for data; they create a damning critique of British political and military leadership. It’s almost akin to charging the Queen, the parliament, and the military leadership with dereliction of duty. Add to this face affront the imposition created by the changes – it would take time and money to make them – and it’s reasonable to assign a value of 5 for (R)ank of imposition for both Queen Victoria and the “influential people” that made up the (A)udience for Nightingale’s technical communication visual.

For the public, the (R)ank of imposition isn’t quite the same, mainly because they were not responsible for the avoidable deaths to begin with, nor were they responsible for getting the changes made, as Queen Victoria and other “influential people” were. In fact, given the timing of Nightingale’s circulation of the report to the general public, it seems that its release was likely meant to increase the pressure on leadership to institute the sanitation reforms across the whole army. It’s possible, and even likely, that the report and the rose diagrams included in it might have evoked in general public viewers some sense of the horrific nature of the deaths she reports on. As such, they might feel discomfort or “pain” to their negative face from knowing that the rest of the British Army is still suffering and dying from these preventable diseases. It’s hard to judge just how much pain this would actually impose upon the general public, but it likely wouldn’t be the same as that of the Queen’s or the “influential people.” I believe a conservative and reasonable estimate for (R)ank of imposition, then, is a 3. Learning of the unnecessary deaths of soldiers is discomforting, painful even, but this is exacerbated if you are the person being blamed.

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Step 3: Calculate Weightiness to Identify Euphemism Queen Victoria as (A)udience dictates the following values: social (D)istance = 4, (P)ower = 5, and (R)ank of imposition = 5. With the political and military leaders of Britain: social (D)istance = 5, (P)ower = 4, and (R)ank of imposition = 5. With the public the values are: social (D)istance = 5, (P)ower = 1, and (R)ank of imposition is a 3. The following equations apply for each (A)udience:

For Queen Victoria:

14x = 4(C,A) + 5(A,C) + 5x

For political and military leaders:

14x = 5(C,A) + 4(A,C) + 5x

For the public:

9x = 5(C,A) + 1(A,C) + 3x

In the case of the Queen and other leaders, the (W)eightiness for Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East is very high, a 14 for both, although derived at by different variable combinations. Accordingly, Nightingale’s diagrams might be euphemistic for both of these (A)udiences, as the conflation of all three sociological variables creates a high (W)eightiness measurement suggesting a greater likelihood of an FTA and therefore a more off record strategy like euphemism. In accordance with my (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table, a score of 14 is within the highest tier and, therefore, represents a significant possibility for euphemism. For the public, the (W)eightiness factor is a 9, indicating a neutral value, and suggesting that, for them at least, the diagrams are not euphemistic, as this measurement falls outside of the highest tier for the off record politeness strategy of which euphemism is a part.

Both raters had the same (W)eightiness measurement for the artifact when presented to the general public, but there was a discrepancy of 1 between my (W)eightiness measurements for Queen Victoria and other political leaders as (A)udience. The raters calculated (W)eightiness at 13 for each (A)udience, whereas I

161 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 calculated it to be 14. The reason for the lower score was that both identified (R)ank of imposition on the (A)udience’s positive face as a 4 not a 5. They both felt that Queen Victoria and the other leaders’ would not experience extreme discomfort from the diagrams and what they revealed, because Nightingale was an outsider, without as much influence, and could therefore only cause so much discomfort with her diagrams. Nevertheless, in either case, we both identified (W)eightiness measurements for the context as falling within the range of 12-15, the range indicative of the highest off record politeness strategy and the one that represents a euphemism-conducive context.

Step 4: Identify and Analyze Visual Euphemism If, as the above analysis shows, the context of Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East with Queen Victoria and other British politicians and military leaders as (A)udience is conducive for visual euphemism, then the next step is to determine if the diagram is a deviation from expectations and, if so, was that deviation meant to be facilitative or deceptive. To do this requires an investigation of what Nightingale abstracted from her experiences in Crimea and her research into the health practices of the British Army, how she did so, and the relationship between the two.

There is no reason to doubt Nightingale’s data. Soldiers were dying at the rate specified and for the causes indicated. Also, it’s true that her sanitation reforms greatly reduced the number of soldiers’ deaths from disease and infection, suggesting that, if her reforms were instituted army-wide, there would be a similar positive effect. Lastly, we know that Nightingale was at least partially motivated to present her data in a diagram because she worried that Queen Victoria might “glaze over” (Rehmeyer, 2008) if she were presented only the numbers. All of this suggests that Nightingale wanted her (A)udience to see the data accurately. In light of the very high possibility that her communicative act would threaten her (A)udience’s face, all of this suggests that Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East is a facilitative euphemistic technical communication visual and not intended to deceive the (A)udience. Nonetheless, there is one motivation of Nightingale’s that remains

162 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 unidentified and prevents easily labeling the rose diagrams as wholly facilitative: why did she feel the need to create an entirely new type of technical communication visual to show her data? There were many other forms her abstracted data could have taken. Others (Small, 2010) have already pointed out that, if Nightingale’s goal was to present the stark reality of British fatalities in Crimea, then she would have been better served with a simple bar graph. To see this point more clearly consider the following figure from Small (2010), who refigured Nightingale’s rose diagram into a stacked bar graph (Figure 4.5):

Figure 4.5: Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East as stacked bar graph (2010) by Small

Not only is the data more striking in this graph, but it is easier to understand. And, given that the data represents relative values over time, it is better suited to this type of graph. Furthermore, some in her (A)udience would recognize this graph and be already familiar with its conventions, increasing the likelihood that they interpret it correctly. The rose diagram, by its condition of being an innovation, was wholly unfamiliar to her (A)udience. Rose diagrams, sometimes now called coxcomb or polar

163 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 diagrams, have still not reached the level of use other graphic techniques like the bar graph have, making them unfamiliar and therefore difficult to discern even for contemporary (A)udiences, ones who presumably possess more visual communication savvy. Nightingale would have surely known all of this. So, to repeat my earlier question, why the rose diagram?

The answer relates to Nightingale’s need to euphemize her data for the (A)udiences of the Queen and other “influential people.” It may appear rather counter- intuitive at first, but Nightingale’s creation of the rose diagram, in a fashion typical of euphemism, is meant to be less striking and direct. As I showed above, for Queen Victoria and other leaders the (R)ank of imposition was the highest it could be – Nightingale was essentially calling them incompetents and responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths. Combine with this the extreme (P)ower imbalance they possessed over her and the wide social (D)istance between her and them, and it is evident that Nightingale had many reasons to soften the display of her data. Her choice of the new and unique rose diagrams allowed her to do just this.

Consider the alternatives Nightingale had available to her to further see how the rose diagrams were meant to blur the line between signified and signifier. As I showed above, she could have used a bar graph. She could have even decided to simply forgo a graph and show the data in a table. Doing so would have made tracing the relationships between rates of death and time easier. Or, she could have written a single, powerful sentence: “From April to December 1854, the number of soldier’s deaths caused by preventable, non-combat related causes was 20,832; during the same months of 1855, in which the sanitation reforms were implemented, the death rate was nearly half the original at 10,542.” A sentence like this is clear and direct, and it does not require the viewer to understand how to read a new type of diagram. Nor does it require them to try and decipher the number of deaths by the area of a colored wedge, a requisite condition of Nightingale’s rose diagram because she did not include the actual numbers of deaths. Instead, she created the rose diagram, a graph that would require her (A)udience to pause and figure out what they were really looking at and what it all meant. 164 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

It’s difficult to label her doing so deceptive, though, because, ultimately, it wasn’t motivated by an attempt to deceive or mislead her (A)udience. Instead, it was rather paradoxical. To facilitate her goal of getting her reforms implemented army- wide, Nightingale opted to use a technical communication visual. Typically, the use of a technical communication visual is to enhance and quicken understanding. We use them because they have what Tufte (1983/2001) calls “interocularity” – their message hits the viewer right between the eyes. However, Nightingale employed her technical communication visual to reduce interocularity. In other words, she diminished the graph’s intelligibility through visual euphemization, but had a good reason for doing so.

Step 5: Contribution These conclusions drawn from applying the critical framework for visual euphemism to Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East complicate Brasseur’s (2005) widely accepted judgment that Nightingale’s success was due to her diagram’s ability to “capture the whole picture of the disaster” that was the British field hospitals of the Crimean War. True, Brasseur is referring to all three rose diagrams. And, indeed, they do tell the story of this disaster. But so did the written report Nightingale initially wrote and circulated. And so did the Royal Commission’s report. And so did the journalists’ reports. The conditions, or the “story,” of Crimea were not unfamiliar to her (A)udiences. Nightingale’s true rhetorical genius isn’t attributable to her rose diagrams’ ability to present data in a striking and undeniable way, but, rather, from their euphemistic ability to not show the data this way. As such, Nightingale’s rose diagram as visual euphemism offers several useful lessons to technical communicators, albeit some unexpected ones.

Presumably, technical communication should be as clear and direct as possible. Moreover, when it comes to graphing data, we are expected to use a graph that appropriately pairs with the data: line graphs for data over time, a table for the relationships between multiple variables, flowcharts for processes (Markel, 2012; Oliu, Brusaw, & Alred, 2013). Yet, in Nightingale’s visually euphemistic rose diagram, we see clear evidence for effective communication aided by indirect

165 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 communication, data presented in an unconventional way. As I listed above, there were other ways Nightingale could have presented her data, ways that would have been more easily understood by the (A)udience and ways that would have presented her data more directly. That she didn’t use them contradicts some of the presuppositions of technical communication. Furthermore, it would be a rare case for which a technical communicator would be told to make the communication less direct or to forgo standard data visualization conventions and come up with something new. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Nightingale did, and she was successful for doing so.

Another interesting conclusion we can draw from Nightingale’s choice to use the visually euphemistic rose diagram concerns the role ideology played in her decision. It’s possible that the choice of a more conventionally understood technical communication visual form could’ve hastened her reforms. It’s also possible that the very same thing could’ve caused insult to the face of the Queen and others, and derailed her efforts to improve sanitation practices in the British Army. Nightingale had no way of knowing. It would seem that, if a (C)ommunicator really wanted to make sure her (A)udience received the message, she would rely on proven ways of doing so and not invent some altogether new form of visual communication. Yet, when faced with this choice, Nightingale chose the unproven route. In hindsight, we can say that Nightingale made the right choice, but what if the diagram had failed? What if it was viewed as unnecessarily ambiguous, seen as lacking credibility, or just otherwise misunderstood? Certainly, her reforms, or someone else’s, would’ve been implemented eventually, but how many lives could’ve been lost in the interim because Nightingale felt constrained by the tacit influence exerted by ideology through the sub-structures of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition? We can never know, but we can at least as technical communicators pause to consider the motivations behind our communicative acts and consider if some other forces aren’t influencing our work and its reception.

My initial choice of the Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East for this study was partially motivated by my expectation for some 166 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 interesting power dynamics between Nightingale, a woman of course, operating inside a rigidly patriarchal society. Prior to research into the context that gave rise to her creation of the rose diagrams, and prior to applying the framework for visual euphemism, I expected to learn more about how Victorian society’s attitudes towards women played a role in their advent. As a wealthy, politically connected woman living in the Victorian age, an era known for its attention to polite society and proper etiquette and behavior, it is easy to imagine the types of restrictions put upon Nightingale. Consequently, and given what has been previously explained about how and why euphemism occurs, it is also easy to imagine that Nightingale was likely very familiar with the use of euphemism. Yet, I found very little in the research or in my analysis that indicated Nightingale’s gender played much of a role in the creation and circulation of her rose diagrams. I suspect the reason being she had the money to do these things herself. If this is the case, it provides an interesting lesson in the hierarchy necessitated by ideology, one that I feel has bearing on our own, contemporary culture and society. This lesson: money trumps gender bias. The reason Nightingale being a woman in a rigidly patriarchal society didn’t hamper her innovation of the rose diagrams, is because she was wealthy enough to prevent it from doing so. In other words, the quality of Nightingale’s diagrams and research helped her achieve her goals, but their success is not singularly attributable to this quality, as Brasseur (2005) has previously argued. It’s true that her success was the result of a rhetorically effective visual euphemism, but it was also attributable to a combination of several elements, it being a visual euphemism and her money far from the least of these.

Artifact #5: Napoleon’s March on Moscow The context for Charles Joseph Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow is very similar to that which inspired Nightingale’s rose diagrams. Like her, he had a powerful ruler as part of his (A)udience. Like her, he was respected by the community he presented his graph to but was an outsider to that community. And, like Nightingale, Minard was concerned with saving the lives of his countrymen. Yet, there is one significant difference in the motivations that drove each (C)ommunicator to create their draft. Nightingale produced the rose diagrams to change the actual and ongoing practices of the British Army’s medical specialists as they were occurring in 167 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 the field hospitals at that time. Minard, on the other hand, hoped to prevent a war that hadn’t yet begun.

Here again, a comprehensive understanding of a war, in this case The Franco- Prussian War (1870-1871), sometimes called the Franco-German War or the War of 1870, is too complex and unnecessary for the purpose of this analysis. In short, though, France was compelled to declare war on Prussia after learning that Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a relative to Prussian royalty, would take over the Spanish throne from Queen Isabella II. Fearful that a united Prussia and Spain could form an intimidating coalition and threaten France’s power in Europe, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia in July of 1870. History would later reveal that Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck altered a telegraph to mislead the French into believing the falsehood that Prince Leopold would ascent to the Spanish throne. Of course, this would only be discovered after France had entered and lost the war (“Franco-German War,” n.d.).

No doubt hindsight is 20/20, making France’s declaration of war seem foolish and hubristic, particularly so in retrospect of the misleading telegram and their ensuing loss. This is especially true given that this war in many ways set the stage for the First World War (“Franco-German War,” n.d.). Nevertheless, Minard possessed prescience Napoleon III and other French military leaders did not. With a firsthand knowledge of the horrors of war, gathered during his experience as a young engineer in Anvers during a Prussian siege in 1813 (Friendly, 2002), Minard was compelled to provide his country’s leadership with a warning about the high cost of war with a visual reminder of another hubristic and ultimately foolhardy decision to go to war: Napoleon I’s disastrous attempt to attack Moscow. Like Nightingale, Minard had to deliver this message in a context fraught with threats to face. And, like Nightingale, Minard used a visual euphemism to do so.

Step 1: Catalogue Resources Although it is now commonly referred to as Napoleon’s March on Moscow, (Figure 4.6) Charles Joseph Minard’s famous technical communication visual was originally titled Figurative Map of the successive losses in men of the French Army in 168 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 the Russian Campaign 1812~1813 (Carte figurative des pertes successies en homes de l’Armee Francais dans la champagne de Russe 1812-1813). It displays the relationship between six different data sets depicting Napoleon’s ill-fated incursion into Russia: 1) the number of Napoleon’s troops throughout the march, 2) the distance, 3) direction, and 4) terrain they traveled, 5) the dates they did so, and 6) the temperatures they endured. To show all this, Minard superimposed a colored band whose width and area were proportional to the number of troops at a given time and place over a truncated map of Russia. The band is made up of two parts, distinguished by color and size. The larger, red band signifies the march towards Moscow, while the smaller, black band signifies the return. There is a line at the bottom of the page that runs parallel to the troop band. It specifies dates and temperatures relevant to the troops’ position in place and time.

