Describing verbal graphic language: This paper describes part of continuing research

practicalities and implications which is concerned with description of visual

organization of verbal graphic language. There are
no recognized descriptive techniques for studying
Susan Walker spatial and graphic articulation of VGL, and the
University of Reading method proposed here is suggested as a prerequisite
for such work. The VGL of lay people is considered
to be an especially important area of investigation
in order to learn more about how language is used
and the factors which affect this. Λ study of letter-
writing has therefore been used as a starting point
for working out a method.

1 Introduction written notices. In terms of analytical procedure, it

Susan Walker is Lecturer in
Typography & Graphic
Communication (part-time) at
the University of Reading, and
a typographer. Her major
research interests are the
visual organization of verbal
graphic language and the
design of educational texts. A
version of this paper was
presented at a symposium
'Designing usable text'
organized by the Open
University in 1980.
Author's address:
Department of Typography &
Graphic Communication,
University of Reading,
Whiteknights,
Reading RG6 2AU
© Susan Walker 1982
0142-5471/82/0200102-08$2.00
A study of verbal graphic language can be made
from many different standpoints. An inscription
such as that above the Arch of Septimius Severus
in Rome can be studied as a source of information
about Roman history; as a fine example of Roman
Imperial authority; and as an interesting piece of
copy-fitting by the stone-mason. Similarly, a page
from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) can be des­
cribed bibliographically, studied for its typeface,
or considered as a landmark in book illustration
and as a literary curiosity. The specifically graphic
aspects of written language can be shunted into
specific study areas such as palaeography, epi­
graphy, descriptive bibliography, typography and
letter design. But the method of analysis that is
described here attempts to break down the
divisions between conventional study areas by
concentrating on the organization and relationship
of typographic units (letters, words, lines,
chapters, pages etc). Thus, comparisons and rela­
tionships can be explored between what are
usually considered to be different kinds of written
language such as inscriptional lettering, printed
textbooks, informal correspondence and hand­
makes no difference whether verbal graphic
language (VGL) is originated as print, teletext,
typescript or handwriting—the structural compo­
nents and problems of description are similar.
We need such a method of analysis because it is a
prerequisite for the description of the visual
organization of VGL. Holistic description of
(primarily) oral language has been the concern of
linguistic scientists for years. One particular area
of study—stylistics—attempts to account for the
use of certain linguistic characteristics by looking
at social and cultural factors. The linguistic
stylistician, for example, decides upon a particular
kind of language to study, analyses it, and describes it
both in terms of its linguistic structure and with
reference to its social context, thus building up
information about the way language is used. This
kind of approach is a useful one to apply to the
study of verbal graphic language. In the past it has
been studied historically and technically, but there
is a wealth of theoretical knowledge that has not yet
been fully tapped by the typographic researcher.
Thanks to the work of linguistic scientists we now
know a lot about the language of conversation, of

