In “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing”, Cynthia Selfie argues that sound remains integral to our daily existence, it "is often undervalued as a compositional mode" (617). The privileging of writing and print media in U.S. composition pedagogies marginalizes multimodal composition in the classroom, especially those modes of composition involving sound. This in turn disenfranchises individuals, communities, and cultures that use and value multimodal expression in daily communication.
The primacy of print medium in communication and production within the classroom “limits students’ sense of rhetorical agency” (618) and expression. The emphasis on writing in composition classes often ignore the existing modalities of expression that students may be versed in and forces them to operate within a single semiotic system. For Selfie, this seems counter-intuitive, as composition is primarily about critical engagement with available modes and functions of communication –such as, persuasion, expression, and argumentation. Why limit both the students and scholars from exploring all available avenues of expression?
THE MAKING OF WRITING COMPOSITION
The primacy of writing in composition is relatively new; it only came about after the latter half of the 19th century. Until then, the “old model of oratorical education” ensured that students – generally gentlemen – had good public speaking skill, in keeping with the cultural values wherein excellent oral communication represented the mark of an educated person. The social space was also inundated with public speaking roles – debates, speeches, sermons, meets – so one needed to be able to articulate himself in public.
The mode of print came to fore in the latter thirds of the 1800s in response to increased market need for professional and specialized workers in an emerging industrialized, scientific research-based society. English composition classes focused on training professionals to be able to write as required by their profession. Technological inventions like the typewriter only further entrenched writing as the new cultural focus of production. Writing and reading eventually became silent practices, “consumed by the eye rather than the ear” (623), even for texts that required aural consumption like plays or poetry. Voice (and other aural descriptors) became remediated as an aspect of written composition. Finally, the fallacy emerged that “writing was more sophisticated or complex than speech (Sawyer)” (629).
AURALITY AS RESISTANCE
However, aural modes of production retained its influence in countercultural narratives. After a time, writing became a means to exclude women and minorities from the dominant systems of meaning making (production). Denied access to writing, the dominant culturally meaningful mode of production, minorities especially created a counter narrative and meaning through aurality. While these communities eventually acquired written literacy, it was still very much a matter of using the master’s tools to fix the house. However, where writing became a hegemony, aurality has long existed as a means remediation and resistance to dominant discourses, giving voice to minority ideologies. Today, minorities have learned to merge both written and aural modalities into meaningful modes of production.
The primacy of print medium in communication and production within the classroom “limits students’ sense of rhetorical agency” (618) and expression. The emphasis on writing in composition classes often ignore the existing modalities of expression that students may be versed in and forces them to operate within a single semiotic system. For Selfie, this seems counter-intuitive, as composition is primarily about critical engagement with available modes and functions of communication –such as, persuasion, expression, and argumentation. Why limit both the students and scholars from exploring all available avenues of expression?
THE MAKING OF WRITING COMPOSITION
The primacy of writing in composition is relatively new; it only came about after the latter half of the 19th century. Until then, the “old model of oratorical education” ensured that students – generally gentlemen – had good public speaking skill, in keeping with the cultural values wherein excellent oral communication represented the mark of an educated person. The social space was also inundated with public speaking roles – debates, speeches, sermons, meets – so one needed to be able to articulate himself in public.
The mode of print came to fore in the latter thirds of the 1800s in response to increased market need for professional and specialized workers in an emerging industrialized, scientific research-based society. English composition classes focused on training professionals to be able to write as required by their profession. Technological inventions like the typewriter only further entrenched writing as the new cultural focus of production. Writing and reading eventually became silent practices, “consumed by the eye rather than the ear” (623), even for texts that required aural consumption like plays or poetry. Voice (and other aural descriptors) became remediated as an aspect of written composition. Finally, the fallacy emerged that “writing was more sophisticated or complex than speech (Sawyer)” (629).
AURALITY AS RESISTANCE
However, aural modes of production retained its influence in countercultural narratives. After a time, writing became a means to exclude women and minorities from the dominant systems of meaning making (production). Denied access to writing, the dominant culturally meaningful mode of production, minorities especially created a counter narrative and meaning through aurality. While these communities eventually acquired written literacy, it was still very much a matter of using the master’s tools to fix the house. However, where writing became a hegemony, aurality has long existed as a means remediation and resistance to dominant discourses, giving voice to minority ideologies. Today, minorities have learned to merge both written and aural modalities into meaningful modes of production.