Figure 4.6: Napoleon's March on Moscow (1869) by Minard

Even though Minard’s technical communication visual shows so much data, there is only a single represented participant: the troop-signifying band. It is designated as such by its large size and central placement in the visual. The other data variables – distance, direction, terrain, time, and temperature – are subordinate to the troop number band and only important because they relate to and explain the dwindling troop numbers. Contemporary reproductions of the visual often display the

169 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 band signifying the march towards Moscow in beige and the return in black. We know from Minard’s inscription on the graph, though, that he originally colored the march to Moscow red. His original use of red further substantiates the significance of the troop band for the graphic; it is striking and stands out for not being used anywhere else in the visual. It is the most salient feature, further establishing its dominant status as the only represented participant.

The red/beige portion of the band is widest at the start, obviously, and represents 422,000 troops. The band narrows the nearer it gets to Moscow, indicating soldiers’ deaths along the way. Once at Moscow, the band is approximately a quarter of its original size. Napoleon’s return begins at the edge of Moscow and represents 100,000 troops. At its terminus, the figure is a fraction of the size it once was, signifying only 10,000 troops who made it back. As low as this number is, it would be even lower if detachments from the original procession had not returned and merged with the returning troops. Without them, the number of soldiers who actually made it back would be less than 4,000. Offshoots of the larger bands indicate these excursions and returns. Minard was careful to make the area of the band directly proportional to the number it represents, but viewers don’t have to rely on just its size to comprehend the number of troops lost; Minard provides the actual numbers at varying intervals along the length of the band.

Anchoring textual information appears on the visual, above the troop band and map. Written in a script, is the following:

Figurative Map of the successive losses in men of the French Army in the Russian Campaign 1812~1813. Drawn up by M. Minard, Inspector General of Bridges and Roads in retirement. Paris, November 20, 1969. The numbers of men present are represented by the widths of the colored zones in a rate of one millimeter for ten thousand men; they are further written across the zones. The red designates the men who enter into Russia, the black those who leave it. __The information which has served to draw up the map has been extracted from the works of M. M. Chiers, of Segur, of Fezensac, of Chambray and the unpublished diary of Jacob, pharmacist of the Army since October

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28th. In order to better judge with the eye the diminution of the army, I have assumed that the troops of Prince Jerome and of Marshal Davoust who had been detached at Minsk and Mobilow and have rejoined around Orcha and Witebsk, had always marched with the army. Other textual information, such as the names of the cities and towns the army marched through, the dates they did so, and the temperatures for those days, as well as a title for this secondary information that reads “Graphic table of the temperature in degrees of the Reaumur thermometer” appears beneath the colored band. This information is still written in script, but in a different style than the other text. It is less ornate and does not appear as human handwriting.

Data graphics are said to only and always present a conceptual representational metafunction. This is mostly because, without human actors as the represented participants, there can be no pointing or gazing to indicate movement and action, key elements for narrative (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006). Conceptual images, on the other hand, present data in forms that compel comparative analysis and present data in terms of a part/whole structure. Typically, a visual will be one or the other, but Minard’s graph defies this binary categorization. It is clearly conceptual, for it fulfills the criteria for the conceptual representational metafunction so thoroughly. It presents several data sets meant to be compared and analyzed, and it does so with a part/whole structure. The possessive attributes – the six data variables – conflate to become the complete visual detailing Napoleon’s failed campaign. Because it takes place over time and geographical area, the concept it describes is a type of spatio-temporal analytical structure, meaning it is a form of a two dimensional graph that creates conjunctions between data sets, for the sake of comparative analysis along an ordered timescale (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006, p. 101). Despite how well it works as a concept, though, Minard’s graph also exemplifies a narrative representative metafunction. This is because, even without human actors present, it still presents two conspicuous vectors: the army’s march into Moscow and their retreat out of Moscow. Together, these vectors and their associated data tell a story – the story of Napoleon’s failed attack on Russia. Furthermore, Minard’s graph displays all of the necessary conventions of a narrative metafunction. It has actors acting in a setting and in a

171 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 temporal sequence, the basic elements and structure of practically any story. Thus, Minard’s graph represents both a concept and a narrative.

Considering the interpersonal metafunction of the graph does not settle its duality, but instead contributes to the notion that it is both conceptual and narrative. All of the visual’s elements are presented straightforwardly, without any vertical angle, and at a medium distance. This makes the graph appear credible and objective, seemingly supporting a conceptual representational metafunction. This is data offered to viewers, who can compare between the sets and contemplate what it all means. Yet, when one considers the context of Minard’s graph and to whom it was presented, there is strong evidence that it is making a demand on the viewer. I explain the context for this visual more fully in the next section, but for now, readers should understand that Napoleon’s March on Moscow is a decidedly anti-war statement. Minard presented it to France’s leaders in an effort to stop their trajectory towards war with Prussia because he felt compelled to do so. The big red/beige troop band that ultimately changes to black and dwindles to a fraction of its size demands something of its viewers: to acknowledge their hubris and not make the same mistake that Napoleon did. In this light, the same straightforward, angle-less viewpoint and medium distance contribute to objectivity without detracting from the narrative function. It is a story, but not a fictitious one; it is an objective re-telling of the historic failure of Napoleon’s Russian invasion.

The different titles used to describe the fully composed graph further establish its dual nature. Minard originally titled the graph Figurative Map of the successive losses in men of the French Army in the Russian Campaign 1812~1813. This title highlights the data, the conceptual aspect of the visual. “Successive losses” denotes quantitative measures; “the years 1812-1813 denote a timescale. Even his use of “Map” suggests yet another data set. Furthermore, including all these elements in the visual’s title shows that Minard intended for them to be compared against each other. Comparison between data sets is characteristic of conceptual representational metafunctions, explaining why Minard titled it what he did. One would think scholars would refer to the visual by what Minard titled it, yet, for contemporary scholars 172 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

(Tufte, 1983/2001; Friendly, 2002; Dragga & Voss, 2001), the graph is exclusively referred to as Napoleon’s March on Moscow. It’s possible that scholars studying the visual after Tufte’s exaltation and popularization of it are only following his lead, but it’s still odd that the visual’s original title is not used, not even in a truncated form. Tufte gives no reason for the change, nor do the other scholars who have focused on this graph. I suspect, though, that the new title was precipitated by a desire to highlight the visual’s narrative quality. This technical communication isn’t great only because it visualizes so many data variables – terrain, numbers, dates – into a conceptual visualization, but also because it tells a story about a people, their actions, and the time and place they occurred. It is the story of Napoleon’s hubris, and the unnecessary deaths of over 400,000 French soldiers. So, while Marney may have been correct when he said the graph “defies the historian’s pen with its brutal eloquence” (qtd. in Friendly, 2002), it seems clear that it also defies typical, metafunctional categories.

Step 2: Investigate Context and Assign Value By all accounts, Minard was an engineering savant with a natural inclination toward visualization. He was accepted into the prestigious French engineering school Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chausees (ENPC) at sixteen, and spent the rest of his life working and teaching there. His career can be divided into two parts: civil engineer from 1810 to 1842 and visual engineer from 1843 to 1869 (Robinson, 1967). In the former, he designed plans for the construction of canals and railways; in the latter, he created 63 technical communication visuals, most concerning the flow of people, goods, or services across topographical space. These helped bureaucrats and other French state officials determine the best places to build roads and canals, as well as settle other civil engineering related issues. His work was widely circulated and copied. In fact, all Ministers of Public Works in France are said to have had their portraits painted with one of Minard’s visual creations in the background (Chevallier, 1871). And, in 1861, some of Minard’s maps and charts were presented to Napoleon III, who received them enthusiastically (Friendly, 2002).

Minard created Napoleon’s March on Moscow after his retirement from public service, and just shortly before his death at the age of 89. It was printed as part of a

173 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 pair of thematically analogous flow maps. The other featured Hannibal’s similarly disastrous military campaign from Spain into Italy. The maps were meant as an anti- war statement, a reminder of just how terrible it can be when humans decide to fight and kill each other. For Minard’s obituary, son-in-law Chevalier wrote this about the technical communication visual: “The image is gripping; and, especially today, it inspires bitter reflections on the cost to humanity of the madnesses of conquerors and the merciless thirst of military glory” (Chevalier, 1871). Chevalier’s mention of “especially today” refers to France’s impending war with Prussia, something many French politicians advocated for. Chevalier’s personal relationship with Minard as well as Minard’s decision to escape the impending conflict and flee from Paris to Bordeaux in the final years of his life provides credible evidence of his anti-war motivation for Napoleon’s March on Moscow.

Minard published his later maps, including Napoleon’s March on Moscow, privately, and how they were distributed is a mystery (Robinson, 1967). He did not belong to any society of data visualization or statistics enthusiasts and his work did not appear in any journals or newspapers of the time. His visual creations were widely admired and appreciated by “the French people, statisticians and laymen alike” (Funkhouser qtd. in Friendly, 2008, p. 17), but this popularity came only posthumously. Given this information, his background as a widely respected and important part of the French state, and the motivation behind Napoleon’s March on Moscow, Minard likely intended for the map to reach influential people in the French government and possibly even Emperor Napoleon III himself. These were the people who actively wanted war with Prussia, and they were the ones who had the power to stop it as well. Minard’s (A)udience, then, was composed of a group of people that he had some understanding of. Likewise, given his popularity amongst French politicians and leaders, his reputation was likely known to many in the group. It would be incorrect to extrapolate from this that there was a close personal relationship between Minard and this group, however, negating 1 and 2 measurements for social (D)istance. And, while he worked with some members of this group on occasion, none were co- workers, negating 3 for social (D)istance. Conversely, he was not a stranger to them,

174 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 nor were they to him, indicating that a 5 is inaccurate as well. Thus, the most apt measurement of social (D)istance between Minard and his intended (A)udience for Napoleon’s March on Moscow is a 4. They were essentially acquaintances.

Minard’s goal of stopping the impending war with Prussia by reminding those who sought it just how horrible and seemingly meaningless war can be suggests they held a great deal of power over him. If the measurement of (P)ower is, as Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) contend, the ability an (A)udience has to prevent or progress a (C)ommunicator’s goal, then Minard’s (A)udience of French leaders held complete (P)ower over him in this regard. Indeed, history shows us that Minard’s warnings were ignored, he felt forced to flee, both of which substantiate his lack of (P)ower. Accordingly, (P)ower is a 5.

Regarding (R)ank of imposition for the negative face of his (A)udience, the measurement is very low. Minard wanted to prevent the loss of life and materials necessary when one country goes to war with another. They really had no obligation to go to war, as they weren’t being invaded, and it would’ve been easier, and wiser in retrospect, for them not to have done so. Regarding positive face, on the other hand, there is some amount of discomfort to Minard’s (A)udience, particularly so given that Napoleon III was part of that (A)udience. The map reminds its viewers that, when it comes to war, things don’t always go as planned. This is even true of the great military leader and strategist, Napoleon Bonaparte. His descendant, then, could’ve experienced some level of indignation for being reminded of this. If the visual were translated into the verbal, it would be something akin to Minard reminding Napoleon III that his forefather, one of the greatest military strategists and leaders in French history, failed in his hubristic endeavor to go to war with Russia, causing the loss of over 400,000 French soldiers, and that he was no Napoleon I. It’s hard to imagine how someone might say this in a way that doesn’t cause a threat to the emperor’s face. At any rate, a well-known and respected man like Minard critiquing the most powerful men in the country by reminding them of past failures, particular those incurred by the current emperor’s grandfather, and doing so at a time when they were rallying the country to go to war with the Prussians presents a significant threat to their self-image as 175 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 competent military strategists and leaders. Basically, he was imposing upon their positive face by doubting their ability. Thus, while the threat to negative face is so low as to be inconsequential, presumably because it does not require as much time, effort, or material goods to stop a war as it does to start one, the threat to positive face is significant and best measured as a 4. This is a fair measurement, reflective of the discomfort that Minard’s request would’ve likely caused these French leaders who certainly thought they were justified in their action to go to war and that they would win.

Step 3: Calculate Weightiness to Identify Euphemism With measurements of social (D)istance a 4, (P)ower a 5, and (R)ank of imposition a 4, Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow completes the (W)eightiness equation with a 13 when presented to an (A)udience of French leaders:

13x = 4(C,A) + 5(A,C) + 4x

A (W)eightiness measurement of 13 means the context for Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow was likely to produce in-direct communication, namely euphemism. Context for Minard’s graph being at a measurement of (W)eightiness conducive to euphemism was confirmed by outside raters. We all measured it at 13, solidly inside that top tier of the (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table that indicates the likelihood of off record communication including euphemism.

Step 4: Identify and Analyze Visual Euphemism There is no easy or obvious alternative for Napoleon’s March on Moscow. What other visual form available to Minard allows for the possibility of showing the intersection of six data variables more clearly? At the same time that it tells a story of the tragic and seemingly unnecessary loss of life? Not many, if any really, come to mind. Innovation, it seems, was Minard’s only choice. Yet, while Minard might not have had many alternatives for the form of his graph, he did have alternatives for its content. It is upon examining these choices that we find evidence substantiating Minard’s famous graph as a visual euphemism. To understand why, consider how a contemporary technical communicator might address the challenge of stopping an impending war with a technical communication visual. They may decide to create a 176 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 graph showing the number of their home country’s soldiers and weapons against those of the enemy’s greater numbers of the same. They may, instead, decide to show a graph that displays the number of expected casualties for their side, or even both sides. Or they could create a graph that details the financial costs of the impending war. All of these seem suitable for the situation, whereas Minard’s graph does not. Instead of these graphs or ones like them, Minard shows the results of Napoleon’s failed incursion into Moscow, a tragedy, no doubt, but one that took place 60 years earlier and had little to do with Prussia. While Minard’s graph may indeed be beautiful, it is a rather odd choice. Moreover, it is an exceptionally indirect one, suggesting that, in light of its euphemism-conducive context indicated by a (W)eightiness of 13, Napoleon’s March on Moscow is a visual euphemism.

Even though Minard’s famous technical communication visual was determined to be a visual euphemism, I see no evidence that it is a deceptive one. Indeed, one of the features that make it so striking is just how accurate and observable the information it contains is. It certainly possesses that “interocularity” that Tufte (1983/2001) admires so much about good graphs. And, unlike Taccola and Nightingale, Minard provides the numbers to help viewers make sense of his graph as well as underscore its credibility. He even cites his sources directly on the visual itself. Napoleon’s March on Moscow, then, is a facilitative visual euphemism, even if it did not ultimately help Minard achieve his goal. Unlike Tufte, I cannot say that this makes the graph the “best statistical graphic ever drawn” (p. 40), for that is an exceedingly subjective description, but I can say that Napoleon’s March on Moscow, with all the information it includes and in its “interocular” form, is a facilitative visual euphemism.

It makes sense that Napoleon’s March on Moscow would be a facilitative visual euphemism. Minard was a respected man, one who devoted his life to improving the conditions of his country. He possessed a sincere desire to help it avoid being harmed from another likely unnecessary war. And there is nothing in his history that would suggest he held any animus for France and its leaders. Actually the opposite is true: he devoted his life to working for the state, literally improving its 177 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 roads, waterways, buildings, and even economics through his technical communication visuals. Yet, he had also seen firsthand just how terrible war can be, and he badly wanted his countrymen to avoid a similar experience. In essence, this desire to speak out while still showing respect and mitigating the face-threatening-act is why people use euphemism. Minard, therefore, visually euphemized his anti-war comments to facilitate achieving his goal of circumventing a war with Prussia. To do this, he created his own, innovative way to remind his (A)udience of what horrors likely awaited the French Army if they were to enter into a war with Prussia without actually showing them the horrors of going to war with Prussia or overtly questioning their decision to do so.