102

Information Design Journal 3:2 (1982), 102–109. DOI 10.1075/idj.3.2.03wal

ISSN 0142–5471 / Ε-ISSN 1569–979X © John Benjamins Publishing Company
radio commentary, or religion and can isolate the
linguistic features which characterize each one.
We do not have similar knowledge of the way that
space, and punctuation, underlining, capital letters
etc are used by people in their writing and typing
and whether or not usage relates to social context.
This is the area of work I have been engaged in
over the past few years. Like linguistic scientists I
have taken 'slices' of VGL, analysed them, des­
cribed them and tried to work out why certain
conventions are used in certain situations. Rather
than the work of professional designers, I chose to
concentrate on the VGL of lay people. Profes­
sionals and non-professionals work under different
circumstances and constraints and it is the work of
the non-professional which is particularly interest­
ing. First, lay people do not generally have access
to technically advanced composition systems with
bolds, small capitals, range of typefaces etc—most
of their VGL is either handwritten or typed. Lay
producers are often originators as well; that is to
say, their VGL is often a direct representation of
their thoughts. It is not 'transformed' by someone
else into another typographic form. Lay people
rely heavily on intuition, often school instilled, for
the graphic configurations and conventions they
use. If lay people refer to manuals for guidance on
visual organization, they are unlikely to be the
same as those used by practising typographers.
These differences between professionals and non­
professionals raise a number of questions. Given
that lay people do not have recourse to technically
advanced composition systems, how do they
organize VGL which is handwritten or typed?
Why do they use a particular convention? What
conventions for visual organization are taught at
school, and on what do teachers base their ideas?
What prescriptions might lay people refer to and
how do these differ from those used by profes­
sionals? These are some of the questions I am
concerned with in my work. What is presented
here is the method I have devised for analysing
VGL before describing it.
2 The method
The problem from which the method of analysis
derived was that of isolating and describing the
characteristic typographic features of informal and
formal correspondence to discover whether certain
graphic and spatial conventions were present in
both formal and informal VGL. There appeared to
be no ready-made method for such an analysis:
where might there be some precedent? What, for
instance, happens in linguistic science where
analysis and description of spoken language is
well-established?
2.1 Influence from linguistic science
One area of linguistics which presented some use­
ful ideas is stylistics which according to Crystal
and Davy (1969) aims:
'. . . to analyse language habits with the main purpose of
identifying, from the general mass of linguistic features
common to English as used on every conceivable
occasion, those features which are restricted to certain
kinds of social context; to explain where possible why
such features have been used as opposed to their alterna­
tives; and to classify these features in categories based
upon a view of their function in the social context.'
(plO).
Important methodological points to emerge from
Crystal and Davy's work were, first, that before a
stylistic analysis can be attempted a linguistic
analysis must be made, and, second, that this
analysis must be made in as systematic and objective
a way as possible. For their linguistic analysis
Crystal and Davy break the language down into
structural components, or levels: such a
breakdown might consist of phonetics, phonology,
grammar, vocabulary and semantics. VGL can, of
course, be described in terms of its linguistic
organization in which case many of the above
103
 levels would be considered, but phonetics and levels features
phonology would need to be replaced by spatial word spacing
graphetics and graphology 1 . If one is describing line increment
the visual organization of VGL then such levels margins
might be: treatment of paragraphs
etc
• physical make-up (the means of production,
graphic underlining
format, substrate)
initial capitalization in book titles
• spatial articulation
punctuation
• graphic articulation
etc
Typographic features of the text being studied can physical typewriter composition
then be attributed to these three levels. Such an paper
analysis forms the beginnings of an organizational etc
framework for considering the structural
organization of a piece of text in relation to its Some kinds of VGL are too complex to be accom­
message. modated by such an approach and contain elements
The next step is to take a representative sample (such as the address of the sender in corre­
of the material being studied and relate its typo­ spondence, or boxed parts on a form) each of which
graphic characteristics to the 'levels' listed above. might require a full typographic description. In
In order to carry out this preliminary analysis cases such as these the simplest procedure to follow
effectively one must have a clear idea of the kind of is to list the relevant typographic features of each
information that is wanted from the final analysis. element within the main list.
It would, for example, be irrelevant to note down
all the observable features of the letterforms if the Example: skeletal framework used to describe correspondence
overall objective was to comment on the spatial
Section 1 of the checklist provides for an analysis of the
arrangement of the page.
letter as a whole in terms of:
In a piece of straightforward text it is a relatively
• spatial features
simple task to attribute features relevant to the
• graphic features
analysis to one of the three levels: spatial, graphic,
• physical features
physical. Thus, word spacing, line increment,
margins and indented paragraphs would be noted Section 2 of the checklist allows for the components of
under spatial articulation; underlining, use of the letter to be analysed, for example:
capital letters and punctuation under graphic • address: spatial features
articulation; and typewriter composition and paper graphic features
under physical make-up: • subscription: spatial features
1. 'graphetics' — study of the graphic features
characteristics and potential
utility of written and printed
shapes (Crystal and Davy 1969 2.2 Influences from systematics
PP16-17)
A further influence of the methodology comes not
'graphology' —study of a from linguistics, but from taxonomy, '. . . that part
language's writing system, or
orthography as seen in the of systematics which deals with the study of classifi­
various kinds of handwriting cation, including its bases, principles, procedures
and typography (Crystal and
Davy 1969 ρ 18). and rules' (Heywood, 1967). Taxonomy enables

