The visual conventions of a genre is synonymous to our language and the way we communicate. When we speak, our brains do work that we’re not aware of. For example, in linguistics, there are rules for creating words and we don’t know these rules, yet we just intuitively know when to conjugate and when to use fricatives. And the interesting thing is that no one taught us any of these things. Fricatives are the sound of a consonant made by our mouths pushing air through a narrow tunnel or opening. We wouldn’t be able to make the “f” or “th” sound without fricatives and many of us could live life without knowing this, yet we still use the above two consonants pretty much every time we speak.
Here’s a neat little article from mentalfloss that points to some more rules that we don’t realize that we know: http://mentalfloss.com/article/85935/4-more-unofficial-rules-native-english-speakers-dont-realize-they-know
In the same way, I feel that the way that visual arrangements do some of the work of a genre is another one of those tacit understandings we have. No one had to teach us this; we just sort of learn by living. But once we start actively learning and becoming aware of the work that visually-informative writing does, then everything starts to get really confusing. What’s with that?!? Our brains know more than we are aware of and sometimes our brains use the knowledge unbeknownst to us and we may spend decades of our lives not knowing that we know more than we actually do.
In another sense, kind of related to this, is a question that Wysocki poses. She asks whether our experience of a page or screen would change if the text were a different size/shape/color or texture. I think in this situation, we may not know exactly how we will react to something without seeing it in reality. For me, I find it extremely difficult to imagine something if I can’t physically see the change, but Wysocki states that our brains start working harder when we start imagining things and our visual acuity becomes more clear.
For me, I think it would be interesting to see visual conventions used in a genre that’s not meant to be for that genre. How cool would it be to see a horror story with bright-colored drawings! Would it change the purpose of the text? Would a horror book even be known as a horror book in this case? I can infer that people would probably think it was a joke and not take it seriously, so that just points out how powerful visuals can be. I don’t think anyone would actually read a horror novel with child-like drawings in them. So a question I pose for myself is what kind of an attention should a text/visual attract? I think to answer that, I would need to know which is more important– the text or the visual? And, I would argue that both text/visual should have equal importance.
I slack, you slack 
Hey!
I had similar feelings about this reading. It is pretty cool to actually talk about the things in rhetoric that we just seem to automatically understand but have no concept as to how we learned it but just through experience. I think that goes for a lot of education as well, we have a basic understanding of some aspects of life but only through experience. Experience can be biased, though, too, and that is where people get into trouble. That is why I really liked your idea of mixing expectations and genres. Like bright colors with horror stories. I think that can accomplish some pretty cool things! Especially if the goal is to make viewer/readers uncomfortable, mixing habits of various genres can definitely produce an “off” feeling. The neat thing is that the viewer or reader may not even immediately understand why they feel off when the mixing of genres is done in a subtle manner. Some pretty cool things can be done! Nice post!
Kelsey
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Hi Wangmo!
I really like how you brought linguistics into this! It’s super interesting how so much goes on in the way we talk that we are completely unaware of. I guess we subconsciously speak in a way that sounds right, just like we subconsciously
have a feel for what looks good. I wonder then, if this is part of the idea of intertextuality. We learn to speak from listening to people around us, so what we think sounds right is based on what we have heard others say. Maybe then, our perception of looks good and what doesn’t is based off of texts we encountered before. I really like the question you pose in the last paragraph. I’m interested too, in what happens when visual conventions are challenged in a particular genre. I wonder, if someone wrote something that has all the characteristics of a certain genre (apart form visual) and then made it so visually different from other works in that genre, if the work would be considered a member of the genre.
Good thoughts!
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Hi, Wangmo!
I love how you opened this post- some of the things we do are so innate and hard-wired into our entire sense of being it would be impossible to even think about them. I am a Spanish speaker as well (not my first language, I wish, but one I have spoken my whole life!) but these same observations cross language barriers, too- I am taking some formal Spanish classes here on campus and it fascinates me to see the concepts that are hard-wired into my brain after a couple decades using them be taught at a base level. To be honest, it’s almost terrifying because I fear I use them wrong or at least outside the expected context, and OFTEN! And yet part of that is because of each of our own writing and speaking styles is developing, and seriously impacted by outside influences. It’s just like you said with horror movies being traditionally dark, spooky, etc- it is because of those unconscious stimuli that we have learned to associate “dark, scary” with horror movies. Those subliminal pieces fascinate me and I could drone forever but I will save that for another time, ha!
I also wanted to give you an answer for the question you posed, from my perspective at least- I think that, at this point, knowing your audience is the most important piece (thinking back to the Wetlands visual in Bernhardt’s article) and that is how visuals become so successful. Target the correct audience with the correct material and your visual/text combo will be remembered. Or at least, thats what we hope, right?
Thank you!
-Donita
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