Step 5: Contribution Although it might not settle it, the knowledge that Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow is a visual euphemism sheds light on an interesting debate between technical communicators, one that took place in the pages of Technical Communication. In a 2001 article for this journal, Dragga and Voss made an argument against “cruel pies,” a label they came up with to describe technical communication visuals that seemingly obscure the humanity and reality of the very data sets they are meant to reveal. Technical communication visuals that report the number of infant deaths caused by a malfunctioning walkers, the number of loggers who died working in a specific area, and even Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow were “inhumane,” the authors argued, because these visuals showed only abstracted numbers or shapes to represent the deaths of real people. Their solution was to include humanizing semiotic resources, such as textual descriptions, photos, and illustrations. For Minard’s famous visual, the authors suggested placing Isotypes-esque characters of burial crosses, solider silhouettes, and equipment along the troop band to signify the lives and resources lost along the way (Figure 4.7).

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Figure 4.7: Napoleon's March on Moscow with Isotypes (2001) by Dragga and Voss

Without saying as much, Dragga and Voss’s (2001) problem with Minard’s technical communication visual is that it doesn’t include in the abstraction all of the cruelty of the soldier’s march into the graphic. To put it another way, they are unhappy with its euphemizing and would rather the graph be clearer and more direct, or maybe even dysphemistic, to show the real costs of war. Yet, despite the authors’ noble intentions, readers of Technical Communication were not in agreement, to say the least. In a subsequent issue of the journal, the editors published some of the overwhelming negative responses to the idea of incorporating humanizing semiotic resource into technical communication visuals. The responses ranged from simple disagreement to derision and mockery, but the majority of the letters were particularly unkind and unhappy about the thought of augmenting Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow with humanizing pictographs to make it “emotionally redundant” (Dragga & Voss, 2001, p. 271).

I agree with the letter writers, but not for the same reasons. At the core of all their complaints was a concern for injecting “chart junk” into the map this way. Many of the letter writers even referred to Tufte’s (1983/2001) arhetorical design guidelines in doing so. While there may be an aesthetic case to be made for their complaints, it misses the real problem with Dragga and Voss’s (2002) solution for “cruel pies.” Humanizing graphics, contrary to what the authors believe, would not have mitigated

179 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 the egregiousness of the threat to face that Minard was confronted with. While it’s true that, sometimes, it can be distasteful at best, cruel at worst, for technical communicators to abstract the humanity of those signified in our visual communication to numbers or shapes, we still have to consider our rhetorical aims and the best way to facilitate them. Even though it was ultimately unsuccessful, Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow shows us just that. It displays a recognition, even a tacit or unconscious one, on Minard’s part of the social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition that represent the ideological underpinnings of the context for his technical communication visual. So, even though it ultimately did not deter France from entering – and losing – a war with Prussia, Minard’s visual euphemism was judicious.

Animated Ailments In what is an even bigger jump than that between Taccola’s Renaissance-era illustrations and Nightingale and Minard’s Golden Age graphics, I now move to the set of artifacts comprised of the animated ailments Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus. These artifacts represent the most technologically advanced ones of the group. Unlike previous sets, which were created through very different technological affordances, but were still essentially just paper and ink, animated ailments are created through a complex of several technologically enhanced tools. Here again, though, the trend of visual euphemism being realized through contextual factors more than material, semiotic resources or technological affordances continues. As I will show in the following sections, these characters are, in fact, visual euphemisms, but they are so not because of their color or shape or some other visual feature per se, but rather, because of the (A)udience to whom they are presented and the context the were presented in as it relates to social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition.

Prior to extrapolating upon the above point further, it is important to offer a note on how the artifacts are grouped in this section, how I limit the analysis to certain visual features of these multimodal creations, and a reminder to readers as to why these animated ailments, ostensibly not technical communication visuals, are in indeed just that. All of this is addressed in the following section. 180 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Artifacts #6 and #7: Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus share many design features and contextual variables. They are both metonymic stand-ins for unsightly diseases. Animators and advertisers working in concert created them both. Each was intended for a mass (A)udience and used to sell over-the-counter medications for non-lethal, unsightly ailments that afflict the human body. Also, they both display similar visual qualities: unpleasant coloring, irregular shape, menacing demeanor. For these reasons, and to avoid redundancy, I have decided to analyze both of these characters together, noting distinctions where necessary, rather than repeat the steps of the framework for visual euphemism for each. Likewise, because these characters share so much in common, and because there are numerous other characters like them in advertisements for other medical conditions and treatments, they can be grouped together and collectively referred to as animated ailments. Prior to the analysis, and so readers are clear on the limitations of my analysis, I want to offer some notes on the contexts in which animated ailments appear, what makes them technical communication visuals, and how they were used in the current study

Earlier, in Chapter 3, I argued that context, anchoring text, and relay establish Digger and Mr. Mucus as technical communication visuals signifying complex, frequently misunderstood biological processes and/or malfunctions that can befall the human body. Their establishment as such is accomplished through a conflation of many visual and auditory clues, ones primarily established in their first television commercial appearances and reified throughout their larger advertisement campaigns. Moreover, they are animations, and, as such, move and engage with viewers in dynamic ways. While a comprehensive analysis of all the multimodal features involved in creating these animated ailments would be a worthwhile research endeavor, it is outside the scope of this dissertation. The nascent framework as described in this dissertation relies on the tools and lexicon of social semiotics as they appear in static images. Nevertheless, an analysis of animated ailments limited to just their fixed visual semiotic resources still has much to offer our understanding of visual euphemism. To do this, I use the critical framework for visual euphemism to evaluate those visual semiotic resources that are unchanging and recurring with animated 181 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 ailments. Most important of these is color. As Kress and van Leeuwen (2002) state, color “is a semiotic resource like others: regular, with signs that are motivated in their constitution by the interests of the makers of the signs, and not at all arbitrary or anarchic” (p. 345). Furthermore, “colour fulfills [the] three metafunctions simultaneously” (p. 350). Other elements of animated ailments that persist across their use in their respective advertising campaigns include their shape and their connotations of monsterness.

Step 1: Catalogue Resources Digger and Mr. Mucus are monsters, meaning they are both ugly, imaginary creatures intended to frighten. To fulfill this representational metafunction, both are depicted with physical deformities and asymmetrical body shapes of a distinctly non- human color. Digger (Figure 4.8), for instance, has pointy ears, jagged claws, and a tail. His head and torso create a shape close to an oval, while his arms and legs are thin and angular. He does not wear clothes, revealing his entire body to be a shade of yellow similar to the color of an infected toenail. Purple spots dot his brow and back. His sharp fingernails and toenails are a similar shade of purple. Three to four coarse hairs jut out from the top of his head and elsewhere sporadically on his body. His mouth is a thin slit running across his face. He has only one tooth and no nose.

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Figure 4.8: Digger the Dermatophyte (2003) by Deutsch NY

Likely because he wears clothes, Mr. Mucus (Figure 4.9) exhibits a slight bit more humanness than Digger, but he is no less a monster. His slime-green colored body is blob-like, similar to a gelatinous egg and reminiscent of the mucus he signifies. His arms and legs are tiny, accentuating the amorphousness of his body. The A-shirt, suspenders, plaid pants, and a porkpie hat he wears are all dirty and ill-fitting. His face is made up of two round eyes underneath heavy, dark eyebrows. Like Digger, Mr. Mucus also displays a lipless slit for a mouth and has no nose.

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Figure 4.9: Mr. Mucus (2004) by Adams Respiratory Therapeutics

The color of each animated ailments is a motivated sign, intended by the designers to fulfill the representational metafunction by linking Digger and Mr. Mucus with the infection each stands for. For Digger, this visually manifests itself in his yellow color, representative of the yellow color of infected toenails. For Mr. Mucus, it is his green coloring, signifying the color of infected mucus. It’s interesting to note here that, although they are different colors, the yellow color of infected toenails and the green color of infected mucus are the results of the same process: the body’s use of white blood cells to fight infection. When the human body fights back against an infected toenail, it sends white blood cells to the area to fight the infection, eventually collecting around the afflicted area and yellowing it. When the same white blood cells fight infection in the lungs, they rupture and die, ultimately mixing with the body’s normal, clear colored mucus and changing it into a green color. Both animated ailments, then, get their color from the body’s efforts to attack infection.

Color is meant to do something, to cause a response or incite an action in the viewer. “It can be and is used to do things to or for each other” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006, p. 229). Pinks can calm; reds and oranges can excite, for 184 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 instance. In this way, color fulfills the interpersonal metafunction as a type of demand, rather than an offer. Instead of an action-inciting direct stare into the eyes of the viewer, though, the pus-yellow and slime-green colors are intended to provoke a mild revulsion. They are an indexical sign of a diseased body and are purposefully meant to be unpleasant and induce a visceral response in those who see them. Much of the meaning people attach to color is culturally constructed, a product of ideology. The repulsion the designers intended to evoke by using these colors in their creatures, however, goes beyond this and taps into something more instinctual. Human bodies, regardless of the culture they are in, respond to infection similarly, and therefore display similar symptoms. It’s possibly, then, that finding pus-yellow and mucus- green unpleasant is a response conditioned by something that surpasses cultural boundaries. This is speculative, and it would be worthwhile to explore this possibility in some future research endeavor to understand if some colors do, in fact, induce certain responses regardless of culture. This speculation, however, is one shared by Digger and Mr. Mucus’s designers. By choosing the colors that they did, the designers either overtly or tacitly intended to exploit the part of human biology that compels us to feel disgust when confronted with reminders of the human body’s susceptibility to disease and its own mortality.

The revulsion inspired by Digger’s pus-yellow color and Mr. Mucus’s slime- green color is intensified when each in considered as a whole composition. As identified earlier, neither creature possesses a “complete” face, as neither has a nose. In our current culture, it would be offensive to express revulsion at the sight of a human with similar deformities, but there is clearly something about such images that disturb some – possibly many – people. Our culture frequently vilifies those considered “deformed” or “ugly.” Conversely, the dominant ideology of our current culture is such that physical pulchritude has become a virtue. Furthermore, Digger and Mr. Mucus’s missing noses have certain poignancy, reminiscent as it is of those afflicted with syphilis and leprosy. Combine with these deformities Digger’s disproportioned, angular body and Mr. Mucus’s bloated, blob-like one, and it’s fair to say that these creatures are ugly and are supposed to be censured for being so.

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Certainly, “ugly” is a relative term, but it’s hard to dispute that these creatures are ugly. At the very least, it’s reasonable to believe that they were intended to be viewed this way. For being such, for having such deformities and the like, it might be sympathy that these animated ailments evoked, if it weren’t for their many visual characteristics signifying menace and threat. Digger’s pointed claws, cruel smile, and arched eyebrows visually characterize him as a creature aiming to harm. Likewise, Mr. Mucus is frequently depicted as he is in the image above: furrowed brow and clenched jaw, indicating his own hostility; his threatening stance signifies his motivation to harm. With context, these animated ailments become technical communication visuals representative of the complex process of infection and the body’s measures to fight off that infection. To do this, the designers abstracted color from the original indexical sign, as well as textural qualities like the coarseness of a toenail infection or the gelatinous consistency of mucus. Moreover, they used signs of aggression – furrowed brows – and menace – sharpened claws, muscle flexing – to imbibe these characters with connotations of threat and harm. The combination of revulsion and threat created in the whole composition makes them what most discern in a single glance: Digger and Mr. Mucus are, ugly, disgusting monsters intent on hurting someone.

Step 2: Investigate Context and Assign Value Unlike the previous artifacts, which were created by a single (C)ommunicator, Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus were created by teams of designers working inside larger organizations. Digger was created by the Deutsch NY advertising agency in 2003. Mr. Mucus was created in-house at Adams Respiratory Therapeutics, the original makers of Mucinex, in 2004. Despite the differences in the professional credentials of the two design teams, these animated ailments share many contextual features. For instance, both appear in numerous print and television advertisements meant for heterogeneously mixed mass (A)udiences, meaning the design team (C)ommunicators knew little beyond broad generalizations about their (A)udience. Neither team of (C)ommunicator’s could even rely on the knowledge that their (A)udience necessarily needed the products these animated ailments were intended to help sell, as the commercial would be seen by the afflicted and non-afflicted alike. Likewise, toenail infections and mucus are not ailments commonly known to affect 186 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 certain age groups, races, or sexes more than others. This being the case, the (A)udience for these commercials would be so highly generalized it would be impossible for the (C)ommunicator’s to accurately say they had any familiarity with their (A)udience. All of this necessitates a social (D)istance rating of 5.

The (P)ower (A)udience holds over (C)ommunicator is equally high. The goal of the (C)ommunicators in these advertisements is two-fold. The first goal is to have the commercial be seen. The second is to have the advertised product purchased. The (A)udience of viewers for Lamisil and Mucinex advertisements maintain total control over both. They have the power to turn the page or the channel. And, while it also depends on whether they suffer from either of these afflictions, viewers maintain the exclusive power to purchase the product or not. Thus, (P)ower in the case of both Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus is also a 5.

In the case of these animated ailments, (R)ank of imposition relates more to positive face than negative face. This has a lot to do with the intended (A)udience, namely people who suffer from these ailments. If a viewer of an advertisement featuring Digger or Mr. Mucus endures these ailments, then the opportunity to purchase a product over-the-counter that helps relieve them would not produce much of an imposition on the viewer’s material and/or material goods, i.e. their negative face, so long as it’s not exorbitantly priced, which these products are not. It would seem they would welcome them in some ways, for, if one suffers from either of these ailments, or ones like them, a possibly effective remedy would be sought after. For those who don’t suffer from such ailments, the (R)ank of imposition might be higher, since they don’t have the mitigating factor of actually wanting or needing the remedy, but the difference in imposition upon negative face between those who suffer from the ailment would only be slightly lower than for those who do not. This is because the imposition upon the non-suffers’ time would be the same for practically any commercial, of which they anticipate seeing when watching television. Put more simply: a television viewer expects to see commercials, or at least they did before the days of digital video recorders, and all commercials require time. Therefore they necessarily impose upon the viewer’s negative face by taking up their time. Yet, if it 187 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 weren’t one commercial, it would be another. Regardless of the content, and so long as the commercials are roughly the same length, the level of imposition on time stays more or less the same. One could make an argument that the genre of commercials, that is all commercials, impose upon an (A)udience’s negative face because they take up time, but it is hard to argue that the (R)ank of imposition on negative face is any different for different commercials that don’t feature a product of interest for the viewer. So long as each non-interest commercial runs roughly the same amount of time, and the viewer expects to see commercials, then the (R)ank of imposition upon their negative face is low even for (A)udience members who don’t suffer from this ailment.