104
items to be grouped according to their degree of
similarity determined by a list containing all the
variable features of the items. It is a system often
used by botanists for the classification of plants. Of
particular relevance to the present work is taxono-
metrics, or numerical taxonomy which makes use of
computers to carry out basic counting and statistical
activities.
Some means had to be found to describe the state
of each feature, such as whether the line increment
is wide, narrow or negligible; or where initial
capitals fall in the book title. Each feature is
therefore assigned a number of states from which
the person carrying out the analysis has to make a
choice.
Each feature in the checklist is broken down into
states:
Margins 1 negligible
2 narrow
3 medium
4 wide
5 uneven
Numbers in the text 1 words
2 figures
3 inconsistent
The compiler of the checklist must therefore
anticipate the kind of variation likely to occur in a
set of items and in some cases make relative, subjec­
tive judgements although by including a category of
state called 'other' any unforeseen variations can
be catered for.
The checklist of features and states will differ
according to the kind of VGL being studied. The
features and states are numbered so that they can
be recorded for each item in the form of a matrix:
abcdefghi j
7 5565555555
2 6556566655
3 1 1 11 111 11 1
4 4434343433
The row of letters along the top refers to the items in
the sample, and the numbers in the first column on
the left refer to the features in the checklist; the
numbers in the body of the matrix reveal the states
of the features in the sample.
From such a grid answers to the following
questions can be obtained by counting the number
of times each state appears in each feature:
• How many times does a particular state occur in
relation to a particular feature? (Eg how many
letters in the sample have paragraphs that are
indented?)
• Which items show this particular state? (Which
letters have indented paragraphs?)
• Which is the most/least common state of a parti­
cular feature?
Once the data have been assembled in this way
there are two options: if the sample is small enough
then the most/least common states of each feature
throughout the sample can be counted in the
normal way, but if the sample is too large for this
the figures can be fed into a computer for the
analysis. It is in this last area that there is
considerable potential for this method of analysis. It
can be illustrated more fully with reference to a
specific example
2.3 Λ practical example of the method
The following experiment (called the ANITA
analysis) was designed to find out the extent of the
typographic variation which occurs when a number
of people write the same text. The text—an informal
letter—was specially composed to include many
features which allow for variations in graphic
treatment such as book titles, abbreviation and
direct speech. The kind of information specifically
required was:
(a) the graphic and spatial treatment of specific
components of the letter such as the address. Is it
105
 indented or ranged left? Is it placed at the top right
or top left of the paper? Are there inverted commas
around the name of the house? If so, are they single
or double? Are there commas at the end of each
line?
(b) the treatment of specific features within the body
of the letter, such as numbers, times of day, titles of
books, direct speech.
(c) the spatial organization of the letter as a whole.
Where possible each feature was represented twice
in the text to see if the writers were consistent in
their practice.
Figure A
transcript of passage for dictation
Yew Trees
I
?2 High Lane
Colchester
Tuesday 17 November 1977
W a r Anita
Thank you so much for your letter. I really enjoyed getting all the news.
Last Saturday we all went down to Langley to visit Mr &· Mrs Brown. We left
at six o'clock and arrived nice and early at half past nine. We did a bit
of shopping first. The boys insisted on going into W.H. Smith's and they came
