Argumentation And Rhetoric In Visual And Multimodal Communication

Final pre-print version of the introductory chapter from:
Tseronis, A. and Forceville, C. (eds.) 2017. Multimodal Argumentation
and Rhetoric in Media Genres (pp.1-24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
INTRODUCTION
Argumentation and rhetoric in visual and
multimodal communication
Assimakis Tseronis and Charles Forceville
University of Amsterdam
1. Introduction
On a daily basis we process information conveyed not just in a linguistic code we
understand but also in other semiotic systems such as images, music, sounds, and
gestures. More often than not, the information we are confronted with and upon which
we are invited to act (take decisions, express our views, require further information, or
pass that information on to others) is conveyed by the combination of more than one
semiotic system and is made available in a variety of media and formats. In a classical
division of labour, each of these semiotic systems would constitute the privileged object
of study for distinct disciplines such as linguistics, art history and design, musicology, as
well as visual and media studies. This approach, however, overlooks not only the ubiquity
of images and sounds (as well as other non-verbal modes) and their importance in the
dissemination and reception of information, ideas, and opinions, but also their co-
presence with words (spoken or written) in artefacts studied by any of the above
disciplines as well as many others.
It is during the late 1950s that visual studies emerged from the fields of arts,
photography, and film in order to address the increasing visuality in culture, as Barnhurst
et al. explain (2004). Research fields such as semiotics (Nöth, 1995) and communication
and marketing (Kostelnick & Roberts, 1998; McQuarrie & Phillips, 2008; Messaris,
1997; Scott, 1994) addressed issues arising from the combination of semiotic systems
earlier than others. In the 1990s, linguists working within Michael Halliday’s Systemic
Functional Grammar (Halliday, 1978; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) were the first to
propose a systematic account of the ways in which the visual mode produces meaning in
interaction with other semiotic modes (see Bateman, 2014; Jewitt, 2014b; Kress & Van
Leeuwen, 1996). Cognitive linguists also showed an early interest in semiotic modes
other than the verbal but focused originally on the study of the cognitive processes
involved in the construal and interpretation of metaphor and other tropes (Forceville,
1996; Forceville & Urios-Aparisi, 2009).

2
In parallel with these developments, scholars studying argumentative com-
munication in the 1990s launched a call for extending the object of argumentation studies
to those instances where images alone or in combination with words and other semiotic
modes can be said to convey arguments (Birdsell & Groarke, 1996; Groarke, 1996).
Interestingly, North American scholars of communication and modern rhetoric had
already in the 1970s published studies of cultural artefacts such as photographs, films,
political cartoons, and music, having recourse to well-known categories of classical
rhetoric (Foss, 2005; Medhurst & Benson, 1984; Olson, 2007). In the French and German
speaking world, scholars inspired by semiotic approaches to language and
communication (and to a certain extent drawing on rhetoric) also paid attention to the
study of semiotic systems other than the verbal, and to their rhetorical effects at quite an
early stage (Barthes, 1977; Bonsiepe, 1965; Durand, 1970; Gaede, 1981; Groupe μ,
1992). In more recent times, several edited volumes have been published on “visual
rhetoric” (Hill & Helmers, 2004; Olson et al„ 2008; Prelli, 2006).
The current collection of essays takes the next step in this development. Its novelty
resides in the awareness that non-verbal argumentative discourse seldom consists of
visuals alone. Consequently, the contributors to this volume are all concerned with
discourses in which text and image (as well as other semiotic modes) combine to create
meaning in argumentative contexts. Moreover, the concern of the contributors is not so
much the urge coute que coute to apply established rhetorical concepts to discourses
constituted by verbal-visual and other multimodal combinations, but to account for the
ways in which these discourses function argumentatively and rhetorically. The chapters
included in the volume have been written by an international group of senior and junior
rhetoric and argumentation scholars who have in the past two decades been active in the
research on multimodal argumentation as well as by scholars versed in argumentative and
rhetorical communication.
Before briefly introducing the themes of the various chapters in Section 4, we first
discuss some terminological points (Section 2) as well as a number of theoretical and
analytical issues arising from the study of multimodal texts (Section 3). In the concluding
Section 5, we sketch some future directions in this booming area of research at the
intersection of studies in rhetoric, argumentation, visual and multimodal analysis,
communication, and cognition.
2. Visual argumentation - visual rhetoric - multimodal
argumentation - multimodal rhetoric
Kenney and Scott (2003, p. 49) observe the following about the state of the art in visual
rhetoric and the use of the term “rhetoric:”
There are great differences in how rhetoric is defined and, when visual rhetoric is defined, there