On the other hand, the (R)ank of imposition upon a viewer’s positive face is considerable, a condition that is true for those interested in the product as well as those who are not. If anything, it is the converse of the imposition upon negative face: the viewer without a special interest in the product for an unsightly ailment might be more susceptible to a face-threatening-act than one who is interested in the product, presumably because this latter group suffers from the ailment and might not be as easily offended by its taboo nature. Consider that the (C)ommunicators’ goal with these advertisements is to compel members of the (A)udience to view the advertisement and then purchase a product that removes an unsightly ailment. The viewer doesn’t want to see these unsightly ailments, even within a commercial for a product that remedies them, because they are just that – unsightly. They are things that, generally speaking, people do not want to see because they are disgusting and gross. Certainly these are relative descriptions, and one’s determination of these conditions are highly idiosyncratic; however, I think most, including those who suffer from such ailments, would agree that “unsightly,” “disgusting,” and “gross” are fair descriptions for close-up, realistic images of toenail fungus and mucus. The problem for the (C)ommunicators in this type of scenario, then, is to visually discuss, so to speak, these topics without actually using high modality visuals. To do so, would evoke discomfort in the (A)udience, likely undermining the goal of having the (A)udience see the advertisements, which undermines the goal of having the

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(A)udience buy the products. It’s a sort of chain reaction that seems preventable through visual euphemism.

I am unaware of any studies that have ranked just how disgusting images of toenail fungus and mucus are, so, therefore, it is difficult to measure the (R)ank of imposition caused by them. I suspect, however, that evaluations of such images are more intuitive than empirical, as is often the case with subject matter that engenders euphemism. A full review of every advertisement dealing with toenail fungus and mucus is outside the scope of this dissertation; nevertheless, we know that the discomfort, i.e. the pain caused to the (A)udience’s positive face, for showing images of disease and other bodily malfunctions is significant because such realistic images rarely, if ever, appear outside of medical instructional texts or those instances where such images are intended to shock and unnerve, as in a movie. Undoubtedly, one would be hard-pressed to locate many – if any – instances of high modality images of illness in commercials. Anecdotally speaking, I’ve never seen a “real” image of an infected toenail or “real” mucus dripping from a represented participant’s nose. For that matter, high modality images of pimples, cold sores, warts, tooth decay, gum disease, hemorrhoids, and many other types of ailments are extremely rare in the advertisements for the products used to treat such problems. Such images especially don’t appear in commercials, where possibly the most recognized instance of visual metonymy has recurred for decades: the blue liquid that signifies blood and urine. It’s important to note here that blood and urine are not even unsightly ailments. Instead, these are fluids that every human possesses and most likely has seen. Even still, advertisers won’t show them; they are just too taboo.

The frequency and ubiquity with which the parts and ailments of the human body are visually substituted with seemingly less imposing images in advertisements indicates a high measurement for (R)ank of imposition against positive face for images of infection. These images must be expected to cause discomfort, for why else would they be so often not-shown and/or visually substituted. Considering that even universally possessed biological liquids – blood and urine – are not even shown in commercials, unsightly ailments like those relative to Digger and Mr. Mucus must be 189 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 even more taboo and discomforting to positive face. All of this suggests a very high measurement for (R)ank of imposition on the (A)udience’s positive face. Yet, at the same time, there are images imaginable that would seemingly be worse, and therefore even more imposing than those discussed above. For instance, car insurance advertisements could show realistic images of a car crash. They could show the resultant blood and mangled corpses. Advertisements for home alarm systems could show the brutality a home invader perpetrates upon their victim once in the house. Thankfully, they don’t. At least not to sell products they don’t. Shocking images of violence and disease are used in many advertisements that attempt to subvert bad behaviors such as methamphetamine use, smoking, and texting while driving. Interestingly, the intent of such advertisements is to cause discomfort and pain – to impose upon the (A)udience’s positive face purposefully – to shock them into changing a bad behavior or habit.

That images of toenail fungus and mucus with high modality are disgusting enough to rarely if ever be seen in commercials, even those advertising remedying products, suggests a high (R)ank of imposition for the (A)udience. Yet, there are worse images imaginable. Readers can take a moment to reflect on what such images might be, but the point is this: visual depictions of infected toenails and/or mucus must be imposing, for we never see them. Yet, they cannot be considered the most imposing, because we can think of worse. Thus, I calculate that the (R)ank of imposition on a general (A)udience of commercial watchers caused by images of toenail fungus and mucus is high, but not the highest it can be: a 4. It causes a significant amount of discomfort, but does not reach the extreme.

Step 3: Calculate Weightiness to Identify Euphemism With measurements of social (D)istance a 5, (P)ower a 5, and (R)ank of imposition a 4, Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus completes the (W)eightiness equation:

14x = 5(C,A) + 5(A,C) + 4x

At a (W)eightiness of 14, Digger and Mr. Mucus appear in the type of context typically conducive for the most off record form of communication, the 12-15 tier of 190 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 the (W)eightiness-to-politeness-strategy correlation table, which encompasses euphemism, and are therefore likely to be realized as visual euphemisms. As with previous artifacts, the outside raters’ evaluations also identified a (W)eightiness measurement commensurate with my own. They, too, reached a 14.

Step 4: Identify and Analyze Visual Euphemism Here again, it is probably no surprise to learn that Digger and Mr. Mucus are visual euphemisms. Frankly, they deal with taboo topics, and taboo topics are often discussed in the couched and obscuring language of euphemism. In these instances, however, the discussion occurs visually. This context makes them likely to be euphemisms, but what solidifies them as such is their deviation from directness, but in a unique way. If frequency of appearance is any measure of expectation, then visual euphemism is the convention. Yet, in the case of medical rhetoric, of which these technical communication visuals are part, it is reasonable to presume a high modality image of either ailment when discussing its remedy. It’s reasonable to presume directness. A realistic image of toenail fungus or mucus is what one would anticipate finding in a science book or a medical text. It’s what one would expect from the materials a doctor might use to discuss these ailments and their remedies with their patients. Yet, when it comes to the advertisements for these same remedies, the ailment is rarely seen. The confusion between the visually abstracted directness of the former highlights the visually abstracted indirectness of the latter, ultimately confirming the status of Digger and Mr. Mucus as visual euphemisms.

Clearly, the level of abstraction each design team performed to create their animated ailments is high; there is little visually similar between Digger and Mr. Mucus to their actual signifieds save their color and texture. Despite this level of abstraction, though, the visual euphemisms of both Digger and Mr. Mucus are facilitative rather than deceptive. In a manner consistent with most euphemism usage, the intent of Digger and Mr. Mucus is to obscure the discomforting aspects of the referent in an effort to respect the (A)udience’s positive face. They allow for the discussion of a taboo topic by mitigating the possibility of a face affront, just like a host of other words we have for disease: a “bad ticker” for heart disease, “bananas” for

191 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 mental illness, “Montezuma’s revenge” for diarrhea. The list goes on and on. In fact, aside from sex and death, there is perhaps no other discourse more euphemized than that surrounding disease. Some scholars (Allan & Burridge, 1991; Keyes, 2010) argue the reason these three topics are so frequently euphemized is because they all share one essential feature: they all remind us of our own mortality, the human body’s frailty, and its inevitable decline and demise. Physical pleasure and physical pain are persistent reminders that we are embodied, susceptible to death and decay. And few, if any, want to be reminded of our fatal condition. It causes discomfort against our positive face. Instead, we seek to avoid these reminders through euphemism. We don’t want to hear “cancer,” so choose instead to discuss a “lesion,” a “growth,” or “the big C.” The word “dead” confronts, while “passed away” evades. For these same reasons, the (C)ommunicators responsible for creating and using Digger and Mr. Mucus as visual euphemism are not deceiving their (A)udiences. Instead, they are offering the remedies to troublesome ailments without grossing us out or, worse yet, reminding us that we are all just going to die.

Step 5: Contribution One of the most unique features of Digger and Mr. Mucus as visual euphemism, and the one that holds a valuable lesson for technical communicators, is how the (C)ommunicators abstracted connotations of the original sign as well as its denotations. With the technical communication visuals created by Taccola, Nightingale, and Minard, the semiotic resources were employed in a way that reinterpreted the empirical qualities of their original referent. For instance, Taccola’s image of the post-remover was a replication of what the post-remover actually looked like. Likewise, his trebuchet looked like a trebuchet. Even his highly symbolic visual request to King Sigismund to assist in Siena’s war against Florence was visualized as a mostly realistic portrayal of King Sigismund doing something. Nightingale visualized the actual number of soldiers’ deaths as shapes. Minard took the number of soldier deaths, as well as actual space, distance, and direction, and remade them into the lines and shapes of his famed graph. Certainly, the original concept or data carried connotative meaning. Equally, the resultant artifact carries connotative meaning. But, in each case, something material was made into some other material. With Digger and 192 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Mr. Mucus, the (C)ommunicators took both denotative features and connotative features of the original sign to create their technical communication visual. Each animated ailment’s color, shape, and texture is indicative of the color of the infection they cause in the human body. They are denotations abstracted. But connotations of disgust, of disease, of an unwelcome intrusion into the human body, of our own embodiment and susceptibility to death, our own mortality were abstracted and carried over as well. They were then realized as material visual semiotic resources – sharp claws, clenched jaws, threatening looks. The result is remarkable, really: a technical communication visual that doesn’t appear at all like a technical communication visual; repellant and repulsive monsters that doesn’t actually repel and repulse.

The use of color in Digger and Mr. Mucus is largely responsible for this dual ability to denote and connote. As stated above, whether culturally conditioned or biologically so, color has the ability to do something to us. That it has this power should require a more conscious utilization of it by technical communicators using visuals in their work. Consider what it would mean if we used color the way the designers of Digger and Mr. Mucus have. Rather than design technical communication visuals that adhere to guidelines of clarity and brevity or in line with someone’s idiosyncratic conception of aesthetic sensibilities to create “beautiful” graphs, we could consider the goals of our visual work and ensure that color is used in a way that contributes to that goal. This is to say, if technical communication is so often about causing some action and getting users to do something, then it behooves us to understand what color makes us do and exploit that knowledge to create rhetorically effective, ethically sound, facilitative technical communication visuals that get something done.

Certainly, color is already used in this way in many technical communication visuals, most obviously in thematic temperature maps, but, as Digger and Mr. Mucus as visual euphemisms show, there is a tremendous untapped resource to be found in color. Consider a bar graph that uses a dingy brown to report smog levels or a map of a flu outbreak that uses a green similar to Mr. Mucus’s. Or consider the problem Dragga and Voss (2002) had with Minard’s graph. They believed it didn’t reflect the 193 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 human costs associated with its subject. Maybe if the graph was seen in its original form as intended by Minard, with the troop band towards Moscow in red – the color of blood – then the association between the band and its abstraction of soldiers’ deaths would be more noticeable and not so “cruel.” Perhaps, like the hostile responders to “Cruel Pies,” using colors in this way to connect denotative and connotative meaning is exploitive. Even if this is true, it still behooves us to know which colors do what and how. More specifically, so that we can we can ensure our rhetorical aims are fulfilled effectively and ethically, we should be able to understand if, when, and how our coloring choices contribute to a euphemistic technical communication visual.

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION This dissertation was predicated on a simple observation: it seemed to me that some technical communication visuals appeared to finesse their content in ways similar to how verbal euphemisms do. Prior to this dissertation, I suspected that euphemistic technical communication visuals presented a serious threat to a field predicated on the idea of direct and unbiased communication. This suspicion along with the recognition of its impact, if true, led me to believe technical communicators needed some way of rightly identifying them. But, identifying euphemisms proved to be problematic. They are fluid, subjective, can sometimes require a great deal of inference on the (A)udience’s part, and are highly reliant on context for recognition and understanding. For most of us, we just seem to know a euphemism when we hear one, or, in this case, when we see one. A formal system for identifying visual euphemisms, I believed, would help us to understand, analyze, and create – or avoid – them. Furthermore, such a system would allow us to comprehend better the motivations and aims of technical communication, its (A)udiences, and how this understanding manifests itself in the technical communication visuals we produce. In other words, this system would have the potential to help us understand the role ideology plays in technical communication visuals.

To these ends, I chose to adopt and adapt Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory into a critical framework for visual euphemism. Their theory is not the only one that attempts to explain why humans sometimes use off record communication with each other; however, when it comes to pragmatics and politeness, of which euphemism is a substantial part of both, Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory is the most popular, relevant, and insightful. Being such, it seemed logical to start with it and see how it could be adapted into a viable framework for the analysis of visual euphemism. All of this is reflected in the three research questions guiding this dissertation:

1. Can politeness theory be adapted into a critical framework for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism, and if so, how? 195 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

2. What techniques and semiotic resources of visual euphemism are revealed by the analysis of a corpus of technical communication visuals with this framework?

3. How is ideology articulated in those artifacts determined to be visual euphemisms?

The preceding chapters of this dissertation were all produced in an effort to answer these three questions. In this final chapter, I revisit these research questions to ensure each is addressed satisfactorily. Once complete, I discuss some of the implications of this study and its associated framework for technical communication scholarship, practice, and pedagogy. I then go on to discuss the limitations of this study and present some ideas concerning where future research into visual euphemism might make it possible to transcend these limitations, before finally offering some concluding thoughts on this project.

Research Questions Revisited Research Question #1: Can politeness theory be adapted into a critical framework for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism, and if so, how? The answer to the first part of this question regarding the possibility of turning Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory, a theory initially only concerned with verbal exchanges between two, co-present people, into a viable heuristic for artifacts of visual communication is “yes.” Nevertheless, expanding the theory into this separate area of communication and making it suitable for the identification and critical analysis of visual euphemism – the “how” portion of my first research question – required some major adjustments as well as several minor ones. Preceding these changes, though, it was first necessary to create a justification for doing so. In order to adapt politeness theory into something suitable for visual communication, it was necessary to present an explanatory argument and fully answer the “can” portion of this research question. As I have stated previously in this dissertation, we cannot assume that verbal and visual communication operate in the same ways. Thus, it would be unwise to presuppose that a verbal/linguistic theory is transferrable to visual communication without any modifications. A recapitulation of 196 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 what modifications to politeness theory I made to make it suitable for the analysis of visual euphemism and my justification for doing so follows, ultimately answering the first of my three research questions.

After a review of relevant literature, some investigation into how others have used politeness theory, and my own understanding of how communication between humans works, I came to the conclusion that visual communication and figurative language both involve abstraction. When (C)ommunicators use figurative language, particularly metaphor, they participate in a process that requires highlighting certain features of a thing while suppressing others. Likewise, visual communication requires the designer to choose certain limited-but-salient features of a thing or concept to portray the whole thing or concept. For example, “America is a melting pot” reflects our belief in inclusivity and plurality. It is an important feature of American dogma, a salient one to be sure, but not the only one. This feature is simply the one abstracted from many others and used for this metaphor. To borrow an example of how this works with visualization from Kress and van Leeuwen (1996/2006): the wheels of a car are complicated devices, made up of multiple moving and non-moving parts, requiring all types of engineering, mechanical, and physics knowledge to create. They have an interior, sides, fronts and backs. There are countless types of wheels. Yet, through abstraction, a simple drawing of a circle is often enough to communicate a wheel effectively. Its roundness is its most salient feature, intrinsically linked with its wheelness. The similarity between figurative language abstraction and visual abstraction provided the justification for using a modified verbal-centric theory like Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory for the study of visual communication.

This necessary reduction might lead one to think that abstraction is itself reductive, when actually the opposite is true. According to Arnheim (1969/2004), the isolation of the important features of an object is intelligence itself. To this point, he states, “In logic, nobody contends that the generality of a concept makes for vagueness because it is devoid of particularized detail; on the contrary, the concentration on a few essentials is recognized as a means of sharpening the concept” (p. 109). 197 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

“Sharpening the concept,” while essential for effective verbal and visual communication, requires the selection and ordering of salient features, a decision made by the (C)ommunicator over what is important and what is not. Barton and Barton (1993b) called this process the rules of inclusion and exclusion. This dual process, they showed, encodes ideology into the artifacts created in and by a discourse community, particularly as it concerns visualizations, but I argue that it concerns figurative language as well.

