Matti Peikola and Mari-Liisa Varila on the metadiscourse of graphic devices.
Our article examines how tables, diagrams and other graphic devices were made accessible to readers of Middle English texts from the late 14th to the early 16th century. We focus on metadiscourse employed by text producers to identify and describe graphic devices and to guide readers in using them. Such material is found in short descriptive text elements like titles, rubrics and headings, as well as in longer instructive items such as rules and canons, primarily in the domains of science and religion. The material context of the book also features in our analysis, as we discuss visual and spatial relationships between the graphic device and related metadiscourse on the manuscript page.
In the article, we argue that Middle English metadiscourse about graphic devices may be compared functionally to the work performed by (extended) captions in present-day data visualisations for example in science text books. The high degree of reader engagement and detailed procedural instructions sometimes present in the data suggest that graphic literacy competences of the intended vernacular readership might not always have been very high. Evaluative strategies sometimes used by text producers might indicate that some readers had to be persuaded about the efficacy of graphic devices. Scrutinising the relationship between graphic devices and metadiscourse associated with them opens up fundamental questions about the primacy of text versus image and discourse versus metadiscourse. In the framework of the EModGraL project, our article provides a helpful precursor to our examination of similar phenomena in early printed books.
Peikola Matti & Mari-Liisa Varila 2024. Presenting manuscript tables and diagrams to the Middle English reader. Journal of Historical Pragmatics. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.22004.pei.
Visual or graphic devices, such as images, diagrams, charts and tables, often operate between visual and verbal modes to convey information. In books and documents these devices may be used, for example, to illustrate and expand upon the text, to support or distract from the message conveyed by the text, or to aid in the comprehension of complex concepts which would be difficult to express through words alone. Although graphic devices may also communicate through textual elements, their main communicative tools are structure, symbolism, and cultural imagery.
Our project organises an international conference on the study of visual and graphic devices in early books, documents and textual objects in Turku, Finland, 22-24 May 2025.
Keynote speakers:
Prof. Andrew M. Riggsby (University of Texas): “The Segmentation of Roman Documents”
Prof. Wendy Scase (University of Birmingham): “Thinking with Visual Devices in a Late Medieval Gentry Household”
Dr Carla Suhr (University of Helsinki): “The Lizard and the Rat: Images in Early English Printed Texts for Popular Audiences”
We invite contributions from book studies, philology and historical linguistics, textual scholarship, literary studies, history of science, art history, and other related fields, including interdisciplinary approaches. Our main focus is on the medieval and early modern periods.
We are interested in questions such as: how were graphic devices used, framed and understood? How were innovations and conventions of data visualization transmitted across texts and languages? How did the diachronic or geographical spread of graphic devices progress in different parts of the world?
Relevant topics and themes include:
Visual and graphic devices (e.g. images, tables, and diagrams) and their design and use (as part of text/supplementing text)
Emerging practices and changing conventions: aesthetics, design, technologies
Paratext and metatext: linguistic framing and presentation of graphic devices
Visualising knowledge and information
Different audiences, readers, and literacies: lay/professional, learned/vernacular
Use of graphic devices in different domains and genres: instructional and technical writing, literature, scientific writing, popular texts, religion
Medieval and early modern manuscripts and printed books, including various physical formats (also broadsheets, pamphlets, scrolls, letters), also early books from non-European regions and languages
Theoretical and methodological approaches to visual devices: opportunities and challenges (including digital humanities approaches)
Please send an abstract of c. 300 words to VisualBookConf@utu.fi by October 15, 2024.October 31, 2024.
Early Modern Graphic Literacies (EModGraL) is a four-year research project funded by the Research Council of Finland (2021–25) and based at the Department of English, University of Turku, Finland. The project maps the use of graphic devices in early English printed books to study the development of vernacular graphic literacies and early strategies of data visualization.
For more information, email us at VisualBookConf@utu.fi.
Visual or graphic devices, such as images, diagrams, charts and tables, often operate between visual and verbal modes to convey information. In books and documents these devices may be used, for example, to illustrate and expand upon the text, to support or distract from the message conveyed by the text, or to aid in the comprehension of complex concepts which would be difficult to express through words alone. Although graphic devices may also communicate through textual elements, their main communicative tools are structure, symbolism, and cultural imagery.