out with Agatha Christie's The seven dials mystery and the Daily Mail.
Chri8topher is really into thrillers these days; last week he was reading
The mystery of the scarlet boots. Joe thinks that walking round with a newspaper
is really grown up.
The Browns are the same as ever. As soon as we got there Mrs B. said, 'Come
and see the latest arrivals'. We went into the kitchen and sitting in front
of the stove were four puppies. This means they now have seven dogs, not
I to mention two cats, three hamsters and thirteen goldfish.
We had a delicious lunch - huge helpingn of home-grown vegetables and superb
meat piee. Half way through Joe said very loudly, 'Mum, why don't we get
2. Single quotes around one this much at home?' I felt awful. After lunch we walked in the hills, the
bit of direct speech and double weather was bright and windy. We left Langley at five o'clock and were home
quotes around the other, or as by eight. te had a lovely time. I'll write a longer letter next time.
was more common, double
quotes around one bit of direct lots of love
speech and no marks at all
around the other.
3. See Figure  for explanation
of keywords.
106
The letter used in the dictation, and correspond­
ing checklist is illustrated in Figures ,  and C.
The letter was dictated on to a tape recorder by a
linguist used to reading aloud for phonetic tran­
scription. The tape was then played to 150 school
pupils aged 13 and 14 from the Reading area.
Three scripts are illustrated (Figures D, E, F). The
results were analysed according to the checklist
and fed into the computer. An existing computer
package—the Statistical Package for Social
Scientists—was used for the main analysis. The
results of the SPSS analysis are printed out in the
form of histograms which give the percentage
frequency of each state in each feature. The table
below shows the percentage frequency of ways of
treating direct speech.
single quotes 2%
double quotes 62%
inconsistent2 24%
no distinguishing
marks 12%
|
The SPSS enables a study to be made of the
number of times each state occurs in any one
feature in the checklist. The visual organization of
some features, however, can sometimes be depen­
I dent upon that of another, and the straightforward
I
analysis described above does not allow such com­
parisons to be made easily. If one thinks about
features concerned with distinction (eg book titles,
newspaper titles, direct speech) it is of interest to
know whether writers have been consistent in their
use of distinguishing marks (single or double
quotation marks, or underlining for example). Part
of the SPSS enables such comparisons, or cross-
tabulations, of two or more features to be made.
Examples of cross-tabulations from the ANITA analysis
A. 2-dimensional
1. Book 1 by Newsp 13—Is initial capitalization consistent
in both book and newspaper titles?
2. Addr 1 by Addr 2—Does the form of the address and
the position of the address relate in accordance with pre­ A comprehensive description of the material in
scriptions laid down in typing textbooks? the sample can be made by considering this kind of
3. Book 2 by Newsp 2—Is the method for distinguishing numerical information. By way of example, the six
titles used for both book titles and newspaper titles? features concerned with distinction and quotation
are discussed. The six features are:
4. Book 2 by Quotes—Does the treatment of book titles
accord with the treatment of direct speech? • the name of a house
B. Multi-dimensional • book titles (initial capitalization)
1. Addr 1 by Addr 2 by Concl by Paras—If the address of • book titles (distinction from the rest of the text)
the sender is indented and positioned in the top right-
hand corner of the paper, are the conclusions and starts • newspaper titles (initial capitalization)
of paragraphs indented also? • newspaper titles (distinction from the rest of the
2. Book 2 by Quotes by Newsp 2 by House—-Is the same
text)
distinguishing device used for all these features? • quotation marks around direct speech