3
also is great variability. Scholars approach the field of visual rhetoric with such different
ontological assumptions and such different conceptual bases that progress towards theory
building is slow. Things can become even more confusing as scholars merge rhetorical ideas
with ideas in semiology, cultural studies, postmodernism, feminist studies, and cognitive and
behavioral psychology.
Similar remarks are made by the editors of a volume on visual rhetoric (Hill & Helmers,
2004, p. ix) who acknowledge that there has been “very little agreement on the basic
nature of the two terms visual and rhetoric” among the contributors of the volume.
Bateman (2014), a scholar studying multimodal discourse, observes the same variability
in the use of the terms “image,” “text,” and “mode.” In an attempt to do justice to the
various perspectives from which the contributors of the current volume have approached
the phenomenon of visual and multimodal argumentation, but without pretending to offer
a definitive answer to questions of terminology, we would like to draw a number of
distinctions.
In line with a now classical, though not completely uncontroversial, distinction,
argument can be studied as a product, a process, or as a combination thereof. As O’Keefe
(1977) has remarked, the word “argument” is used to refer to two different phenomena:
the communicative act by means of which people make an argument (argument1, and the
interaction people have when they engage in an argument (argument2). Argument as
product is thereby understood as consisting of premises supporting a conclusion, while
argument as process is understood as the communicative and interactional activity in
which an arguer seeks to defend the acceptability of a standpoint by advancing reasons in
support of it vis-à-vis a specific audience. For this second conception of argument, the
term “argumentation” is generally preferred to avoid confusion with the word
“argument,” which is usually reserved for referring exclusively to the reasons advanced
in support of a standpoint/claim. Be it as a product or as process, argument can further be
studied with an interest in ultimately providing a descriptive account of its components
and various realisations in “real life” or with an interest in providing a normative account
of how it measures up against standards of reasonableness that characterize a cogent
argument (Van Eemeren et al., 2014).
According to Wenzel (1990), one may adopt one of three perspectives in the study
of argumentation, namely a logical, a dialectical, or a rhetorical perspective. As the author
notes, all three perspectives are necessary for a comprehensive study of argumentation.
Irrespective of whether these three perspectives are understood as mutually exclusive or
as referring to a specific aspect of argumentation (Blair, 2012), the following is generally
accepted to hold: from a logical perspective, the reasoning and inference process from
premises to conclusion are central. From a dialectical perspective, it is the rules and
conventions that govern the procedure of arguing that receive most attention. From a
rhetorical perspective, the focus lies on the effectiveness of argumentation in a given
context and for a given audience. Accordingly, when it comes to identifying instances of
argument or argumentation the results depend on which of the three perspectives is

4
adopted. While from a rhetorical perspective any means of communication can, in
principle, be analysed as an argument upon the condition that it functions to gain assent
from an audience, from a dialectical perspective only the reasonable means of gaining
assent are considered; that is, those means which once “deemed true, probable, plausible
or otherwise worthy of acceptance [are] considered to provide a reason, or a set of reasons,
for thinking that some claim is true, some attitude is appropriate, some policy is worthy
of implementation, or some action is best done” (Blair, 2004, p. 44). From a logical
perspective, an argument can be analysed for its formal properties without necessarily
needing to be conveyed in any natural language.
Based on the above exposition, one would thus be inclined to think that it is the
rhetorical perspective that would most readily accommodate visual and other non-verbal
means of communication as proper objects of analysis. This acknowledgement, however,
was not as straightforward forty years ago. Even though rhetoricians were the first, long
before logicians and dialecticians, to acknowledge that arguments can be realised in other
modes than the verbal one, as Foss (2005) informs us, there were initially serious doubts
as to whether visual and other non-verbal artefacts should count as an object of rhetorical
analysis. After all, classic rhetorical categories were originally only applied to the
production and analysis of spoken speeches and written texts. For dialecticians and
logicians, the reservations had to do with the fact that images and non-verbal acts are not
propositional in nature and therefore could not be said to assert the truth of their content,
an act that lies at the heart of argumentative communication because of the commitment
it brings to provide support once the assertion is challenged. It is not until the late 1970s
that studies on visual rhetoric begin to appear (Benson, 1974; Gronbeck, 1978; Medhurst,
1978), while it takes until 1996 for Birdsell and Groarke to edit the first special volume
on visual argument.
Rather than seeking to place “visual argument” or “visual rhetoric” under a single
perspective on the study of argumentation, we propose instead to begin by acknowledging
that communication is multimodal, in the sense that, more often than not, messages are
communicated by a combination of semiotic modes (Kress, 2010; Klug & Stöckl, 2016;
Tseronis, forthcoming). That being said, “multimodality” is far from being an
unproblematic term. Even the editor of a handbook on multimodality has to acknowledge
that no definition of “mode” has hitherto been agreed upon: “what is considered a mode
and interaction between modes is inextricably shaped and construed by social, cultural
and historical factors” (Jewitt, 2014a, p. 23). In this volume, we are not going to venture
into this definitional snake pit; instead we adopt a practical solution and consider the
following as (semiotic) modes: written language, spoken language, static images, moving
images, music, non-verbal sound, gestures, gaze, and posture (Forceville, 2006; Stöckl,
2004). As we observed earlier, instances of communication where any of these modes
combine in one party’s attempt not merely to inform or please the other but to convince
him/her about one’s claims abound. These are then instances of multimodal ar-
gumentation: a rational and social activity, in which two or more modes play a role in the