The Early Modern Graphic Literacies project organises an international conference on the study of visual and graphic devices in early books, documents and textual objects in Turku, Finland, 22–24 May 2025.
Keynote speakers:
Prof. Andrew M. Riggsby (University of Texas)
Prof. Wendy Scase (University of Birmingham)
Dr Carla Suhr (University of Helsinki)
We invite contributions from book studies, philology and historical linguistics, textual scholarship, literary studies, history of science, art history, and other related fields, including interdisciplinary approaches. Our main focus is on the medieval and early modern periods.
We are interested in questions such as: How were graphic devices used, framed, and understood? How were innovations and conventions of data visualization transmitted across texts and languages? How did graphic devices spread diachronically or geographically in different parts of the world?
Relevant topics and themes include:
Visual and graphic devices (e.g. images, tables, and diagrams) and their design and use (as part of text/supplementing text)
Emerging practices and changing conventions: aesthetics, design, technologies
Paratext and metatext: linguistic framing and presentation of graphic devices
Visualising knowledge and information
Different audiences, readers, and literacies: lay/professional, learned/vernacular
Use of graphic devices in various domains and genres: instructional and technical writing, literature, scientific writing, popular texts, religion
Medieval and early modern manuscripts and printed books, including various physical formats (also broadsheets, pamphlets, scrolls, letters and other documents), also early books from non-European regions and languages
Theoretical and methodological approaches to visual devices: opportunities and challenges (including digital humanities approaches)
Please send an abstract of c. 300 words to VisualBookConf@utu.fi by October 15, 2024.
Please note that due to a scheduling clash, the conference takes place one week later than was previously announced.
For more information, please email us at VisualBookConf@utu.fi.
Best wishes,
Early Modern Graphic Literacies Project
Matti Peikola, Mari-Liisa Varila, Aino Liira & Sirkku Ruokkeinen
As an EModGraL post-doc, I have lately been working on research into the visual devices of English sixteenth-century military manuals. I am interested in the information transmission devices of these works, the arrival of different types of visual tools to the English print, and the availability of these visuals to the English readership. The material is very fruitful, and during the last few months, while working on an article on the topic, I have published a blog post and held several talks on the various side tracks the materials inspired.
The blog post, titled Renaissance diagrammatics and the English Tartaglia, was published in Ramus Virens, a medieval studies blog of University of Jyväskylä. In the blog, I explore the practices of reproduction of Tartaglia’s image-diagrams in the 1588 English translation, focusing especially on the copying of the diagrammatic sections of the diagram-images.
Speaking at the Humboldt Kolleg in Helsinki, May 15, 2024.
I also spoke in two events in the spring. In January, I participated in 1500- ja 1600-lukujen tutkimuksen päivät in Oulu, organised by the Uuden ajan tutkimuksen verkosto. My presentation, titled “Cyprian Lucar, Niccolò Tartaglia ja ihmiskeho soveltavan matematiikan visualisaatioissa” (Cyprian Lucar, Niccolò Tartaglia, and the use of the human body in visualizations of applied mathematics), focused on the use of human figure as a part of geometric objects in the English translation of Tartaglia’s Quesiti et inventioni diverse.
In March, I spoke at the Humboldt Kolleg, an event intended for the dissemination of information across disciplines organized by Alexander-von-Humboldt-Club Finnland. The presentation, titled “Graphicacy and the Military Revolution in sixteenth-century England” discussed the influence – or the lack thereof – of the military revolution on the practices of military publishing in sixteenth-century England.
🖝 Remember to keep an eye out for the call for papers for the EModGraL conference! The CfP will be out later this month!
Almost exactly two years since the first EModGraL workshop it was time for the research team and our collaborators to gather again in Turku for a second full-day workshop, which took place in the newly renovated Arcanum building (and on Zoom) on Friday 3 November. The day was full of invigorating discussions on different kinds of graphic devices and their research.
We followed the 3-session format established in the first workshop. The first session was devoted to questions related to data. We discussed the EModGraL data gathering process and our finalised typology for classifying graphic devices, recently published. The second important topic to discuss was the challenge of combining our data collected from the two databases, EEBO and ECCO, as each database provides a slightly different set of metadata with which we operate. Thirdly, as we are planning to open our research data for other researchers after the project, we discussed some of the practical, legal and ethical questions that need to be taken into account.
Workshop participants in the meeting room ‘Luoma’ in Arcanum.
The second session after lunch was reserved for discussing draft versions of two in-progress research articles. Aino Liira and Wendy Scase presented their draft of an article on metatext concerning tabular displays. Sirkku Ruokkeinen and Outi Merisalo presented their work on graphic devices and typographical practices in early modern English military manuals.
In the third session, Matti Peikola (et al.) and Mari-Liisa Varila presented on-going research, after which some time was reserved for general matters and wrapping any loose ends. In practice, these two halves of the session were somewhat intertwined and discussion remained lively until the end.
Our final, important topic to discuss was the graphic literacies conference we’re planning for 2025. More information will follow shortly!
In the article, we discuss our methodology and introduce our model for classifying graphic devices in historical materials. This classification is the foundation for our ongoing quantitative survey of the use of graphic devices in early modern books.
We also discuss previous taxonomies and models which have been presented for classifying graphic elements in various fields, ranging from geography to semiotics and education psychology, for example. We explain why none of these existing models is suitable for our EEBO and ECCO materials, and what steps we have taken to devise our own classification model.
The EModGraL classification model. Visualisation: MLV/EModGraL
In short, we divide graphic devices in three main categories: general images (G), diagrams (D), and tables (T). All categories have subcategories for certain distinctive types, such as calendars (Tc) and musical notation (Dn). Additionally, any unclear items (unclear due to reasons of damage, or because they combine characteristics of more than one category, for example) are placed in a separate category (U). Tagging unclear items separately allows us to exclude them from the quantitative analyses while keeping them easily accessible for further examination in qualitative research articles.
Ruokkeinen, Sirkku, Aino Liira, Mari-Liisa Varila, Otso Norblad, and Matti Peikola. “Developing a Classification Model for Graphic Devices in Early Printed Books.” Studia Neophilologica, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393274.2023.2265985.
A personal anecdote from a freshly graduated English major | Text: Elina Parkkila | Featured image: Debby Hudson (via Unsplash)
A well over a year ago, I was in the stage of my studies where it was time to prepare for the MA thesis. I was facing the same questions many students have at that moment. What is a good topic? Should my topic reflect on my future plans? What kind of topics interest me? Fortunately, I was lucky to stumble upon a topic that served to feed my two main interests in life, the English language and history.
Prior to my thesis seminar, I did a course called Late Modern English project. As the name suggests, it introduces students to the period of late modern English from the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century. I found the overall topic of the course interesting, but one portion of the material piqued my interest the most, grammar-writing. I decided to focus on this new topic I “discovered” for the essay-portion of the course. For my essay-writing, I picked a few 18th–century grammars and compared them to each other to see how they managed to cater to their audiences. In the essay, I made a small observation about how some of the grammars used what I referred to as “graphical content” and some did not. I constituted graphical content to be any form of break from traditional style of writing, which was supposed to be viewed visually through graphicacy rather than reading it as a text. Some examples of graphical content in 18th–century grammars were word lists, exercises, and atypical spacing of text. This observation was a blessing in disguise, as my course professor pointed out how this could be a possible thesis topic. I will not turn down a good suggestion, so I decided to venture further into the topic.
Graphical content in 18th-century grammars
For my MA thesis, I decided to analyse how different 18th–century grammars used graphical content for teaching grammar. I cross-referenced Eighteenth Century Grammars Online (ECEG) and Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO) for grammars that were written both by women and men. I was interested to see how the gender of the grammarian as well as the perceived target audience could influence the results. It led me down an interesting path to be educated on the overall history of grammar-writing in England, the history of grammarians, and the development of graphicacy.
Even to this day, almost a year after writing my thesis, I find the topic of grammar-writing highly intriguing. It was interesting to see how the societal changes and attitudes about people, the world, and languages were able to be seen in the grammars. As a woman, I was very intrigued by the research that had been done on female grammarians, who were slightly different in their approaches to teaching grammar compared to their male counterparts.
However, my analysis also proved my views to be slightly biased towards the growing demographic of female grammarians who mostly targeted their work towards women and children. Male grammarians, on the other hand, targeted their work more towards men and children. Before the proper analysis on my chosen grammars, I assumed that male grammarians were less inclined to use graphical content as a teaching tool, as their most common target demographic (men) were more likely to have received formal education on grammar. In a sense, I thought that the more educated the target demographic was, the less graphical content was used by grammarians. I proved myself wrong. Grammars targeted towards women contained the most graphical content, while grammars targeted towards men contained the second most amount of graphical content.
