Swedile in the Classroom #3 - The Rhetoric of Typography

Eva Brumberger’s article on the connect or disconnect between visual and verbal thinking in an interesting read, but it pretty much says things that have been said before, and what’s more, are obvious in today’s generation; her belief is that typeface and design play a role in how we perceive any given text, and to some degree or another, this is true. For example, if I wrote a phrase somewhat equated with a ‘redneck’ manner of speech, such as “squeal like a pig,” in a calligraphy-style font, it would be so jarring that it would affect one’s perception of the phrase, and the writer. No one would take it seriously. However, her theory seemed to be more along the lines that even a less-drastic change in typeface could dramatically alter the perception of the material and it’s author, and I think the results of her study showed that this is not true to any noticeable degree.

This article did bring up another issue, however, that I would like to discuss in length; the divide between the verbal and visual type of thought. I, like Brumberger and a number of her colleagues that she cites, feel that one is not separate from the other. Some might be more inclined to one than the other, but we all think both verbally and visually. I, for one, would like to draw upon my own experiences to make a point on this topic; I think in both verbal and visual terms at the same time, almost to the point that I cannot separate the two (at least in regards to writing). I have a condition known as Synesthesia, specifically Grapheme > Color Synesthesia. That means…

This is how I perceive this sentence.

Every single letter and number has a specific color to me. It never changes (i.e. B is always blue, C is always red, etc), and is entirely automatic. And when I hear words being said, it is also largely automatic that I imagine the words for a moment, with said colors in mind. Yet at the same time, whenever I read words, I hear them in my head. Because of the color associations hard-wired into my brain, when I hear I see, and when I see I hear. It is a constant back-and-forth discourse between the verbal and the visual worlds. And I am far from alone in this regard. Recent studies have shown that accounts of Synesthesia are far more frequent than previously believed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17076063), and it is believed that 1 in 23 people have it. The numbers may be even higher, as to people with the condition, they often times have no idea the way they think differs from anyone else’s.

Of course, I don’t believe one has to have a form of Synesthesia to think both verbally and visually. I merely used it as an interesting example. I believe almost everyone thinks in both terms as opposed to just one or another. Both senses interact to give the viewer/listener a much more in-depth view of the world around them than just one or the other could do alone.

- Chris Muise