Figure  Figure 

Checklist for analysis of 'Dear At;ITA' newsD 2 11 the Daily Nail 1 un.er'.me
2 ~ingle quotes

3 aouble auote4single or double quotes and underline

for
I 6 no differentiation
I 7 unclear

2 "Yew Trees" I quotes 12 Quotation marks round direct speech 1 single

3 'Yew Trees' J ? double
3 inconsistent
I 4 other
street 2 72 High Lane 1 72 l-.igh Lane
5 none
2 72, High Lane I
3 other
I numbers 13 Numbers 1 figures
date 3 Date 1 Tuesday 17th November 1977 I I 2 words
2 17.11.77 3 inconsistent
3 "uesday 17 November 1977
I 4 abbreviated Tuesday or November with either 3 or 4 I paras 14 Parapraphs in main body of the letter 1 none
2 indented
3 indented and additional
3 no evidence
4 space only
name 2 5 for ί.· Mrs 1 full points 5 extended to the left
2 no full points 6 new line
3 not abbreviated 7 other

addr 1 15 Form of address 1 indented

name 3 6 Mr & Mrs 1 superiors
2 single line
2 no superiors
J 3 ranged left
time 7 Time 1 6 o'clock I 4 other
2 six o'clock
I addr 2 16 Position of address 1 top right
I 2 top left
I 3 centred
book 1 8 The seven dials mystery 1 initial capital each word 4 other
2 initial capital 'important' words
3 initial capital first word only I
4 unclear margins 17 Margins 1 negligible
5 no initial capitals
6 inconsistent
7 all capitals

book 2 9 -he seven dials mystery 1 underline 6 ruled

I 3 double quotes
I concl 18 Arrangement of conclusion 1 centred
4 single or double quotes and
underline I 2 stage-ered
5 other I 3 ranged left
I 4 other

I paper 19 Paper 1 lined

J 2 unlined
newsp 1 10 the Daily , ail 1 initial capital each word
2 initial carital first word
I sex 2C Sex 1 male
3 no initial crritals
4 all caritals I 2 female
I 3 not given

107
 The following points were the main ones to
emerge from the analysis of these six features:
1. The majority of the pupils in the sample made
no graphic differentiation between the name of the
house and the other lines of the address. In the few
cases where distinction was made, double
quotation marks were the most common.
2. Where initial capitalization was used in book
titles, the most common practice was to capitalize
only the first letter of important words (for
example, The Mystery of the Scarlet Boots)
Figure D
108
3. Quotation marks (more commonly double than
single) were used around book titles, though the
most common occurrence across the whole sample
was that no differentiation was made at all between
book titles and the rest of the text.
4. More newspaper titles than book titles were not
differentiated graphically, either by single or
double quotes or by underlining, which suggests
that subjects perceived some difference in meaning
or status between the two.
5. Double quotation marks are more frequently
Figure E
used around direct speech than single quotation
marks, though in about a quarter of the letters in
the sample the treatment of direct speech is
inconsistent (ie in the same letter speech is
enclosed in double quotation marks on one occa­
sion and given no distinction on another).
Figure F
One of the most interesting conclusions that can
be drawn from this is that there is a fairly clear set
of conventions in these letters for indicating
quoted matter and distinguishing particular words
in the text. These conventions are different from
those adopted in similar situations in VGL which
might be typed or typeset. Double quotation
marks appear to be the convention most widely
adopted for distinction and quotation in the
ANITA analysis whereas most recent printers'
style manuals and typing textbooks recommend
single before double inverted commas and suggest
the use of italic and underlining for some kinds of
distinction and quotation. One method of
distinction which occurs very rarely in the ANITA
sample is underlining. This is perhaps surprising
because it is one of the easiest and most effective
ways of articulating handwritten language.
3 Conclusion
Such information might appear rather basic and
obvious but, as was argued earlier, typography
lacks a background of theoretical knowledge. The
method of analysis that has just been described has
important implications in this context because it
provides a means by which VGL can be analysed
and studied. It is hoped that this will contribute to
our understanding of devices used to organize
VGL visually. Seen in this way, typography
becomes analogous to linguistic science where
analytical and descriptive techniques are well-
established.
Crystal D, Davy D 1969
Investigating English style
Longman, London
Hey wood VH 1967
Plant taxonomy
London
109