Writing as a Visual ArtTonfoni (linguistics, U. of Bologna, Italy) has published many books in Italian and in English, has been a visiting scholar at MIT and Harvard University, and has presented her methodolgoy in many settings. Here she describes a highly developed approach to writing that quite specifically involves drawing, painting, and visual symbols as a means of representing the structure of various kinds of writing. With these structures in mind, she suggests that students can improve, vary, and significantly expand their writing repertoire. The bibliographic history of this book is somewhat elusive: It is a paperbound edition of a work first published in Britain by Intellect Books (UK), apparently in 1993 (from the date on the author's preface). James Richardson is credited with "abridging" the volume, but the original source volume is not identified (or perhaps it was not published). Marvin Minsky, famed as a founder of artificial intelligence, provides a lengthy foreword. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
according base become beginning bike canvas carriage chapter cognitive collective communicative complete concept consider consists contains conveys create creative cube decide direction drawing effectively element example expand experience explain explanatory faces Figure final give ideas illustration important indicate individual initial intention interpret John kind language learning levels linear look lottery machine material means memory miniature move narrative obelisk objects Once organisation original painting panellists paragraph particular perspective physical planning polittico position possible presented pyramid readers reading receiver represents result rotation selected sentence shape shown in Figure shows side signs simple space specific square story structure style summary symbols textual objects things topic triangle triggered turn understand visual wanted to buy wheel word writing written you're
Popular passages
Page 13 - If what we are discussing were a point of law or of the humanities, in which neither true nor false exists, one might trust in subtlety of mind and readiness of tongue and in the greater experience of the writers, and expect him who excelled in those things to make his reasoning most plausible, and one might judge it to be the best. But in the natural sciences, whose conclusions are true and necessary and have nothing to do with human will...
Page 9 - You know Phaedrus" says Socrates (Phaedrus, 275d2ff.) "that's the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly analogous to painting. The painter's products stand before us as though they were alive, but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words; they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you the same thing forever.
Page 9 - It is the same with written words; they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever. And once a thing is put in writing, the composition, whatever it may be, drifts all over the place...
Page 8 - For my own part I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it; as I have before observed, the thought is logicalized by the effort at (written) expression.
Page 15 - That's why, when someone learns something "by rote" — that is, with no sensible connections — we say that they "don't really understand." Rich meaning-networks, however, give you many different ways to go: if you can't solve a problem one way, you can try another. True, too many indiscriminate connections will turn a mind to mush. But well-connected meaning-structures let you turn ideas around in your mind, to consider alternatives and envision things from many perspectives until you find one...
Page 9 - You know, Phaedrus, that's the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly analogous to painting. The painter's products stand before us as though they were alive: but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words: they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing for ever.
Page 15 - That's why it's almost always wrong to seek the "real meaning" of anything. A thing with just one meaning has scarcely any meaning at all. An idea with a single sense can lead you along only one track. Then, if anything goes wrong, it just gets stuck — a thought that sits there in your mind with nowhere to go. That's why, when someone learns something "by rote" — that is, with no sensible connections — we say that they "don't really understand.
Page 15 - ... any thought would be if, afterward, your mind returned to the selfsame state. But that never happens, because every time we think about a certain thing, our thoughts go off in different ways. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all the other things we know. That's why it's almost always wrong to seek the "real meaning
Bibliographic information
| Title | Writing as a Visual Art G - Reference,Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series Intellect Series in Language a Intellect series in language and writing Writing as a Visual Art, Graziella Tonfoni |
| Author | Graziella Tonfoni |
| Edition | abridged, reprint, revised |
| Publisher | Intellect Books, 2000 |
| ISBN | 1841500291, 9781841500294 |
| Length | 189 pages |
| Subjects | › › Language Arts & Disciplines / Writing / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |