Theorizing Topoi and Commonplaces

Many scholars have noted that theories of linear textuality are not the only ways of explaining texts that are written in new media and nonlinear formats. New media texts that foreground their material elements and design require different theories in order to explain how audiences make meaning out of their complex parts. In literary hypertext theory, Aarseth (1994) investigated nonlinearity itself as a type of rhetorical figure (or device) to theorize how meanings are negotiated between readers, designers, and hypertexts. He defined several categories of rhetorical devices that are used to understand how readers negotiate hypertexts including forking and linking/jumping (Aarseth, 1994: 80). Aarseth’s rhetoric is a type of textual anthropology whereby a critic observes the making of meaning through the process of interacting with a text. As such, Aarseth’s rhetorical figures serve as commonplaces, or ways of explaining readers’ processes of meaning-making while interacting with texts. In this section, we expand on Aarseth’s use of rhetorical figures to show how topoi and commonplaces can help readers understand new media texts from both a readerly and designerly perspective (see Ball, 2006, for an expansion on how we are using these terms).
           
The rhetorical notion of topoi should help us frame a discussion of terminology and design concepts associated with new media texts. George Kennedy explains that "Topos" literally means "place," which is, metaphorically, the location or space in an art where a speaker can look for 'available means of persuasion' (Kennedy, 1991: 45). In addition, Richard Lanham explains: 'The topics were for Aristotle, as they have been for rhetoricians since, both the stuff of which arguments are made and the form of those arguments' (Lanham, 1991: 152). He goes on to list at least 28 common topics from 'play[ing] upon various uses of a word,' to 'mak[ing] people believe an improbability by pointing to an even greater one that is yet true' (Lanham, 1991: 167-168). Because topoi represent both the material and form of an argument, we think they are particularly helpful in identifying the shifting argumentative landscape of new media argument. In fact, Aristotle himself used topoi and element almost interchangeably: 'I call the same thing "element" and "topic"; for an element or a topic is a heading under which many enthymemes fall' (Aristotle, qtd. by Kennedy, 1991: 214).

Therefore, we define topoi as the writerly/designerly strategies for meaning making or persuasion. Designers use topoi much like computer users use menu items or objects to orient readers to the computer. Designers of new media texts use topoi to orient readers to their texts. Topoi function much like Aristotle’s rhetoric did: they constitute the available (material) means of persuasion in any given circumstance. For example, for a student interested in making an argument in one of our computer labs, she would have the following topoi available to her: various software packages to help her manipulate graphics and images, and to edit frames of video; audio manipulation and recording devices; stock video and copyright-free images; various sound files and soundtrack objects, etc.

Commonplaces, on the other hand, are constituted by the readerly strategies for making meaning from a particular text and communicating that meaning to others. Commonplaces are points where readers of a text can come together and negotiate agreement among their readings, places where a reader can interpret what a text means based on its elements and where other readers can agree with that "common" reading. This notion of commonplaces would not be foreign to literary studies students, but commonplaces can now be found in electronic discussion boards attached to viral videos on the internet, where people can gather around a text and discuss its meaning or value within their particular communities.           

Contemporary scholars of rhetoric often conflate topoi with the rhetorical term "commonplaces" in order to stress both terms' place within the rhetorical trope of invention (as opposed to arrangement or delivery). Such a conflation also emphasizes the shared and universal nature of both concepts as being available to all, and quite often agreed upon, by prominent members of a particular community. In Writing in the Margins, David Bartholomae defines commonplace as 'a culturally or institutionally authorized concept or statement that carries with it its own necessary elaboration. We all use commonplaces to orient ourselves in the world; they provide points of reference and a set of "prearticulated" explanations that are readily available to organize and interpret experience' (Bartholomae, 1985: 63). This definition of commonplace is supported in Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student by Edward Corbett and Robert Connors (1999, see pages 84-130) and in Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, by Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee (2004, see pages 95-132), both prominent textbooks for teaching ancient rhetoric in contemporary universities.

Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca discuss topoi and commonplaces together in their New Rhetoric. Combining both concepts under the term 'loci communes,' they establish that 'as used by classical writers, loci are headings under which arguments may be classified. They are associated with a concern to help a speaker's inventive efforts and involved the grouping of relevant material, so that it can be easily found again when required' (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969: 83). Further, they argue: 'our commonplaces are really merely applications of "commonplaces" in the Aristotelian sense of the term to particular subjects. But because the application is made to a frequently treated subject, developed in a certain order, with expected connections between the loci, we notice only its banality and fail to appreciate its argumentative value' (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969: 84). To avoid this and because we think that commonplaces hold an important place in explaining how readers make sense of new media theory, we want to utilize Bartholomae's connotation of commonplace as a type of experience which orients a reader by virtue of shared explanation (ideology) and 'prearticulated' experience (common sense).[1]

In sum, for us, topoi signify the material and form that an argument takes in new media texts, while commonplaces signify the orienting experiences or modalities which serve to anchor or reference a reader within the often disorienting experience of navigating and making meaning from a new media text. In the examples that follow, we will demonstrate how both operate within some student new media compositions.

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[1] Here we would like to acknowledge Rebecca Moore Howard whose post to her class weblog, 'history bump,' titled 'topics (topoi) and commonplaces' was enormously helpful in summarizing relevant sources and conceptual differences between the two terms.

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