5
procedure of advancing a standpoint and testing its acceptability. This social, rational,
and cognitive phenomenon can then be studied from a descriptive or from a normative
perspective, with a focus on the product or the process, and by having recourse to insights
from logic, rhetoric, and/or dialectic. Groarke and colleagues in the introduction to the
third special issue on visual argumentation (Groarke et al., 2016, p. 217) list a number of
theoretical approaches and disciplines that have contributed to the study of
argumentation, and can be considered as playing an important role in the study of
multimodal argumentation, too. These are: rhetoric, philosophy, (informal) logic and
epistemology, communication theory, Pragma-Dialectics, as well as sub-disciplines such
as critical theory, cognitive and social psychology, and artificial intelligence.
Following this understanding of the term “multimodal argumentation,” the object of
study of most of the research carried out within argumentation and rhetoric so far, can be
described as “monomodal verbal argumentation.” Technically, the terms “visual rhetoric”
and “visual argumentation,” which were originally used in the literature to distinguish the
studies focusing on non-verbal argumentation, are confusing for two reasons: they
suggest that the object of study is arguments conveyed exclusively in the visual mode;
and they take “visual” to be a cover term for any non-verbal mode used independently or
in combination with other modes to convey meaning. By contrast, we have chosen to
qualify rhetoric and argumentation as “multimodal” in the following two senses of
multimodality, namely as a property of a certain text that draws on more than one mode
(see previous paragraph), and as a perspective from which any text (regardless of the
mode or modes it is constituted from) can be studied that embraces the multimodal nature
of communication and interaction.1
Moreover, we understand “rhetoric” and
“argumentation” either as referring to the perspectives presented earlier or as describing
different but complementary aspects of multimodal communication. In this latter case, a
study of multimodal rhetoric would primarily focus on the various semiotic resources that
combine in order to construct or address a specific audience in a certain rhetorical
situation, while a study of multimodal argumentation would focus mainly on the various
semiotic resources that combine in order to convey elements that play a role in the
structure of the argument developed. The ten contributions in this volume exemplify the
various conceptions of multimodal argumentation and rhetoric described above.
3. Theoretical and analytical issues in multimodal argumentation
The main theoretical question immediately raised in reaction to the project on visual
argument proposed by Birdsell and Groarke (1996) was whether images are, or can be,
1 It is to this latter sense of the term “multimodal” that Groarke’s (2015, p. 140) proposal for a multimodal
theory of argument refers, compared to existing theories of argument that understand it as exclusively made
up of words and sentences. See also his discussion of a related but different proposal for a multi-modal
theory of argumentation by Gilbert (1994).

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arguments at all (Fleming, 1996; Johnson, 2003; Patterson, 2010). The sceptics claimed
this to be impossible because non-verbal discourse cannot express propositions that can
be shown to be true or false. But of course the question whether it is plausible to think of
argument as “visual” depends on one’s conception of “argument” and “argumentation.”
The objections raised by the critics seem to have taken for granted that argument is
“verbal” to begin with, and that only language can express propositions. However, one
does not need to understand argument as an essentially verbal or essentially visual
category, but rather as a cognitive category (Hample, 2005; Van den Hoven, 2015) much
like metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). “Verbal argument” and “visual argument”
would then be shorthand labels for “monomodal argument conveyed purely in the verbal
mode” and “monomodal argument conveyed purely in the visual mode,” respectively. It
is therefore not the materiality of discourse that makes it argumentative but what its
makers mean to do with it and/or what the receivers of that discourse understand in a
specific situation. Moreover, as Gronbeck (1995) remarks, non-verbal signs convey
meaning and as such can express propositions which can be used in argumentative
communication. He writes: “if we think of meanings as called up or evoked in people
when engaged in acts of decoding, then not only words but also pictures, sounds, and
other sign systems certainly can offer us propositions of denial or affirmation, and can,
as Locke understood trueness and falsehood, articulate empirically verifiable
propositions” (p. 539). Forceville, working in a relevance theory framework, makes the
same point when he claims that a certain Tintin panel “invites explicatures [roughly
equivalent to propositions] such as “these are a young man and a dog” or “these are Tintin
and Snowy,” or even “Tintin and Snowy walk toward a hut in a forest”’ (2014, p. 60; see
also Forceville & Clark, 2014).
As Dove (2016, p. 254) puts it “It is one thing to allow for the possibility of visual
argument[s]; it is quite another to show how to identify and assess them when
encountered.” While the theorization regarding multimodal argumentation has up until
now mainly focused on rebutting the criticisms concerning the lacking propositionality
of images and the problem of their irreducibility to verbal language, substantially more
work has been done regarding the analysis of visual and multimodal arguments. In studies
produced in the last twenty years, argumentation scholars and rhetoricians have
researched a variety of multimodal artefacts. Kjeldsen (2015) names advertising, editorial
cartoons, and scientific communication as the three genres that have been studied
extensively. Indeed most attention has been paid early on to the promotional genre of
advertising both commercial and political; in print as well as in television commercials
(Barbatsis, 1996; Kjeldsen, 2012; Pollaroli & Rocci, 2015; Ripley, 2008; Slade, 2003;
Van den Hoven, 2012; see also Roque, this volume); and to political cartoons (Feteris,
2013; Feteris, Groarke, & Plug, 2011; Medhurst & DeSousa, 1981; Shelley, 2001; see
also the chapters by Groarke and Van den Hoven & Schilperoord, this volume). Other
contexts of multimodal arguments that have received attention include scientific
communication (Gibbons, 2007; Gigante, 2012; Gross & Harmon, 2014; see also Dove,

7
this volume); photography (Finnegan, 2001; see also Kjeldsen, this volume); and film
(Bloomfield & Sangalang, 2014; Lake & Pickering, 1998; see also the chapters by
Tseronis & Forceville, Wildfeuer & Pollaroli, and Iversen, this volume).
Of the various semiotic modes, it is combinations of the written verbal mode with
the visual mode that have been chiefly examined. A number of studies on audio-visual
moving images have also focused on the audio mode (Groarke, 2002; Gronbeck, 1995;
Kisicek, 2015; Van den Hoven, 2012), but much work is waiting to be done here. In
addition, body posture and gestures have received some attention within rhetoric and
argumentation studies (Gelang & Kjeldsen, 2011; Poggi & Vincze, 2009; see also the
chapters by Jacquin and Poggi, this volume). This is an area in which more studies by
argumentation theorists and rhetoricians are needed that will draw insights from the
important linguistic and multimodal research that has been carried out concerning the
embodiment of spoken interaction and sign language (Cienki & Muller, 2008;
Deppermann, 2003; Kita, 2003; Pfau et al., 2012).
The study of multimodal argumentation has drawn attention to the role that the
situational context and the genre of a given communicative activity play in the production
and interpretation of visual and multimodal arguments, a development which is in line
with the growing interest shown also in the context of verbal argumentation (Van
Eemeren, 2011; Van Eemeren & Garssen, 2012). Birdsell and Groarke (1996, p. 5) have
distinguished three kinds of context that are important for the analysis and evaluation of
visual arguments: the immediate visual context, the immediate verbal context, and visual
culture. In the introduction to the second special issue on visual argument, the same
authors (2007, p. 112) write:
A better grasp on the typology of context requires, in turn, a better understanding of the way in
which context is useful when interpreting the argumentative components of an image. Context
can help us recognize an image as argumentative; identify its iconic, indexical, metaphoric, and
other functions; and understand its enthymematic cuing.
The derivation of both the explicit and implicit content of an image or of any other non-
verbal mode rests to a large extent on the activation of the recognition of the genre to
which the discourse belongs. Once we understand a given instance of multimodal
discourse as being attributable to a specific genre, we instantaneously, and presumably
largely automatically, activate all the expectations aroused by that genre’s conventions
(Fokkema & Ibsch, 2000; Forceville, 2005; Frow, 2015).
The translation, conversion, and eventual presentation of the reconstruction of
multimodal argumentation is yet another important issue that has received ample
attention. While the interpretation and reconstruction of argumentative discourse
conveyed exclusively in the verbal mode is also acknowledged to be a complicated matter
(Van Eemeren et al., 1993; Van Rees, 2001), the use of semiotic systems other than the
linguistic one characterized by a varying degree of coding makes it particularly difficult
for the analyst to be certain of the intended meaning. Although such meaning could be

8
assumed to be reflected most of the time in the choices made in the syntax and semantics
of language, there can be no clear and straightforward way of recovering the intended
meaning from certain choices made regarding the visual or any other non-verbal mode.
This particularity of non-verbal semiotic systems has led the critics of multimodal
argumentation, as we saw above, to the conclusion that it is impossible to extract
propositions from images and to attribute commitments to those who have used images
in argumentative communication (Fleming, 1996). Such a view, however, overlooks the
issues that also arise because of the underdeterminacy of linguistic meaning, that is, the
disparity between what is said, and what is meant (Carston, 2002). Related to the
difficulty of rendering the content of images in verbal propositions is the counterpoint
raised by argumentation scholars who study visual arguments, namely that the verbal
means do not actually suffice to capture the rich information communicated by images to
an audience (Kjeldsen, 2016b). Ironically, as Godden (2017, p. 409) remarks, “Sometimes
these supposed differences in content are used to support the sceptical claim that visuals
lack argumentatively normative properties, while at other times these same differences
are used to argue for the enthusiastic claim that visuals can be more effective as
argumentative and persuasive devices”.
Despite some unfortunate formulations wrongly suggesting that the argument is to
be read off from the visual depiction in the same way as a valid deductive argument is to
be read from a verbal text, researchers of visual and multimodal argumentation generally
agree that a step of interpreting the image (plus verbal text or other mode) is necessary
before the argument can be extracted from a multimodal text (see also Van den Hoven &
Schilperoord, this volume). The result of that process is verbalized in order to allow the
analyst to talk about it and share the results of the analysis. In no way, however, is the
argumentative analysis applied directly and exclusively to the verbalised content of the
multimodal text. As Blair (2015, p. 220) notes, the verbal is to be understood as a
“placeholder” for the visual, not a “translation” of it: “verbal reconstruction rarely
captures all that was expressed in the visual argument, but is a placeholder for it, and
provides us with a reference for use in evaluating the cogency of the visual argument.”
Van den Hoven (2012; Van den Hoven & Yang, 2013) and Groarke (2015) have proposed
various ways of presenting the reconstruction of such multimodal arguments (see also the
tables for the multimodal transcription and the dynamic presentation of semantic events
combined with diagrams of the argumentation structure of movie trailers in Wildfeuer &
Pollaroli, this volume).
When it comes to establishing the role and function of the various semiotic modes in
the construction of arguments or the achievement of rhetorical effects, various proposals
have been made so far. The most obvious way to go about it is to start from the two
components of an argument, namely its conclusion (claim, standpoint) and premises
(reasons, evidence, arguments) and ask what role an image plays in a given situation.
Following this line, some proposals for taxonomies have been made (Groarke & Tindale,
2013; Roque, 2012). In this view, however, one contrasts the image as a whole with the