That both figurative language and visual communication rely on abstraction and incur ideology justified, in my mind, the use of politeness theory for visual communication, answering the “can” part of the research question affirmatively. But this still did not make politeness theory suitable for the analysis of visual artifacts. I found that politeness theory was applicable, but, it was not useable in its original conception. Foss (2004) expresses the problem of applicability/usability for rhetorical theory and visual communication expertly when she writes, “[Scholars] assume that these differences [between visual and verbal communication] make enough difference so that rhetorical theory has to be developed anew for visual symbols if it is to be relevant to and take into account the dimensions of visual forms of rhetoric” (p. 149). In order to equip the nascent critical framework with the proper tools necessary to account for the unique dimensions of visual communication, I chose to incorporate social semiotics.

Prior to writing this dissertation, I was aware that euphemism relies on context for meaning and correct inference. By this I mean to say, they are imbued with social meaning and understandable only in social contexts. As such, social semiotics seemed a viable analytical toolbox for the study of visual euphemism. Social semiotics is not a theory, per se, but rather, a set of tools used in qualitative research. It requires the observation of artifacts in authentic contexts, a system of recording those observations, and a theory for analyzing those observations in order to identify larger patterns. It provides the “possibility of analytic practice, for the many people in different disciplines who deal with different problems of social meaning and need ways of

198 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 describing and explaining the processes and structures through which meaning is constituted” (Hodge & Kress, 1988, p. 2).

In social semiotics, meaning is constituted through semiotic resources, the basic unit of communication and, therefore, the focus of social semiotic study. A semiotic resource describes the things used by a rhetor to create meaning. It can be practically anything, to include, of course, the many elements used to construct visual communication artifacts. Indeed, the stated purpose of Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996/2006) seminal work on social semiotics and visual communication, Reading Images, is to “provide inventories of the major compositional structures which have become established as conventions in the course of the history of visual social semiotics and to analyze how they are used to produce meaning by contemporary image makers” (p. 1).

Once justified and equipped with the relevant tools for the study of visual communication, politeness theory became more useable for the present study, but it still required some specific adjustments and major changes. The first major change was the one needed to refashion politeness theory’s deliberative approach into a forensic one. Originally, Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) proposed politeness theory as a way to explain how or when people are likely to use off indirect language like euphemism in spoken communication. The authors theorized that humans communicating with each other will participate in a tacit mental process of evaluating for three different social variables to determine how directly or indirectly they should speak. These variables are the level of familiarity the speaker and hearer share with each other, what the authors called “social distance,” and represented with a D, the level of power the hearer holds to progress or prevent the speaker’s goals, called “power” and represented by the letter P, and the rank of imposition put upon the hearer by the speaker’s aims, a culturally determined ranking of imposition represented with an R.

Social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition shape the technical communicator’s visual design process, but, in order to explore the possibility of visual euphemism in technical communication visuals, it was necessary to examine some that 199 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 already existed. Doing so required a way of explicitly evaluating the three variables outlined by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004), though, and there could be a number of ways to do this. For instance, a researcher could interview the designer of a given technical communication visual. They could ask the designer what their perceptions of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition were. The researcher could then see how those measurements were represented in the visual and, ultimately, use this information to determine if the visual was euphemistic or not. Or, the researcher could conduct a survey, asking respondents to identify measurements of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition as they relate to a given scenario and the use of visual communication. This information could then be used to determine if the visual communication artifacts created were euphemistic or not, or at least if that group surveyed thought they were.

These are just two ways a researcher could flip politeness theory, and utilize it in a forensic fashion. Presumably, there are others. But, for this study, to accommodate a forensic framework, I took extant technical communication visuals, conducted research on their creation, and then used the information on their context that I found there to determine (W)eightiness, a conflation of the measurements of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, to determine if the context for a technical communication visual was conducive for visual euphemism or not. Recognizing the context as likely to produce euphemism or not was an important step but not the final one. If the context was the type likely to engender the use of euphemism, then further investigation into the artifact was needed in order to confirm or deny it as such. Asking questions like, “Did the visual artifact deviate from conventional usage?” and “Was it different than what one might expect?” were useful ways to begin this investigation. If the context was euphemism-conducive, and if the answer to either of the previous questions was “yes,” then it was determined that the artifact was a visual euphemism. This is for the reason that, like verbal euphemism, visual euphemism requires a clue that the (C)ommunicator means something different than what is actually expressed. Presumably, the best way to intimate such clues is to defy the norm and subvert expectations.

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While this system of evaluating euphemism-conducive context and considering deviations from normal or expected usage proved to be a useable way to identify visual euphemism, it didn’t include a way to evaluate for the truth quality of the euphemism. As most already know, euphemisms are not created or used equally. Some, as the title of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory suggests, are simply used for the sake of politeness. In many cases, the (A)udience appreciates euphemisms employed for this reason, for they facilitate effective communication and pay respect to their positive face. Other euphemisms, however, have little to do with respect to the (A)udience. As many readers are already aware, some euphemisms are specifically meant to deceive. Whether a euphemism is one or the other depends heavily on context and those social variables outlined above, of course, but it also depends on the relationship between signifier and signified. All euphemisms obscure the relationship between these two – that is a part of their purpose after all – but some do so to a greater degree than others. And some are obscured more than others for nefarious reasons. In other words, they are employed in the service of deceit. Euphemism’s duality is not something explicitly dealt with by Brown and Levinson, but it’s a very important feature of euphemism, and, consequently, one I felt should be reflected in the analytical framework. Therefore, in addition to systematic steps for identifying visual euphemism, I chose to include in the framework a step in which the researcher considers the euphemism’s “truth” quality. Essentially, it means that researchers should ask: does it appear that the (C)ommunicator employed the euphemism for the sake of facilitation or deception?

For the reasons discussed above, I took all of this – politeness theory, the steps and tools of social semiotics, the difference between facilitative and deceptive euphemism – and fashioned it into a system of analysis, one that I believed could tell us something of value about visual euphemism. I labeled this completed system “a critical framework for visual euphemism.” It is comprised of the following five steps outlined above but repeated here:

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Step 1: Catalog Semiotic Resources: Identify pertinent abstracted semiotic resources used in the artifact to determine its representational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction, and compositional metafunction.

Step 2: Investigate Context and Assign Value: Use extant scholarship relevant to the artifact – how it was created, transmitted, and received within specific historical, cultural, and institutional contexts – to determine credible assessments of and assign numerical value to social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition.

Step 3: Calculate Weightiness: Using the assigned numerical values for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, calculate the (W)eightiness of the Face

Threatening Act (FTA) x for the visual communicative exchange between a

(C)ommunicator and their (A)udience using the formula: Wx = D(C,A) + P(A,C) +Rx.

Step 4: Identify and Analyze Visual Euphemism: Working under the premise that higher values (12-15) for (W)eightiness indicate euphemism-conducive contexts and lower values do not, determine if artifact appeared in a euphemism-conducive context. If the context is determined to be euphemism-conducive and the visual artifact deviates from expected usage, it is believed to be because it is a euphemism. If so, compare against established definition and criteria for visual euphemism to further establish it as such and determine its “truth” quality.

Step 5: Contribution: Review identified visual euphemisms to discover and develop new semiotic resources or new uses of existing semiotic resources; consider how ideology was articulated in the visual euphemism; identify other lessons for technical communicators as they relate to visual euphemism.

These five steps, for the reasons outlined above, comprise the answer to my first research question: “Can politeness theory be adapted into a critical framework for the identification and analysis of visual euphemism, and if so, how?”

Research Question #2: What techniques and semiotic resources of visual euphemism are revealed by the analysis of a corpus of technical communication visuals with this framework? Prior to the application of the critical framework for visual euphemism to my artifacts, I suspected – hoped – I would find some regular or recurring semiotic 202 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 resource that I could point to and say, “This semiotic resource is something technical communicators can use to create a visual euphemism” or, conversely, “This semiotic resource is something technical communicators should avoid if they don’t want to create a visual euphemism.” While I identified several semiotic resources that contributed to the euphemistic quality of individual artifacts in my corpus, I cannot say that any one semiotic resource is more or less likely to produce euphemism than another. At least, I cannot say that based on this study. Instead, I found that the semiotic resources commonly referred to in social semiotic analysis were just that – common. They were the same resources that appeared in those artifacts deemed visual euphemisms, as well as those that were not. Represented participants, vectors, gazes, angles, distances, frames, colors, and several other semiotic resources all factored into the creation and interpretation of a visual euphemism, but none were responsible for it. Instead, much like the case with verbal euphemism, the semiotic resources had the potential to contribute to a visual euphemism, but this potential was only fulfilled with certain (A)udiences and within certain contexts.

With Taccola’s illustrations, for instance, the critical framework for visual euphemism showed that visual vectors can work in ways that make them similar to verbal requests. The vectors created in the image of King Sigismund stepping on the Marzocco in King Sigismund Emperor of Hungary represents Taccola’s request for the king to assist Siena with its war against Florence. The framework showed that this request carried with it the highest level of imposition, because going to war is perhaps the most costly endeavor humans can engage in. Nevertheless, this high level of imposition was not reflected in the way Taccola depicted King Sigismund casually steeping on the lion’s tail. Thus, the framework revealed that for King Sigismund this image was not just a visual euphemism, but a deceptive one.

The framework also revealed Swing-arm Trebuchet as a deceptive visual euphemism, but only for the craftsmen Taccola would need to construct the machine and not King Sigismund or the military leaders who could use one in their army. The trebuchet featured in the illustration looked easy enough to make, not much different than other machines of the time; however, without the measurements, the craftsmen 203 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 would have a very difficult time constructing what was – and is – a complicated machine to build. This difficulty is not reproduced in Taccola’s illustration. Yet, while my analysis revealed how the semiotic resource of vectors and the absence of the measurements contributed to making this technical communication visual euphemistic, it wasn’t because of them that they were such. Rather, these semiotic resources – or their absence – were only part of a much more complicated interplay of contextual features, namely the roles of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. Ultimately, I found this interplay more important for the identification of visual euphemism than any of the semiotic resources used by Taccola to create it.

The same condition repeats itself in Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East and Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow. Both were determined to be visual euphemisms for high-ranking political and military leaders. Nightingale’s innovation of a new type of technical communication visual with the rose diagram and Minard’s depiction of a previously ill-fated and unnecessary war operated euphemistically, allowing each visual’s creator to speak truth to power in ways that did not offend and undermine their goals. The semiotic resources of typeface, shape, color, and many others all contributed to making these technical communication visuals euphemistic, but only as these resources related to the influence exerted by the social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition variables for the contexts of these visuals. Likewise, the color and texture of the animated ailments Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus made them metonymic monsters for toenail fungus and mucus, but it took using them in the context of an advertising campaign intended for a mass, heterogeneously mixed (A)udience to justify labeling them visual euphemisms.

The lack of any single or recurring semiotic resource or technique in those technical communication visuals identified as euphemisms ostensibly complicates answering Research Question #2. Fortunately, that it appears this way is specious, for, instead of the use of a certain color or shape in the visual, or the angle at which it’s presented, the sociological variables outlined by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) are the recurring and recognizable features of visual euphemism. Social (D)istance, 204 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

(P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition become ways to delineate the important contextual features of visual euphemism as well special types of semiotic resources in their own right.

To further understand my claim, recall that semiotic resources are those modes of communication that have potential meanings, and that these meanings are only activated in and by certain contextual factors (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006). In this case, by way of Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) initial designations, these factors include social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. Now consider this information in light of what Hodge and Kress (1988) say about the text/context relationship: “a social semiotic account cannot proceed with a naïve text-context dichotomy, but rather, that context has to be theorized and understood as another set of texts” (1988, p. 8) (italics added). Rather than a dichotomy, text/context is synergistic, making the separation of semiotic resources into material visual elements and tacitly understood contextual features unnecessary and, ultimately, impossible. Likewise, if social semiotics reveals context as another set of texts, and semiotic resources are those things that (C)ommunicators use to convey meaning, then it’s fair to say that the semiotic resources revealed by the critical framework for visual euphemism are social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, for these are the things that make meaning and facilitate effective communication. Thus, the answer to Research Question #2, “What techniques and semiotic resources of visual euphemism are revealed by the analysis of a corpus of technical communication visuals with this framework?” is not size, placement, color, etc. as I anticipated, but rather, context itself. And, in this case, context can be understood as the conflation of the semiotic resources of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition.

Despite being different than what I initially expected, the revelation that context is a set of “texts” made up of semiotic resources often not consciously applied but, instead, tacitly utilized is actually an encouraging sign for the usefulness of my critical framework for visual euphemism. This is because it shows that the framework does what all good systems of critical analysis should do: it makes the tacit explicit. Just as politeness theory reveals the motivations behind verbal euphemism, which so 205 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 often seem to be instinctive and reflexive, the critical framework for visual euphemism reveals the semiotic resources used to create visual euphemism to be social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition as well as the semiotic resources typically used in visual communication and previously cataloged by social semioticians. In doing this, the answer to Research Question #2 anticipates the answer to Research Question #3.

Research Question #3: How is ideology articulated in those artifacts determined to be visual euphemisms? Before answering Research Question #3, it’s important to remind readers how “ideology” was defined and used in this dissertation. In Chapter 2, I provided several theorists’ characterizations of “ideology” to substantiate my claim that the process of abstraction required by visual communication and the use and understanding of figurative speech is one that necessitates the articulation of ideology into the resultant visual artifact or language figure. As I showed, there are many ways to define this complicated term “ideology”; however, borrowing from others (Hodge & Kress, 1988; Barton & Barton, 1993b; Foss, 2009), I made the argument that “ideology” in this dissertation would be understood as the “a priori social knowledge and memory needed to deduce the meaning” of communicative artifacts. Moreover, I agreed that ideology was a mostly tacit system, one that naturalizes and legitimizes hegemonic dominance at the same time that it restricts discourse, making ideology difficult to comprehend, but not impossible (Barthes, 1957/1992; Foucault, 1972/2010; Hall, 1982). This is because, although ideology is often tacit and always pervasive, its influence is still observable. As Barton and Barton (1993b) showed, one way to do this is to investigate what is included and what is excluded in the communicative artifacts under analysis. Thus, I argued, that the critical framework for visual euphemism, particularly as it relates to the sociological variables of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition outlined by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) and how these variables influenced what was included and excluded from the technical communication visuals comprising the corpus of this study, can give us some indication of how ideology was articulated into those artifacts determined to be visual euphemisms.

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Possibly, not everyone will agree that my framework and its reliance on the sociological variables of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition as influencers of the inclusion/exclusion process adequately defines a sub-structure of ideology, or even that ideology can be thought of this way. This being for the reason that “ideology” is such a contested term and concept, a characteristic linguist and semiotician Winfried Noth (2004) addressed when he briefly explained the etymology of the word “ideology”: “[it] was first used to designate the ideas of a particular group” but today “is situated between a value-neutral and merely descriptive concept and a polemic, or even pejorative sense” (p. 11). Clearly, the roles of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition are not “value-neutral,” and neither are they “merely descriptive.” Yet, I maintain that the critical framework for visual euphemism and its use of these sociological variables to determine the likelihood of visual euphemism can be thought of as a way of identifying the sub-structures of ideology and to consider the connotative meanings visual euphemisms carry with them. The following descriptions of ideology and how it works from preeminent theorists of ideology Eliseo Veron and Stuart Hall further substantiate my claim that ideology can be thought of as a system in which social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, as defined by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) can be considered a sub- structure of ideology, i.e. a subsequent set of rules that work through connotation.

