Blog Six -- Birdsell, Groarke, and Blair

"Visual images can, of course, be vague and ambiguous. But this alone does not distinguish them from words and sentences, which can also be vague and ambiguous. The point that visual images are frequently vague and indeterminate cannot, in view of the demonstrable indeterminacy of verbal expressions, show that images are intrinsically less precise than spoken or written words..." (Birdsell and Groarke 310).

Symbolism goes hand-in-hand with rhetoric (also known as communication). Thus, communication relies on symbols to create arguments. Symbols can incorporate letters and words as well as actual images. It stands to reason that an individual can decipher arguments through any sort of symbolism, though the real meaning may be somewhat vague. A certain degree of ambiguity exists with any form of communication; interpretation is highly dependent on the reader's personal understanding and experience. However, one might argue that visual arguments are more prone to misunderstanding than written ones.

"The meaning of a visual claim or argument obviously depends on a complex set of relationships between a particular image/text and a given set of interpreters" (Birdsell and Groarke 313).