9
written text, focusing, as it were, on the content (verbal and visual) and not so much on
the style/form and the choices made concerning the distinct properties of these modes.
But as multimodal analysts would argue, each semiotic system has its own specific
affordances, which can be shown to be more suitable for one function than for another.
At the same time, each semiotic system consists of a number of levels where choices can
be made (see Stöckl, 2004), each with a different meaning potential. A static image can
thus be analysed in terms of its texture, composition, and use of colour, while a moving
image can, in addition to the levels holding for the static one, be analysed in terms of its
sequencing in time. Choices made at each of these levels could play a role in the
interpretation and reconstruction of an argument.
Depending on one’s conception of argument and argumentation, one can thus search
for the argumentative relevance of choices made from the various semiotic modes in a
given multimodal text by considering the various steps involved in the procedure of
advancing standpoints and arguments and in testing their tenability. Van den Hoven
(2012), for example, takes such a comprehensive approach to the analysis of the
intersemiotic relationships developed in static or moving images. This view suggests a
more complex system of relations between modes and their affordances on the one hand,
and argumentative functions and rhetorical effects on the other; one that goes beyond the
mere identification of claim and evidence. In this view, the visual content and style do
not only contribute to the content of the standpoint or the arguments in support of it but
can sometimes also be shown to provide information about the type of difference of
opinion, the starting points of the discussion, the type of audience addressed, and the
possible criticisms anticipated, among other aspects of an argumentative discussion
(Tseronis, 2015, 2017).
Another direction for accounting for the argumentative relevance of non-verbal
modes is to distinguish functions of the various semiotic modes based on their indicative
potential, as has been done already for the so-called (verbal) markers or indicators of
argumentation (Van Eemeren et al., 2007). In this view, the content or form of an image
does not directly contribute content to the argumentative reconstruction, but provides an
indication of what the function of that content could be or how the content should be
interpreted. Think, for example, of choices regarding the layout of a page or composition
of an image that indicate which part contains the standpoint and which part the reasons
supporting it, but not what the content of the standpoint or reasons is. Jacquin (this
volume) analyses gestures and gaze direction as cues for allowing the analyst to
reconstruct the argumentative moves that interactants perform.
Yet another way of identifying the functions of visuals and other semiotic modes
(combined with the verbal mode) is to consider their rhetorical effect rather than their
argumentative function. This is the direction that Kjeldsen has explored in a number of
studies, arguing that rhetorical figures conveyed by the combination of verbal and visual
elements (as used in advertisements, for example) function argumentatively by directing
the viewer’s attention towards certain elements and offering patterns of reasoning. He

10
writes (2012, p. 243): “a metaphor requires viewing something in light of something else;
a contrast requires opposites; and a chiasmus is only a chiasmus if it presents a repetition
of ideas in inverted order.” The four rhetorical qualities of images that Kjeldsen (2012)
distinguishes - presence, potential for realism and indexical documentation, immediacy,
and semantic condensation - provide a more nuanced way for understanding what the
rhetorical effect of the use of images can be that goes beyond the mere identification of
visual figures. Pollaroli (2016) has further explored the potential of rhetorical figures such
as metaphor and metonymy conveyed multimodally for the reconstruction of argu-
mentation (see also Tseronis and Forceville’s discussion of antithesis, this volume).
One last issue that equally concerns the theory and the analysis of multimodal
argumentation is the evaluation of multimodal arguments. As a matter of fact, it is only
recently that questions regarding the norms and the ways to go about evaluating
multimodal arguments have been addressed (Blair, 2015; Dove, 2016; Godden, 2017; see
also the chapters by Groarke and Dove, this volume). The initial tendency (mainly
ensuing from the criticisms of the project of visual argumentation) was to consider any
argument that is partially or wholly conveyed with the use of the visual or any other non-
verbal mode as intrinsically fallacious. This was because the use of any semiotic mode
other than the verbal is considered to address the emotional and instinctive dimensions of
communication, thereby evading the critical scrutiny of the so-called dialectical tier. This
view, however, ignores the fact that images (in the form of diagrams and figures) are used
in science communication not merely to illustrate information conveyed in the verbal text
but also to argue about complex phenomena (Dove, 2013). It also overlooks the fact that
reasoning processes can be activated and assessed exclusively on the basis of visual
stimuli (Tversky, 2005). The norms for the evaluation of the cogency of argumentation
do not apply to the semiotic resources that may be used to advance a standpoint or
arguments in support of it, but to the reason-giving relations and to the steps followed in
the procedure of testing the tenability of a standpoint.
Even though the evaluation of multimodal arguments can be a challenging task, not
least because of the difficulty concerning the attribution of commitments to their makers,
it is not an impossible one. The question that remains is whether the existing norms need
to be adapted and/or whether new norms need to be added. Blair (2015) and Godden
(2017) have argued that there is no need to revise the norms used for the evaluation of
visual or multimodal arguments. Assuming a normative non-revisionist position Godden
(2017, p. 401) writes “visual arguments can be properly appraised using existing, non-
specialized theories, methods, criteria, and standards for argument evaluation.” Dove
(2016) answers the question differently by starting from the literature on argument
schemes. While he shows that the mechanism of an argument scheme with the
accompanying critical questions is also applicable to the evaluation of visual arguments,
he also acknowledges that special schemes need to be developed with critical questions
adjusted to the visual mode. The differences between normative revisionism and
normative non-revisionism may be bridged by distinguishing between normative