First, of the possibility of viewing ideology as a system, and suggesting that such a system’s parts can be labeled, Veron (1971) writes, “If ideologies are structures…then they are not ‘images’ nor ‘concepts’ (we can say, they are not contents) but are sets of rules which determine an organization and the functioning of images and concept (p. 68). These rules, I argued, are recognizable in the connotations that ideological artifacts carry with them, ones that suggest how the (C)ommunicator was influenced by social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. This claim is further substantiated by Hall’s (1985) discussion of connotation and its connection to ideology:

Ideologies do not operate through single ideas; they operate, in discursive chains, in clusters, in semantic fields, in discursive formations. As you enter an ideological field and pick out any one nodal representation or idea, you 207 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

immediately trigger off a whole chain of connotative associations. Ideological representations connote – summon – one another. (p. 104)

These two quotes suggest that, despite all of the ways ideology pervades our discourse, naturalizes itself and ultimately complicates stepping outside of it to view it, we can still contemplate it as a system and get some sense of that system’s function by considering the connotative associations that it creates and attaches to communicative artifacts.

In practice this means that when visual euphemism occurs it connotes that there was a high (W)eightiness measure, meaning it was likely that communicating would inspire a face-threatening-act. This (W)eightiness was achieved by the conflation of measurements for social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. These variables, in turn, suggest a larger ideology, for based on them a “text” is subject to the rules of inclusion and exclusion. To put it as succinctly as possible, and to answer Research Question #3, the artifacts determined to be visual euphemisms connote the influence of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, which in turn shows that ideology is articulated through a dual process of inclusion/exclusion, one based on the influence of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition and what they connote. That visual euphemism articulates ideology in this tautological manner is even more proof that visual euphemisms are ideological, for tautology is largely how ideology works (Barton & Barton, 1993b).

That visual euphemism participates in the articulation of ideology through tautology and realized through the rules of inclusion and exclusion (Barton & Barton, 1993b) means that the resultant artifacts are only ever partial representations of truth. The analysis in Chapter 4 showed this to be true. Rather than present an objective, neutral portrayal of “reality,” visual euphemisms present partial truths, ones that ultimately participate in the legitimization and naturalization of hegemonic dominancy through a complex process of highlighting certain features or practices at the same time that they suppress others. What the critical framework for visual euphemism adds to Barton and Barton’s rules, though, is a taxonomy of some of the tacit assumptions

208 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 that ultimately contribute to this obscuration of meaning: social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition.

To better understand what I mean by this and to contribute further to the answering of Research Question #3, recall the analysis performed on Taccola’s Portrait of King Sigismund Emperor of Hungary. Remember that this illustration was Taccola’s visualized request for King Sigismund to help Siena fight its war with Florence. The critical framework for visual euphemism showed that when King Sigismund was the (A)udience, the illustration was a visual euphemism. Moreover, because this illustration excludes what the true costs of a war with Florence would be at the same time that it includes and highlights King Sigismund’s divine authority, strength, and ability, it was determined to be a deceptive visual euphemism. Absent from Taccola’s illustration are the people who would endure much of the burden of going to war, specifically the citizens of Florence and Siena. The visual euphemism connotes that the act of war is so costly – meaning it presents such a high (R)ank of imposition – that it cannot even be directly presented to the king. Yet, the actual people who would pay this cost are not even hinted at. The critical framework for visual euphemism showed that the reason this artifact was made the way it was is attributable to the possibility of a face-threatening-act caused by the disparities in social (D)istance and (P)ower between King Sigismund and Taccola, as well as the (R)ank of imposition put upon the king by Taccola’s request. In other words, if ideology is articulated into visual artifacts through the dual process of inclusion and exclusion as Barton and Barton (1993b) rightly contend, and the critical framework shows that what was included and excluded in the technical communication visual Portrait of King Sigismund Emperor of Hungary is dependent upon the tacit assumptions Taccola as (C)ommunicator made reflecting social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, then it can be said that these variables are a way to delineate and characterize a sub-structure of ideology and this is how ideology was articulated in Taccola’s illustration.

The same conditions repeat with Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Morality in the Army of the East and Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow. Here 209 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 again the very real people who are either suffering from a powerful sovereign’s decision to go to war – in Nightingale’s case the dying and diseased soldiers of the Crimean field hospital and in Minard’s the citizens and soldiers of France – are excluded from the visual. Nightingale abstracted them into colored wedges, excluding numerical reference, further dissimulating the reality behind her diagram and ultimately hiding the humanity of the very people she was trying to protect. Minard turned the soldiers who participated in Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign into a colored band. He at least included numbers, suggesting that there are, in fact, real people represented by his choices of visual elements; nevertheless, the brutality of the conditions Napoleon’s troops endured is excluded in the graph. Meanwhile, what is included in both of these graphs is the recognition of the dominance maintained by the sovereigns to whom they were presented and the tacit ideological assumptions that influenced the creation of each graph as they related to social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition as defined by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) and utilized in the critical framework for visual euphemism.

The animated ailments of Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus, both proven to be visual euphemisms for mass (A)udiences, likewise articulate ideology through a process of inclusion and exclusion guided by the three sociological variables outlined by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004). With each animated ailment, what is excluded is the actual appearance of human illness. Such images, it seems, are too taboo – too imposing – to be shown. What’s included, however, is the ugly and monsterish quality of the ailment, produced via color and texture. Here again, what is included and what is excluded is influenced by the sociological variables of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. Images of yellow toenails and mucus are unsightly signs of illness, and, therefore, their (R)ank of imposition is high. Consequently, people do not want to see them. In addition to the imposing nature of such images, with animated ailments the (A)udience is unfamiliar to the (C)ommunicators and they have all the (P)ower to progress or prevent the (C)ommunicators’ goal of selling a product, because it is their choice to buy it or not. Thus, animated ailments become articulated with ideology because they represent only

210 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 a partial truth and are ultimately in service to existing hegemonic interests concerning health, beauty, and capitalism, but considering them as visual euphemisms – enabled by the critical framework presented in this dissertation – allows us to see how the sub- structure of ideology connoted by social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition shaped this process of articulation.

Undoubtedly, the designers of all the technical communication visuals determined to be visual euphemism did not think of their work as visual euphemism. Additionally, it is highly unlikely that any of them consciously thought about the roles social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition played in their work or how these variables represent a sub-structure of rules for ideology. At least it is highly unlikely that they thought about them in the same way and with the same characterizations and meaning they have been established in this dissertation. Yet, also undoubtedly, the artifacts of visual communication created by Taccola, Nightingale, Minard, and the designers of animated ailments did ultimately adhere to the rules of some sort of tacit system of meaning. More than this, the artifacts were not only encoded with ideology, they also legitimized that ideology and what I am calling a sub-structure of ideology characterized by social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition to the point that the visual euphemism appeared natural. It’s a case of, “This image was an effective visual euphemism because it responded to tacit measurements of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition to create a visual that avoided a face-threatening- act; this image avoided a face-threatening-act because it effectively responded to the tacit measurements of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition to create a visual euphemism.” Here again, we have the hallmark of ideology: the tautological statement.

Perhaps more important than the fact that visual euphemism participates in this circular system of statement and reification is that it does so with few, if any, outward signs that it is doing so. Visual euphemism privileges at the same time that it dissimulates that privilege (Barton & Barton, 1993b). This, too, is a hallmark of ideology. Indeed, visual euphemism’s ability to dissimulate itself at the same time that it legitimizes itself is so powerful that, prior to this dissertation, the concept of visual 211 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 euphemism was mostly unknown. The critical framework with its reliance on investigating the roles social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition allows us to identify this previously invisible phenomenon of visual euphemism. It shows that rather than some sort of natural, common sense way to show information, some artifacts of technical communication visuals finesse their content in ways that serve ideology, evidenced by the way the rules of inclusion and exclusion (Barton & Barton, 1993b) worked in tandem with the connotations associated with social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition.

Implications When it comes to visual euphemism, part of the ideological “rules which determine organization and functioning of images” (Veron, 1971, p. 68) are ones in which the dual process of inclusion and exclusion are influenced by social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, a condition that is reflected in the connotations of those visuals determined to be visual euphemisms. Thus, a critical framework for visual euphemism does more than just help identify visual euphemism, it also allows us to critically analyze them. This, in turn, means that the framework shows how ideology is articulated into visual euphemism, which means that it also participates in the destabilization of visual euphemism. This ability is an important one and suggests a major implication of this study and the one I will consider first in this section.

According to Barton and Barton (1993b) we need a new politic of design, one that authorizes heterodoxy and allows for greater participation in the meaning-making processes represented by visual artifacts like maps. The first step to doing so, they maintain, is to expose the ideological underpinnings of the communicative artifacts that reify hierarchy and supports dominant interests at the expense of the “Other” (p. 268). And to do this requires that we destabilize and/or denaturalize that dominancy in the artifacts that articulate it. For maps, they suggest that designers participate in post- modern design practices, such as creating maps as collages or palimpsests. They reason that these design practices better represent a “mélange of sign systems” (p. 245) that will draw attention to maps as constructed objects. Maps, they argue, should show not just places, but also the people and artifacts representative of the area. Also, 212 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 maps should include their designers’ names, to further present themselves as artifacts through which ideology is articulated. The juxtaposition of these various signs means that maps will more clearly proclaim themselves as sign systems.

The critical framework for visual euphemism participates in the activity of denaturalizing and destabilizing ideology by the way it considers the connotations of visual euphemism and how those connotations influence the rules of inclusion and exclusion by way of tacit reference to the ideological sub-structure – the rules – reflected by the sociological variables of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition. According to Barton and Barton (1993b), this is just the first step; to fully denaturalize and destabilize visual artifacts, such tactics must inform and participate in the creation of the post-modern design practices called for by the authors. For instance, I noted above that Barton and Barton call for the designer’s name to feature more prominently on the visuals they create, an idea motivated by their belief that doing so would highlight – or at least not suppress – the human actors, with all their flaws and biases, responsible for creating these seemingly objective and transparent images. This seems like a viable way for exposing and perhaps even undermining the dominance that ideology reifies. However, the critical framework for visual euphemism suggests that other information, namely the designer’s perceptions of the roles of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, could be useful as well. Who, exactly, does the designer think their (A)udience is and what is their social (D)istance with them? How do they perceive the (P)ower imbalance between themselves and their (A)udience? What do they believe the goal of their visual to be and how do they (R)ank its imposition against their (A)udience’s positive and/or negative faces? Listing this information, even in a simple fashion, something like “D=4; P=3, and R=3,” somewhere on the graph would help expose the ideology underpinning the image in way similar, if not more effective, than those suggested by Barton and Barton.

Expecting contemporary designers to include such information is unlikely to happen anytime soon. It seems unnecessary and ultimately contradictory to many principles of design, ones like those espoused by Tufte (1983/2001) to reduce the data- 213 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 to-ink ratios of visuals. Nonetheless, it is worth pointing out that this information or something like it is often available and more easily accessible for verbal communication, and there does not seem to be a problem with it. The tone, word choices, genre, and arrangement, among other things, often give a good sense of how the writer perceived their (A)udience. Is the tone “friendly,” suggesting a low social (D)istance between the writer and their (A)udience? Or is there a deference expressed, such as in the use of honorifics, suggesting a high (P)ower imbalance? Consider that writing – good writing at least – is often expected to have a clear thesis or purpose, making evaluations of (R)ank of imposition a little easier because we do not have to conjecture from the graph or its context what the writer is actually after. While we can infer the same information from visual communication artifacts, it is not as easy to retrieve as it is with writing. Accordingly, why shouldn’t we expect that designers and other visual communicators make this information easier to retrieve by foregrounding it in their work? Consider how much different we might interpret and understand Chan’s (2014) Gun Deaths in Florida graph if somewhere on it she had expressed what her purpose was. Consider how much different the critiques against her work and the suspicion of purposeful deception would have been had her subsequent response to these charges – “I prefer to show deaths in negative terms (inverted)” –appeared somewhere on the graph itself in its published iteration. Had she done this, it would have highlighted the break with convention – the inverted y-axis – and made viewers much more likely to believe her preference rationale.

If Chan (2014) could not write such a statement on her graph, because it’s actually not true and only something she came up with after criticism arose (what I suspect to be the case), then an additional implication suggested by the critical framework for visual euphemism’s ability to destabilize through new design processes is that it helps improve the ethical quality of technical communication visuals. We now have a heuristic that allows for the negation of the plausible deniability many unethical users of visual euphemism obtain when they employ it and the suggestion of a design principle that would help us do so. Chan and other users of deceptive visual euphemism can keep citing “preference” for their decision to transgress conventional

214 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 usage – inverting the y-axis on a line graph – but it becomes much harder for her and others who attempt to deceive in this way to do so when we have a viable system for identifying them and their “truth” quality. We will not have to rely on the our-word- against-hers dichotomy when we can point out that her graph deviated from expected convention, was created against a high (P)ower imbalance, for an (A)udience she maintained a wide social (D)istance with, and on a topic – gun deaths – with a high (R)ank of imposition, all of which is evidence of a visual euphemism. That she or someone else would never think to call it a visual euphemism is beside the point; the framework shows it as such, and more importantly, allows us to critique it in a way that ultimately makes her motivations clear.

Destabilizing meaning, exposing ideology, changing trenchant design principles, improving the ethical quality of technical communication – all of this is possible with the critical framework for visual euphemism. Admittedly, though, they are ambitious aims and ones not likely to be realized very soon. In the meantime, the framework has other, arguably more practical implications for the practice and pedagogy of technical communication as it concerns visual communication. First of these is the ability to discern and discuss visual euphemism. Prior to this dissertation and its introduction of the critical framework for visual euphemism, there was no scholarship inside or outside our discipline that attempted to examine visual euphemism. I suspect people knew visual euphemism existed, of course. I also suspect many people could recognize a visual euphemism if they saw one. Most of us are familiar with that ubiquitous blue liquid, after all. But, for the most part, people just do not think about visual euphemism very much. Now, however, at the conclusion of this dissertation, we at least have something by which we can begin a discussion and some terms and concepts to use in that discussion.

Revisiting Dragga and Voss’s (2002) “cruel pies” and the controversy it stirred provides a demonstration of how this new way to view technical communication visuals as visual euphemisms can improve our use and understanding of visual communication in technical communication. Although they do not use the term “visual euphemism,” it is at the heart of their argument against “cruel pies,” meaning 215 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 technical communication visuals that obscure the humanity of those represented. For them, too many technical communication visuals minimize the relationship between the data presented and the people represented. Their complaint is not that the data presented is wrong, but more so that the way it was presented influences perception and reception, ultimately diverting viewers’ attention away from the “real,” or at least more important, aspects of the graph. This, I contend, is what visual euphemism does as well; it finesses meaning and therefore perception and reception. To correct for this, the authors advocated for the addition of certain visuals, such as illustrated humans or photographs, to reduce the euphemistic quality of “inhumane” technical communication visuals and show the “real” meaning behind them.

