Siri Homlong: The Language of Textile – Textile patterns in a rhetoric perspective.
PhD, University of Uppsala, Sweden
Design is a kind of language, a form of communication, and this communication is largely based on aesthetic qualities. Buchanan (1989) talks about design as communication, and his argumentation has a rhetoric perspective. Buchanan divides design rhetoric into three elements that to some degree are all included in every design argument: logos, ethos and pathos. His classification of design rhetoric is based on traditional rhetorical terminology. The article present how subjects understood rhetoric elements in some striped textile patterns. The study is based on material from the thesis “The Language of Textiles- Description and Judgement on Textile Pattern Composition” (Homlong, 2006A)
Method
Seven printed, striped textile patterns in blue and white were presented to subjects from four different categories: Designers (n=10), Teachers of textile handicrafts (n=15), Consumers (n=13) and Children (n=32), altogether 70 individuals. All subjects were from Sweden. Teachers and designers had higher education in colour and form and experience in designing different kinds of textile products. A modified version of the Repertory Grid Method (Kelly, 1955; Shaw & McKnight, 1992) was used. The subjects were shown seven different textiles patterns, three at a time (in triads). For each triad, the subjects were asked to choose one of the textile patterns, to reject another one and give reasons for their choices. Sections from the interviews that described the informants reasoning about their visual impressions of the patterns were analysed using the computer programme Maxqda, a computer package designed to aid in structuring qualitative textual data.
Result
The subjects’ reasoning could be sorted and organized into the rhetoric categories logos, ethos and pathos: Logos: Reasoning based on categorical perception of the formal gestalt. Ethos: Reasoning based on cultural valuation of pattern character, i.e. connections to cultural experience and/or style (semiotic connections). Pathos: Reasoning based on subjective valuation of the pattern connected to emotional experiences. The descriptions of logos were sometimes connected to ethos, and as Buchanan (1989) claims, pathos seemed to be a strong rhetorical element. In all groups it was also found that the judgement of the pattern influenced on the description of it.
The children groups did not have the kind of perceptual experience needed to notice the semiotic dimension in the patterns. At least they had no verbal notions to describe it. Most adult subjects understood these signs. But with the exception of some of the 15-year-olds, the children did not connect the patterns to a specific design or cultural heritage other than the contemporary use of stripes in products in their surroundings.
The informant’s reasoning of the striped patterns in this study was based on implicit knowledge of different kinds: direct experience of physical and practical conditions, “know-how”, and cultural and emotional experiences. Their different structures of attention, based on individual implicit knowledge, directed and limited their understanding of the rhetoric elements in the textile patterns.