11
standards which apply to the evaluation of any instance of argumentation (regardless of
its semiotic realisation in actual practice) and mode-specific criteria that can help decide
when certain affordances and properties of the visual or other non-verbal mode may affect
the cogency of the argument in a given situation.
4. Ten contributions to the study of multimodal
argumentation and rhetoric
The ten chapters comprising this volume make original contributions to the study of
multimodal argumentation and rhetoric from a variety of theoretical perspectives, written
by scholars coming from the fields of argumentation studies and rhetoric, communication,
cognitive science, and multimodal analysis. The authors were invited to focus on a
specific argumentative activity and genre, and to pay attention to the characteristics and
constraints of the context in which the multimodal texts under study were produced and
interpreted. The chapters present the state of the art in the analysis of multimodal
argumentation and rhetoric in such diverse genres as printed advertisements, news
photographs, scientific illustrations, political cartoons, documentaries, film trailers,
political TV advertisements, public debates, and political speeches. In their analyses, the
authors draw not only on their respective theoretical perspectives on argumentation and
rhetoric but also on a variety of related fields of research such as visual studies, metaphor
theory, scientific visualization, and cognitive, formal-logical and semiotic approaches to
the analysis of discourse, as well as Conversation Analysis, film, and documentary theory.
In the opening chapter, Georges Roque seeks to counter the criticism that images
are persuasive but not argumentative by discussing the relationship between
argumentation and rhetoric within the French-speaking approaches to argumentation
theory and the study of images. By problematizing the association of rhetoric with
persuasion, and of rhetoric with figures of speech, Roque submits that under certain
conditions rhetorical figures that are persuasive can also be considered to be
argumentative. He argues that rhetoric can be understood as rational persuasion and that
it does not need to be exclusively identified with verbal communication. In his analysis
of two advertisements whose argument is based on the rhetorical figure of metonymy
conveyed in both the verbal and the visual mode, Roque shows that this figure and related
ones can be described both as rhetorical and as argumentative. As he puts it: “visual
images cannot be simply rejected for being persuasive if we succeed in showing that they
also work argumentatively.”
Jens Kjeldsen, in chapter two, takes a rhetorical approach to the study of press
photographs from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the recent immigrant crisis in Europe.
Contrary to the view that press photos are merely used to state facts and inform the public,
Kjeldsen shows that they can fulfil certain rhetorical and argumentative functions in the
contexts for which they were produced. He adopts a rhetorical, situational, and textual-

12
contextual approach that pays close attention not only to the images and the situations in
which they are used but also to their reception and appropriation. By considering the
constraints that a given rhetorical situation places on the producers and the receivers of
the messages, be they verbal, visual, or multimodal, the author reconstructs a frame of
interpretation that allows him to plausibly claim that the set of statements, inferences, and
arguments he has identified in press photos can also by identified by the audience.
Leo Groarke offers a case-study of the depiction of politicians as Pinocchio in a
number of editorial cartoons from the United States and other countries in chapter three.
He proposes a method for the analysis and evaluation of cartoons as instances of arguing
and argument that borrows tools and principles from informal logic, rhetoric, and Pragma-
Dialectics. In what he terms the ‘ART’ approach to arguing and argumentation, Groarke
argues for both a narrow and a broad conception of argument that makes room for visual
and other non-verbal means of expression. Moreover, he provides tools for reconstructing
visual arguments in the form of tables of their key components and of diagrams of the
inference relations. He also proposes criteria for gauging the strength of visual arguments,
which draw on the concept of argument schemes and the critical questions that
accompany these. Groarke thus presents convincing arguments against the critics’ claims
that images cannot negate, and argues that editorial cartoons constitute a more systematic
form of argumentative communication than is usually assumed.
In chapter four, Ian Dove tackles questions regarding the evaluation of visual
arguments by adapting existing argumentation schemes, such as argument from analogy
and argument from appearance as well as their related critical questions, to the assessment
of visual argument. As case study he discusses the debate regarding the proper placement
of Australopithecus africanus in the lineage of human ancestors, which arose in the 1920s
when Grafton Elliot Smith reacted to Raymond Dart’s claim that a fossil discovery from
South Africa should be classified as within the human lineage. At stake was whether A.
africanus is more similar to modern humans or to modern apes. Dove shows how the two
argument schemes that would appear to be relevant for the assessment of the debate,
namely argument from analogy and argument from appearance, need to be reconsidered
and adjusted in order to account for the visual dimension of this debate. His study
provides a basis for both the theorization and the evaluation of visual arguments.
Paul van den Hoven and Joost Schilperoord address, in chapter five, yet another
issue raised in the analysis of multimodal argumentation, namely the question whether
the argument identified in multimodal texts is merely invented by the receiver or actually
suggested by the producer of that text. Adopting a cognitive-semiotic perspective, the
authors argue that a certain text (be it verbal, visual, or multimodal) does not really
contain an argument but instead instructs the reader to construct argumentative meaning.
They thus reject the idea that it is the context and genre that guide the argumentative
interpretation of multimodal texts and focus instead on the internal verbal and visual
structure that can be shown to guide the reader to construct argumentative meaning, and
for which the author of the text can be held accountable. They illustrate their argument