Dragga and Voss’s (2002) argument inspired an interesting and surprisingly impassioned debate. In a subsequent issue of Technical Communication (2002, 49(1)), the editors published some of the responses they received from readers, most of which were ardently against the addition of humanizing visuals. The responders’ major concerns were with the difficulty of using humanizing visuals that weren’t exploitive or manipulative. Additionally, they also worried that such visuals would crowd and obscure the data with superfluous design elements. Those who responded to the authors’ argument for more humanizing semiotic resources in technical communication visuals clearly found the extra visual elements suggested by the authors to be anathema to the principles of good design. In fact, the overwhelming response to Dragga and Voss’s suggestion was negative, and not always even politely stated. These responders’ reaction can be traced to any number of sources, but one that is clearly evident in their objections is the work of Edward Tufte. Several responses even specifically mentioned and cited his arhetorical principles for “beautiful” graphics.

The critical framework for visual euphemism shows that Dragga and Voss (2002) and the indignant readers of Technical Communication both missed the point of Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow and why he designed it the way he did. Including symbolic Isotypes to represent the soldiers who died following Napoleon into Moscow, as Dragga and Voss suggested, did make Minard’s “beautiful” graph 216 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 appear cluttered and not quite as “beautiful.” Yet, the reason these images or something like them that Minard could have constructed should not have been included is not because they upset the aesthetic of Minard’s graph, but rather, because (W)eightiness was too high for the graph’s context. Had Minard made it more humanizing, he would have created a face-threatening-act against the (A)udience, namely the French politicians and leaders who wanted to go to war with Prussia. This would have undermined his goal of having his visual seen. Making Napoleon’s March on Moscow as visual euphemism, even if Minard did not realize it as such, circumvented this problem.

Conversely, the beauty of Napoleon’s March on Moscow can be attributed to its high data-to-ink ratio, its “interocularity,” and overall beauty, as Tufte (1983/2002) defines, but this isn’t what makes it a remarkable technical communication visual. This is why it might be a “beautiful” graph, but what makes it a noteworthy technical communication visual is Minard’s navigation of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition for the context he was compelled to present his graph in. The framework showed that the context for Napoleon’s March on Moscow was euphemism-conducive, because its intended (A)udience was at a wide social (D)istance from Minard, had a great deal of (P)ower over him, and were likely to find his anti-war statement to (R)ank high on a scale of imposition. Thus, Minard created a visual euphemism that said what he wanted it to say – “War is costly and we shouldn’t do it” – while minimizing the risk of an affront to the faces of the very important people to whom it would be presented. True, he failed, and France still went to war with Prussia and lost, but the graph remains remarkable because Minard thought about his users and made a visual euphemism that, while perhaps “cruel,” was usable. That it was explains why Dragga and Voss’s (2001) suggestions for the addition of “humanizing” visual elements aren’t viable either. It wasn’t that their suggestions of Isotypes to represent the humanity of the soldiers depicted marred the otherwise “beautiful” graph, but rather, they undermine the graph’s usability.

The implication of Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow graph being a usable visual euphemism for practitioners of technical communication, especially 217 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 those that choose to use visuals in their work, is that visual euphemism can be a powerful and pragmatic tool for making information accessible to users and helping achieve rhetorical aims. Additionally, much of the motivation behind using euphemism concerns the (A)udience’s face and the avoidance of causing an affront against it. In other words, euphemism itself is often user-centered. So, while I agree that some technical communication visuals are, indeed, beautiful, and that many of the ones Tufte (1983/2001) uses in his work fulfill the criteria for being such, in light of the critical framework for visual euphemism, the principles of design he extends appear to be limited in value to technical communicators who must think of their users first. Minard’s graph may well be the “best statistical graph ever drawn” (p. 40) but not because it shows so much data, so clearly, and with so little ink, but rather, because it so eloquently navigates a tricky context, wherein its creator must visually “speak” truth to power on an imposing topic without affronting face to ensure that his statement is seen.

The contradiction to popular conceptions between what actually makes Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow great and why it needed to be “cruel” revealed by the critical framework for visual euphemism is similar to what occurs when it is applied to Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East. Brasseur (2003) writes that Nightingale’s diagram is a “triumph in early information design” (p. 181). Indeed it is. Yet, not for all of the reasons Brasseur specifies. Brasseur attributes the rhetorical efficacy of the diagram to its ability “to capture the whole picture of the disaster [the terrible conditions of the Crimean field hospital]…and its solution” (p. 180) in a single technical communication visual. Furthermore, according to Brasseur Nightingale’s diagram “went beyond merely exciting inquiry to inciting action” (p. 180). All of this is true, but this diagram is also a visual euphemism, and this, too, contributed to its rhetorical efficacy and its ability to incite action. The diagram was an innovative, even novel, way to show the data. In characteristic form for euphemism, it suggested something else beyond its surface level meaning. This novelty, its newness, as I explained in Chapter 4, meant that Nightingale’s (A)udience had to pause and consider what was really being stated with

218 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 the diagram. It didn’t have the “interocularity,” the ability to hit viewers right between the eyes and give them a quick, almost overwhelming, sense of the data that Tufte (1983/2001) believes all good graphs to have. It functioned in the opposite way; it was a euphemism, meant to slow and obscure its signified so as to not create an affront to face. Once viewers realized what this innovative diagram presented, meaning once they could really “see” the data, then and only then did action follow.

This is a particularly important implication for technical communicators using visualization, for technical communication is a type of communication predicated on action, meaning, in large part, it is about doing. This, not low ink-to-data ratios or multivariate data or “beautiful” graphics or even graphs that aren’t “cruel,” is our goal. In this way, the concept of visual euphemism challenges some of the conventional design principles technical communicators follow as well as our perceptions of what is ethical or not. Unnecessary semiotic resources, like those we saw with the creatures found in Taccola’s illustration, were actually helpful, even necessary, for Taccola to achieve his rhetorical aims. Excluding the humanity of the data, in the way Minard did in Napoleon’s March on Moscow, at first glance seems unethical and dehumanizing to some (Dragga & Voss, 2001). Yet, when recognized as a visual euphemism, the exclusion of humanity actually makes a great deal of sense and was done for very humane reasons. Excluding the humanity of those depicted on the map – sixty years dead at the time of the map’s creation – was actually done in service to the protection of actual, living people. Nightingale’s innovation of a completely new type of diagram for data that was more easily accessible in a different form, namely a bar graph, contradicts conventional practices of design in technical communication. Still, in doing just this, Nightingale created a visual euphemism that helped her incite the action she wanted and had failed to do with other forms of the data. The same holds for animated ailments. The level of abstraction necessary to create these creatures is so much that it seems as if the designers of Digger and Mr. Mucus are bordering on a lack of ethics. But, when we understand these creatures as visual euphemisms, ones necessary to show illness in a way that isn’t repulsive and that will actually be seen by those who suffer from the ailment, the designers’ choices are rational and ethical.

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The implications of visual euphemism and that it sometimes necessitates a break with standard design principles and practices for technical communication as it concerns visual communication is that sometimes it is necessary to do so if it helps us meet our users’ needs and ultimately achieve our goals. If adding a griffin or a pelican, or lowering the data-to-ink ratio, or innovating a new type of data graphic, or creating a monster helps complete that action, then it is a good, usable technical communication visual. The implication being that if we truly believe that technical communication is rhetorical, then we are required to recognize that each artifact and its associated context is different from all other artifacts and their contexts. This recognition does not negate the many ubiquitous lists of design principles like Tufte’s (1983/2001) that pervade the field, but, rather, underscores the fact that arhetorical and subjective rules of design cannot be anything more than helpful suggestions and recommendations, examples of things that usually work well and not universals that must always be adhered to. As the critical framework for visual euphemism shows, sometimes breaking the rules is exactly what’s called for.

That visual euphemism suggests instances where it is necessary to break with convention, suggests yet another implication of this study: the concept of visual euphemism and the critical framework for identifying it can be a useful pedagogical tool for helping students perform critical inquiry on technical communication visuals, ultimately challenging their assumptions about the objectivity of such visuals. For example, asking undergraduate students of technical communication to select and then research a technical communication visual artifact of interest to them using the steps outlined in the framework would require that they investigate the context of that artifact, make determinations for measurements of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition, calculate (W)eightiness, and evaluate both its ethical quality and rhetorical efficacy. Additionally, the instructor could ask the students to redesign the technical communication visual using different technological tools and consider how these different designs change meaning and reception.

Anecdotally, I can say that the framework has pedagogical value in the way described above. It is interesting to note, however, how well such an assignment 220 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 connects with and contributes to helping students of technical communication obtain and practice the “layered literacies” for technical communication instruction that Cook (2002) laid out and which I find to be an exceedingly useful theoretical framework for technical communication pedagogy. The six literacies she list are basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical. The reading and writing necessary to evaluate and discuss the research performed to determine contextual factors surrounding a student’s chosen technical communication visual fulfills the basic literacy layer. Determining the role of social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition fulfills the rhetorical literacy layer. Given the scope of such an assignment, it could easily be made into a team project, fulfilling the social literacy layer. Or, for upper-classmen, the assignment could be completed by a single person, with results and findings presented to the class. This, too, would fulfill the social literacy layer of Cook’s framework. Redesigning the visual with different technological tools achieves the technological literacy layer, while determining its euphemistic quality as facilitative or deceptive fulfills the ethical literacy layer. The last layer of Cook’s framework – critical literacy – is inherent to the framework, exposing the articulation of ideology and challenging perceptions of objectivity in technical communication visuals as it does.

Limitations and Future Research The critical framework for visual euphemism I have outlined and applied in this dissertation has much to offer the ongoing discussion on the design and use of visuals in the field of technical communication. It has the potential to help us better understand why we use them so frequently and to what effect. Nevertheless, there are limitations to the framework, limitations that could be – and hopefully will be – mitigated by future research. In this section I discuss these limitations and propose some avenues I or other researchers might take to surpass them.

Earlier in this dissertation I defended my choice to use Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) politeness theory to investigate euphemism against concerns that it predominates the study of politeness, and therefore might be limiting and/or myopic, by stating, “it seems logical to start with the prevailing theory and extend any future 221 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 research from there.” I maintain that it would be truly valuable to consider how other theories evaluate and explain the use of euphemism. Pinker, Nowak, and Lee’s (2007) use of game theory to explain why humans engage in off record communication with each other would be a good start. Their theory hypothesizes three reasons behind the logic of indirect speech, to include euphemism. First, humans sometimes desire plausible deniability, to either save face or provide legal cover as in the case of a bribe. Second, the use, or non-use, of indirect speech like euphemism is part of relationship negotiation. Rather than using indirect speech in deference to social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition as Brown and Levinson do, Pinker, Nowak, and Lee theorize that some (C)ommunicators will use it to maintain a separation between themselves and their (A)udience. Conversely, sometimes (C)ommunicators will purposely ignore these factors and speak directly as a way to establish connection and create closeness. This type of transgression and its motivation is something not expressly covered by Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004) theory. Pinker, Nowak, and Lee’s third reason for indirect speech is based on language’s inherent condition as an arbitrary medium. Single morphemes, whose meaning has no direct correlation with their material signs, can enhance or undermine the truth quality of the things we say. Indirect speech like euphemism, then, is no more ambiguous than our seemingly exact language.

Pinker, Nowak, and Lee (2007) acknowledge an overlap between their theory and Brown and Levinson’s (1987/2004); however, it is still unique. It would be useful to adapt their system for the study of visual communication and see what, if any, differences and similarities appear. Theirs might become a companion piece with or an additional step to the framework for visual euphemism I have established here. Or, further study and analysis of visual euphemism with Pinker, Nowak, and Lee’s tripartite theory of indirect speech might completely contradict my critical framework for visual euphemism. In either case, a more thorough discussion and understanding of visual euphemism and the motivations for its use is possible through exploring this possible limitation to the study performed in this dissertation.

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Another similar drawback of my work with visual euphemism is intrinsic to the topics of my research: euphemism and visual communication. Both of these carry with them a high level of subjectivity. Euphemism requires inference, which means the possibility for misinterpretation is always present. One person’s “human life” is another’s “fetal tissue”; one person’s preference for an inverted y-axis is another’s unethical attempt to deceive. Likewise, visuals are polysemous, and therefore also highly subjective. To one viewer, the image of a political leader with a Hitler- mustache is an apt visual description. To that leader’s supporters, the same visual is wholly inaccurate and even malicious. Add to this subjective complexity a description of context obtained not from being present at the time and place, or even obtained directly from the visual’s designer or their intended (A)udience, but, instead, ascertained tertiarily through a review of previous scholarship made by other scholars, ones who have their own ideological biases and blind spots and who also reside outside the actual context for the artifact, and it is clear that any forensic analysis of visual euphemism is bound to involve subjective interpretation.

I maintain that this high level of subjectivity complicates analysis of visual euphemism, but it does not devalue the framework. It just needs to be addressed. Like others faced with the difficulty of making credible evaluation of qualitative data, I tried my best to instill regularity and reliability in my assessments, providing as much evidence for my claims as possible. I even went so far as to include outside raters, something not originally called for by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) and rarely performed in politeness studies in technical communication. Hopefully, readers will find my final analysis credible and convincing because I did so; however, if future research into visual euphemism seeks greater levels of assurance, it could employ one of several other tactics. For instance, it would be valuable to corroborate the results of the applied critical framework for visual euphemism with larger groups. Since euphemism exists on a scale, surveys asking participants to organize visuals that variously depict the same thing – a set a numbers compared to a table of those numbers compared to a graph of those numbers, or low fidelity, illustrated images of

223 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 toenail fungus compared against high fidelity, photorealistic ones – could corroborate claims of visual euphemism obtained with the framework.

On the other side of the (C)ommunicator /(A)udience divide, future research could address the subjectivity of the framework by investigating the possibility of designer corroboration. This could be accomplished through an interview with the visual’s creator. Of course, this would not work with visuals like Taccola’s, Nightingale’s, and Minard’s, but for contemporary ones, such as the animated ailments, whose creators are still alive and possibly available to discuss their motivations and perceptions of the final artifact, speaking with them would provide useful insight. Why did they choose the color they did? What did they choose the shape? What other options did they have? Was there ever a discussion about the need to obscure – to euphemize – the visual? The answers to questions like these could help us better comprehend the challenges that come from visualizing imposing content to powerful (A)udiences with whom the (C)ommunicator is unfamiliar, as well as how to meet those challenges. In turn, interviews with these designers could inform the design practices of technical communicators, ones exceedingly expected to visualize information.

Aside from mitigating the subjectivity inherent in the study of visual euphemism, another way future research could extend the current study and redress its limitations is to focus not on the identification of visual euphemism but, instead, on the categorization of semiotic resources and techniques that make them so. This study revealed that in addition to the common and recurring visual semiotic resources – represented participants, angle, color, placement, etc. – already established by social semioticians, (C)ommunicators will also rely on social (D)istance, (P)ower, and (R)ank of imposition as defined by Brown and Levinson (1987/2004) and utilized in the critical framework for visual euphemism to create visual euphemism. As my study showed, (C)ommunicators drew from these ostensibly intangible resources to create meaning, thus making them semiotic resources. This was an interesting outcome of my study, for it differed from what I expected, which was that some of the standard, recurring semiotic resources – like those listed above and elsewhere in this study – 224 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 would be suggestive of visual euphemism. This is not what I found; however, it does not mean there still aren’t discoverable recurring semiotic resources out there. One way we could locate and catalog such semiotic resources is to create a future study that would task participants with euphemizing data in different constructed scenarios, ones that reflect a visual euphemism-conducive context, and then extrapolate from an observation of their actions bigger lessons for the field. Researchers could provide participants with some type of taboo or technical data and then request they visualize the data in a way that makes it facilitative for the rhetorical goal. What semiotic resources and techniques would they come up with? Would certain semiotic resources/techniques repeat? Could we then establish a catalog of semiotic resources and techniques or some guidelines that are usable for the technical communicator to create a visual euphemism? The answers to these questions seem possible through such an approach.

A final limitation of this study that concerns me, and one I would like to redress myself in future research, regards the artifacts used in this study. I made the decision to explore a wide range of technical communication visuals. My choice was motivated by the belief that the chosen artifacts were similar enough to add value to the development of the framework for visual euphemism, yet different enough to give readers a better understanding of how the framework works across technical communication visual sub-genres and types. While useful to this study for these reasons, my choice required that I limit the actual number of artifacts to something manageable within the scope of this dissertation. Accordingly, I chose only three of Taccola’s many illustrations, only two of the many data graphics created during the “Golden Age of Statistical Graphics,” and only two animated ailments. While I stand by my choices and the reasoning behind them, there is still a great deal we could learn about the technical communication visuals that make up each set. For instance, Taccola’s illustrations show him to be a progenitor of many types of technical communication visuals still in use by technical communicators today. Specifically, he is believed to be the first to have used an exploded view diagram (Christianson, 2012) and was naturally inclined to visualize his ideas. That he was so, I suspect, presents a

225 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 unique possibility to uncover a previously unknown but important person in our field. Revisiting his larger body of work would contribute to a better understanding of contemporary design techniques, much in the same way that the work of contemporary scholars has revealed the importance of people like Florence Nightingale, Charles Joseph Minard, Charles Booth, William Playfair, and many, many others.

Equally, many contemporary technical communication scholars have looked into those last 50 years of the nineteenth century, dubbed the “Golden Age of Statistical Graphics” by Friendly (2008), for research artifacts that might expand our current understanding of visual design in technical communication. Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East and Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow were created during this time and contributed to the overall trend of innovation that occurred during it. In fact, they are emblematic of this period, and partly why I chose them. As my preceding analysis showed, these visuals were euphemistic for primary (A)udiences. That these two graphs were discovered to be euphemistic contradicts some of our contemporary understanding of their significance and value. Meaning, they succeeded, as in the case of Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East, or are remarkable as in the case of Napoleon’s March on Moscow, not because they were so clear or “beautiful,” but rather for seemingly opposite reasons, ones that actually enhanced their usability. This begs the question: what about others? Perhaps a study of visual euphemism in “Golden Age Statistical Graphics” might reveal a trend of visual euphemism running through the many important technical communication visuals Friendly has grouped under this category. Perhaps it does not. Either way, it would be worthwhile knowing if this important period of technical communication visual innovation had something to do with the euphemization of data or not.

Of all the artifacts chosen and analyzed in this dissertation, perhaps that performed on the animated ailments is the most limited and in need of further research. As I stated previously, these characters regularly appear as multi-modal constructions that include sound and movement. Thus, my choice to only focus on those static and recurring features of their visual depictions meant essentially ignoring 226 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016 other important semiotic resources. As technical communicators increasingly incorporate the affordances of new media into the production of technical communication, it would be worthwhile to explore how other, non-visual resources figure into the construction of technical communication visuals and the possibility they are euphemistic. This is particularly true regarding sound; both of the animated ailments used in this study spoke with vaguely foreign accents. Was this a way to contribute to the animated ailments euphemistic qualities? It would be worthwhile to find out, for, as with visualization generally, it certainly seems that more and more multimodal texts are likely to become a central part of the study and practice of technical communication. Accordingly, it is important we understand what that means for us and how to best navigate that future course.

The focus on the animated ailments of Digger and Mr. Mucus was also limited in the sense that there are a great many more of these types of technical communication visuals out there. In commercials for Abilify, for instance, an anthropomorphic black cloud represents depression; in ones for Pristiq it is a malfunctioning wind-up doll that stands in for this mental illness. These visual metonyms, and many more not listed here, fit the criteria of animated ailments. Also, there are pharmaceutical advertisements that use animations but in the opposite way of animated ailments. That is, rather than animating the ailment, they animate the cure. Advertisements for Nasonex feature a talking bee, who explains the benefits of the drug both visually and verbally; in ads for the sleep aid Lunesta an incandescent butterfly helps insomniacs fall asleep. And, aside from the ailments and cures for ailments that are frequently visually substituted are those instances where the human body itself is possibly euphemized. Enablex and VESIcare, both pharmaceutical treatments for incontinence, use visual metonymy in their commercials. The former signifies the human body suffering from incontinence with a leaking water balloon, the latter the same but with a set of dripping pipes. Are these, too, euphemistic? Given our field’s concern with medical rhetoric, further investigation into these visual metonymies with special attention to their possibly euphemistic qualities would certainly be worthwhile and informative.

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Conclusion Perhaps a better way to look at the limitations of the current study listed in the preceding section would be to think of them as opportunities, ones that could extend the critical framework for visual euphemism into additional productive research ventures. There are many other genres and types of technical communication visuals to which the critical framework for visual euphemism could be applied. In fact, there is presently an excess of such visuals to which the critical framework for visual euphemism could be applied. And it’s growing every day. As our field, the visuals created in that field, and the tools for doing so continue to advance, as they inevitably will, the possibility for future research into visual euphemism is practically limitless.

If nothing else, I hope that readers of this dissertation have come to realize that visual euphemism is more than just a trivial substitution of one thing for another done in order to be polite or some sort of trickery meant to deceive or mislead an audience. It can be these things, but it can also be the best way to incite positive, ethical action. The critical framework for visual euphemism introduced in this dissertation showed Nightingale’s Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East, Minard’s Napoleon’s March on Moscow, and Digger the Dermatophyte and Mr. Mucus to be facilitative visual euphemisms of this type. These visual euphemisms were meant to save lives and improve human health. That these visual euphemisms represent some of the most exalted technical communication visuals in our field, as well as the future of technical communication, means that technical communicators stand to benefit greatly from the concept of visual euphemism and the associated critical framework that I have produced and exemplified here in this dissertation.

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Appendix For this project, you will read and code the level of social distance, power, imposition, and imposition (costs and discomfort) presented in each of the following vignettes. Below, you are provided with the specialized definitions as they relate to this study and an associated scale.

Social Distance refers to the level of familiarity shared between two people or groups. It is expected that families have low social distance, because they are very familiar with each other, while strangers have high social distance, because they are not familiar with each other at all.

Scale for Social Distance

Power refers to the capability of one person or group to progress or prevent the goals and/or actions of another person or group. It is expected that a person with a high level of power over another could completely stop or fully advance that person’s goals or actions. Likewise, a person with no power over another could do nothing to stop or advance that person’s goals.

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Scale for Power

Imposition has a dual meaning. In one sense, it refers to the material costs necessary for one person to fulfill the request of another. It is expected that a request with a high level of imposition would cost a great deal of time, money, or effort to fulfill, while a request with a low level of imposition would cost a small amount of time, money, or effort, if any, to fulfill. In the second sense, imposition refers to the taboo or technical nature of the request and the discomfort caused by it. It is expected that making a request that regards a mildly taboo topic would cause a low level discomfort, while making a request that regards a seriously taboo topic would cause a high level of discomfort. Likewise, it is expected that asking a person to solve a simple math problem would incur a low level of discomfort, while asking them to solve a complex mathematical problem would a significant amount of discomfort.

To help keep the dual definitions of imposition straight, consider the former as cost and the latter as discomfort. To further ensure clarity, these are the terms that will be used for coding as well as the following scales.

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Scale for Cost

Scale for Discomfort

Please use these definitions and scales to code for the appropriate level of social distance, power, and imposition, subdivided into cost and discomfort, in the following three vignettes.

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Scenario A: Mariano Taccola (1382 – c. 1458) was a Sienese Renaissance civil engineer, inventor, and artist. Taccola frequently illustrated his inventions and engineering solutions to explain his ideas. His illustrations were not like contemporary blueprints, but rather idea sketches; they did not include measurements or instructions for construction. He collected these illustrations and made them into a book titled De Ingeneis. One of the illustrations included in the book was a simple device similar to a large pair of pliers, ones that could be used to remove posts. Another was a trebuchet, a large and complex war-machine that could hurl large stones at an enemy’s fortress. This book provided to the Holy Roman Emperor, King Sigismund, who Taccola hoped would fund the construction of his inventions and employ him in his court. Taccola also hoped that King Sigismund would go to war with Siena against its enemy, Florence. There is no evidence that Taccola and King Sigismund ever meet face-to-face, although scholars suspect it may have happened once.

A1. Rate the level of social distance between Taccola and King Sigismund.

A2. Rate the level of power King Sigismund held to fulfill Taccola’s request go to war with Florence.

A3. Rate the level of costs needed for King Sigismund to fulfill this request to go to war with Florence.

A4. Rate the level of discomfort King Sigismund would have experienced from this request.

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A5. Rate the level of power King Sigismund held to have the post-pulling device constructed.

A6. Rate the level of cost King Sigismund would have incurred to have the post- pulling device constructed.

A7. Rate the level of discomfort King Sigismund would have experienced from the request to have the device post-pulling device constructed.

A8. Rate the level of power King Sigismund held to have the trebuchet constructed.

A9. Rate the level of cost King Sigismund would have incurred to have this trebuchet constructed.

249 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

A10. Rate the level of discomfort King Sigismund would have experienced from the construction of this trebuchet.

Even though Taccola invented many of the devices that appeared in his illustrations, it was unlikely that he would have made them himself. Convention of the time dictated that the actual construction of the device, in this case the post-pulling device and the trebuchet, be turned over to another engineer and craftsmen. Thus, he also intended for his illustrations to be viewed by them, so they could fabricate his machines and devices. It is likely Taccola knew these mean and had worked with them in the past.

A11. Rate the level of social distance between Taccola and other engineers and craftsmen.

A12. Rate the level of power an engineer or craftsmen would have held to have this post-pulling device constructed.

A13. Rate the level of cost an engineer or craftsmen would have incurred to have this post-pulling device constructed.

250 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

A14. Rate the level of discomfort an engineer or craftsmen would have experienced from the construction of this post-pulling device.

A15. Rate the level of power an engineer or craftsmen would have held to construct a trebuchet.

A16. Rate the level of cost an engineer or craftsman would incur to build a trebuchet.

A17. Rate the level of discomfort an engineer or craftsman would have experienced from the construction of this trebuchet.

Taccola had one more audience for his illustrations: Sienese military leaders. He hoped these men could use his war machines, such as the trebuchet, in their arsenals. There is no evidence that he ever met these men, but given his interest in creating weapons for the army, it’s likely he had the occasion to meet them.

A18. Rate the level of social distance between Taccola and Sienese military leaders.

251 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

A19. Rate the level of power an engineer or craftsmen would have held to construct a trebuchet.

A20. Rate the level of cost Sienese military leaders would incur to incorporate this trebuchet into their arsenals.

A21. Rate the level of discomfort military leaders would have experience from incorporating this trebuchet into their arsenals.

252 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Scenario B: Concerned with the high number of causalities and the possibility of losing the Crimean War because of it, Queen Victoria and other political leaders of England sent a team of nurses, led by Florence Nightingale, to investigate the quality of healthcare soldiers received in the field hospitals. Upon her arrival, Nightingale discovered that soldiers were dying from infection, dysentery, and other preventable diseases at rates higher than those from actual combat. Nightingale established sanitation procedures that involved everything from the handling of instruments to the creation of a functioning sewer system. After implementing Nightingale’s sanitation reforms, the number of deaths from preventable diseases was greatly reduced. Nightingale’s success contributed to England’s victory in the Crimean War and gave her a great deal of notoriety. So that her sanitation reforms would be implemented army-wide, Nightingale wrote a report and created diagrams that showed how her reforms had worked. She distributed this report and her diagrams to Queen Victoria and other political and military leaders, who were slow to act. Frustrated by their sluggishness to implement her reforms army-wide, Nightingale released her report and diagrams to the general public, an action she felt would compel leadership to expedite the process. Although Nightingale knew some of the people in England’s political leadership, her distribution of the report was to a much larger group and included many people she had never met before. There is evidence to suggest that Nightingale met with Queen Victoria at least once prior to creating and distributing her report.

B1. Rate the level of social distance between Nightingale and Queen Victoria.

B2. Rate the level of power Queen Victoria had to implement Nightingale’s sanitation reforms army-wide.

B3. Rate the level of cost Queen Victoria would incur to implement Nightingale’s reforms.

253 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

B4. Rate the level of discomfort fulfilling Nightingale’s request would have caused Queen Victoria.

B5. Rate the level of social distance between Nightingale and England’s political and military leaders.

B6. Rate the level of power England’s other political and military leaders had to implement Nightingale’s sanitation reforms army-wide.

B7. Rate the level of cost England’s other political and military leaders would incur to implement Nightingale’s reforms.

B8. Rate the level of discomfort fulfilling Nightingale’s request would have caused England’s other political and military leaders.

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B9. Rate the level of social distance between Nightingale and the general public.

B10. Rate the level of power the general public had to implement Nightingale’s sanitation reforms army-wide.

B11. Rate the costs the general public would incur to implement Nightingale’s reforms.

B12. Rate the level of discomfort fulfilling Nightingale’s request would have caused the general public.

255 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Scenario C: Charles Joseph Minard was a well-respected French engineer who created visualizations of numerical data and other information important to the French government. Worried that France was about to enter needlessly into war with Prussia, Minard created a graphic depicting Napoleon’s failed incursion into Moscow almost sixty years earlier. The graphic was intended to remind his audience of the loss and deprivation that comes as a consequence of war, and ultimately stop France’s trajectory into another one. He presented this graphic to important political leaders, including the emperor Napoleon III. All of these men wanted to declare war on Prussia. These political leaders knew of Minard and used his work in their own. There is evidence to suggest that Minard meet with Napoleon II at least once.

C1. Rate the level of social distance between Minard and France’s leaders.

C2. Rate the level of power France’s leaders had to prevent a war with Prussia.

C3. Rate the costs France’s leaders would incur to not got to war with Prussia.

C4. Rate the level of discomfort Minard’s reminder would’ve caused France’s leaders.

256 Texas Tech University, Kevin Van Winkle, May 2016

Scenario D: Lamisil is an antifungal medication intended to treat toenail fungus. Mucinex is an over-the-counter nasal decongestant meant to help cold and flu suffers expel mucus. To sell these products, their makers turned to advertisers. These advertisers made the decision to not show realistic depictions of toe fungus or mucus in the print and television advertisements they created for Lamisil and Mucinex. These advertisements were intended for mass audiences.

D1. Rate the level social distance between the advertisers and the viewers of Lamisil and Mucinex advertisements.

D2. Rate the level of power the viewers have to purchase Lamisil or Mucinex.

D3. Rate the costs viewers would incur to purchase Lamisil or Mucinex.

D4. Rate the level of discomfort viewers would experience upon seeing a realistic image of toenail fungus or mucus.

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