13
by analysing a series of editorial cartoons.
In chapter six, Assimakis Tseronis and Charles Forceville study documentary film
as a media genre in which the filmmaker exploits dialogue, image, and sound, and makes
choices regarding the editing of the material and the cinematography in order to argue for
a standpoint. They focus on those instances of the interplay of the various semiotic modes
whose meaning can be accounted for in terms of antithesis. Combining a cognitive
perspective with a rhetorical one, the authors consider antithesis as a conceptual figure
that presents a saliently contrastive relation between two entities or ideas that can be
conveyed monomodally (verbally, visually, or otherwise) or multimodally (in the
interaction of at least two different modes). They analyse instances of visual and
multimodal antithesis in six films by Frederick Wiseman, a pioneer of the Direct Cinema
type of documentary. Tseronis and Forceville show that the antitheses construed within
the shot, between shots, and between longer sequences contribute arguments to the
evaluative stance the filmmaker adopts towards the institutions he presents in his films.
Janina Wildfeuer and Chiara Pollaroli propose, in chapter seven, a combination of
a formal analysis of the semantics and pragmatics of the inference processes involved in
the understanding of dynamic multimodal artefacts, on the one hand, with a model of
argumentation that makes explicit the premises involved in enthymematic arguments, on
the other. They apply this integrated analytical framework to the analysis of movie
trailers. This media genre is analysed as a multimodal enthymeme that invites the
audience to draw inferences from its audio-visual structure and to retrieve arguments in
support of the overall claim that the movie is worth watching. The combination of the two
frameworks helps the authors to account for the argumentative way in which movie
trailers incite the viewers to go and watch the movie advertised, while paying attention to
the semiotic resources that this media genre employs, on the basis of which viewers draw
inferences concerning the story, quality, and characters of the movie, thereby filling in
the implicit premises of the argument.
Magnus Iversen proposes yet another perspective on the study of multimodal
dynamic artefacts, here political advertisements on television, in chapter eight. He adopts
a rhetorical perspective on the study of argumentation and recommends the use of well-
known categories for the study of film form and film style, pertaining to mise-en-scène,
cinematography, editing, and sound, in order to explain how appeal to fear is constructed
multimodally in a TV-ad produced by a Swedish right wing party. Iversen reasons that
the argumentative analysis of such multimodal artefacts as television advertisements
needs to pay attention to the ways in which these media genres employ filmic techniques
to create a discourse world and address the viewer. It is these aesthetic dimensions,
according to the author, that are further exploited in order to mount an argument.
Jérôme Jacquin, in chapter nine, examines how gestures in argumentative talk-in-
interaction combine with the verbal mode to signal different argumentative moves and
strategies of the participants. While gestures, gaze direction, and body movements have
been widely studied in the multimodal analysis of narratives and explanation sequences,

14
the embodied dimension of argumentative interactions in particular has remained largely
unexplored by conversation analysts, argumentation theorists, and multimodal analysts
alike. Jacquin combines insights from Conversation Analysis and Interactional
Linguistics with a language-oriented approach to argumentation in order to describe the
cues that gestures provide for the segmentation of argumentative moves by paying
attention to the linguistic, sequential, and embodied dimension of argumentation. He
studies fragments from a corpus of eight video-recorded public debates at the University
of Lausanne that illustrate the workings of three types of gestures: gestures claiming the
floor, gestures pointing to a participant, and metaphoric grasping gestures.
In the final chapter, Isabella Poggi studies bodily behaviour in a broad sense
involving not only gestures but also facial expressions, body posture, as well as prosody
and intonation. She adopts a socio-cognitive model of social action and communication,
which acknowledges that human communication is multimodal because its acts are
constituted by more than just the meaning of words and verbal texts, namely by prosody,
gesture, touch, facial expression, gaze, posture, proxemics, as well as by drawings,
monuments, statues, and movies. From this perspective, Poggi is particularly interested
in studying how the internal features of the personality of a political leader that build his
or her charisma can be manifested externally in his/her choice of words, but also in voice
quality, gestures, facial expression, and posture. Her case study is the speeches of Italian
dictator Benito Mussolini, who was “unfortunately but undoubtedly definitely
charismatic,” as the author puts it. Her study shows that of three types of charisma,
Mussolini’s can be described as ‘authoritarian-threatening’ and ‘proactive-attractive’
rather than ‘calm-benevolent.’
5. Directions for future research in multimodal argumentation
and rhetoric
In light of the above overview of the theoretical and analytical issues that have been dealt
with in the study of multimodal argumentation and rhetoric so far, we sketch below a
number of directions that future research could take. As Hariman (2015, p. 242) points
out, “Whether set out explicitly or tentatively or left tacit, the work on visual argument
pushes the definitional boundaries of the field.” While this extension undoubtedly raises
a range of theoretical and analytical challenges, it can only end up being beneficial, we
believe, both for the fields of argumentation studies and rhetoric and for those fields that
study visual and multimodal communication without necessarily focusing on
argumentation and rhetoric.
It should be clear by now that argumentation and rhetoric scholars have a lot to gain
from dialogue with scholars active in the fields of visual and multimodal analysis. As the
above overview has shown, most of the studies so far tend to consider the various modes
that interact in a given multimodal text independently of each other, and thereby overlook

15
the functions and effects that arise from the combinations thereof. Linguists and discourse
analysts studying multimodal texts since the 1990s have stressed the fact that the meaning
conveyed by texts in which more than one semiotic mode is at play, is never the sum of
distinct parts of a multimodal text (Jewitt, 2014b; Jewitt et al., 2016; Machin, 2007). As
Bateman (2014, p. 6) puts it: “the meanings of one [mode] and the meanings of the other
resonate so as to produce more than the sum of the parts.” Even if there is a gestalt
perception of images and sounds, there are constitutive elements of these semiotic
systems that result from choices which deserve to be studied both independently and in
combination. The studies on multimodal analysis informed by studies in visual
communication and media are bound to remind argumentation and rhetoric theorists that
analysing images or sounds combined with text or words requires more than a fleeting
acquaintance with investigating these modes and media. One important aspect in this
process of interpretation is the consideration of what van den Hoven calls “mode-specific
theories” (Van den Hoven & Yang, 2012). Insights from studies in multimodality are
important for the argumentative analysis of multimodal texts for yet another reason: they
show that it is an oversimplification to identify argumentative functions and rhetorical
effects with distinct modes, thereby assuming rather hastily that the verbal mode conveys
the standpoint while the visual mode is the reasons/argument in support of it, or that it is
simply used to appeal to the audience’s emotions (Tseronis, 2013, forthcoming).
With the call for close attention to the intersemiosis and the image-text or other non-
verbal combinations comes the risk of taking a linguistic perspective for the analysis and
explanation of how the visual works, thereby overemphasizing the role of the verbal over
the visual. Stöckl (2004, p. 18) describes this danger as follows: “we tend to somehow
look at one mode in terms of another. So, mostly, due to language’s dominance, we seem
to be asking which linguistic properties images have. Thus we run the risk of overlooking
some important design features of images which are outside of the linguistic perspective.”
Insights from cognitive studies, discourse analysis, visual communication, as well as
pragmatics (see Tseronis & Pollaroli, forthcoming) need to be considered in the same way
that insights from linguistics, Conversation Analysis, and stylistics were necessary for
understanding how verbal communication works, in order to account for the special ways
that specific modes may contribute to argumentative communication.
As mentioned in Section 3, more modes than the visual and the verbal need to be
considered as playing a role in argumentative communication. Visual dimensions of the
typography and layout of written communication, such as the form of capitalization,
headings, font sizes, and paragraph breaks could be considered not only as a means for
effectively presenting information on paper or on the screen but also as cues for the
analyst to reconstruct the arguments conveyed. Sound and music accompanying the
verbal mode in films, documentaries, TV advertisements, and YouTube videos also play
a role in framing the message, in construing tropes and thereby in functioning not just as
mere accompaniments of the verbal spoken mode. In a similar way, para-linguistic
phenomena and body movement, gesture and facial expressions, already studied in

16
Interactional Linguistics (Deppermann, 2013), deserve to be investigated further by
rhetoricians and argumentation theorists as well.
Awareness of the affordances of various modes and how these complement each
other needs to be combined with a systematic study of specific domains of communication
or concrete genres. In this way, it will become possible to identify patterns of image-text
combinations and argumentative functions or rhetorical effects that relate to certain types
of arguments and argumentative strategies, and to show how these are exploited in
concrete instances of multimodal argumentation. The results of this research will also
contribute to the discussion about the extent to which mode-dependent conditions and
criteria need to be formulated for the evaluation of multimodal arguments (see, for
example, Dove, 2016). To support the search for patterns and the comparison across
various genres, corpora need to be compiled and annotated not only for the verbal and the
audio-visual mode but also for the argumentative structure and functions of the image-
text combinations. The work that is being carried out in the field of multimodal corpus
analysis (Bateman et al., 2016) as well as the work on argument visualisation and
argument mining (Bex et al., 2013) can be fruitfully combined for this purpose.
Related to the above issue is the need to conduct empirical research in the ways
arguments conveyed by multimodal documents are interpreted and critiqued by specific
audiences. Kjeldsen (2016a), for example, has recently argued for the need to shift the
focus from a purely textual and semiotic approach to multimodal argumentation to an
empirical exploration of actual audiences and users of multimodal artefacts. In this way,
answers can also be provided to questions regarding the interpretation of visual and
multimodal arguments as well as the attribution of commitments to those who have
produced them. In line with developing an interest in the way actual audiences understand
and react to arguments conveyed multimodally and in various media, attention to the
cultural differences that play a role both in the production of such multimodal artefacts
and in their interpretation is equally important.
In an afterthought to the special issue edited by Kjeldsen (2015), Hariman (2015, p.
240) formulates two basic questions that are raised by argumentation theorists’ concern
with the visual: “What can be gained for the study of argumentation by focusing on visual
arguments? What can the study of visual arguments add to the study of visual media?”
Answering the first question, we would say that the systematic attention to the non-verbal
dimensions of argumentative communication helps to expand the object of study of
argumentation and rhetoric studies, and to ground their relevance for the analysis of
multimodal and multi-media communication. The answer to the second question lies in
the acknowledgement that images, sounds, music, and other semiotic modes combine to
create artefacts that do not merely seek to inform or please an audience but also to
convince or persuade them. It is to the study of these specific instances and to the training
of audiences to critically engage with them that argumentation studies and rhetorical
analysis can make a substantial contribution.

17
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the authors of the chapters for their patience and collaboration throughout the
various stages, from the initial conception to the publication of this volume. Special thanks go to Leo
Groarke for providing us with comments and suggestions for the text of this introduction, and to Anthony
Blair for kindly accepting to write the preface to this volume. We would also like to thank Esther Roth and
Susan Hendriks, at Benjamins, for patiently replying to all the questions we had regarding the publication
process.
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