MA thesis writing is a multifaceted learning experience
As I am thinking about this learning experience a year later, it shows that I had a narrow view on who were a part of the new broader audiences for English grammars in the growing society of England. Sometimes checking your biases and learning from being wrong can open yourself up to an interesting analysis on how grammar-writing and teaching was viewed for different demographics.
Overall, I see the 18th–century grammars and grammar-writing as an interesting target of research, as the shifting economy and the rise of the working class created new avenues for writing and learning grammar. It makes one really think about the future of grammar-writing research, what kind of signs of our society today can be found in modern grammars?
The author is a former English student at the University of Turku. The history of the English language and history in general were the author’s key interests while studying. The author is currently working in the museum field.
Parkkila, Elina. 2022. The Beginning of Visual Grammar Learning: Analysis on the Use of Graphical Content in 18th Century English Grammars. Master’s Thesis, Department of English, University of Turku. Available online: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022091358943
September marked the halfway point of our four-year project. Let’s look back into the past academic year and see what we have been up to.
Thousands of graphic devices
We completed the sampling of the EEBO data, i.e. the years 1473-1500, 1521, 1546, 1571, 1621, 1646, 1671, and 1696. From these years, we have analysed all books printed in English that are contained in EEBO. Altogether this amounts to ca. 4,300 books and 510,000 pages! The overall number of graphic devices we have found and classified in this material is ca. 25,300. We are eager to do further statistical analyses and publish the results.
Out of curiosity, it could be mentioned that the highest number of graphic devices encountered in a single book is 1,353 devices! The book in question is Samuel Jeake’s arithmetical work Logistikēlogia, or Arithmetick surveighed and reviewed published in 16961 (the full title is monstrous enough to be hidden in a footnote). As you can probably guess, this book mostly contains arithmetical notation.
Publications…
Our team has been busy working on publishing the research results. In February, we announced the publication of Matti Peikola and Mari-Liisa Varila’s article on late medieval English calendars; in the meanwhile, another article by them, discussing reader instruction in Middle English tables and diagrams, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Historical Pragmatics. Our team-authored article on the EModGraL classification model has likewise been accepted and is forthcoming in Studia Neophilologica. The edited collection Graphic Practices and Literacies in the History of English (with chapters written by EModGraL team members as well as collaborators) is in progress and will be submitted to the publisher later this autumn.
Our team members are currently working on articles addressing topics such as captions (Varila), braces (Peikola & team), graphic devices and paratextual matter (Sirkku Ruokkeinen & Outi Merisalo), and metatext associated with tabular devices (Aino Liira & Wendy Scase), to name a few.
…and presentations
The ICEHL-22 conference took place in the Diamond building in Sheffield.
The EModGraL team members have attended various conferences and other events to present and discuss their research. In January 2022, Aino Liira attended the first national Research Symposium for Early Career Historians on the History of Science and Learning, where she presented the results of a study co-authored with Matti Peikola and Marjo Kaartinen on ‘visual chronologies’ in Early Modern English books (to be published in the Brepols volume). Later in February, Aino and Matti also discussed this topic in a Studia Generalia lecture hosted by TUCEMEMS. In July, the EModGraL team (along with some other Turku colleagues) travelled to Sheffield, UK, for the 22nd International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. Of course, our researchers have also participated in smaller but still important events and meetings throughout the academic year. For instance, Aino and Sirkku presented their research at the Research Day of the School of Languages and Translation at the University of Turku in the spring.
Research visits, collaboration and teaching
Last autumn we were happy to host James Titterington’s two-month research visit to Turku, funded by the Turku University Foundation and the EModGraL project. The collaboration on a research article continues after his visit. Around the same time as James arrived, Aino started her three-month visit to London and the University of Birmingham.
In the spring term, we offered a team-taught course ‘Early Modern Multimodal Practices’, available for students at the Department of English and other language departments. We had a small group of students but all of them were highly enthusiastic. The course included classes on early modern printing, the use of online databases such as EEBO and ECCO, paratexts, and multimodality in different domains and genres, such as science, religion and handbooks. We also paid visits to the University of Turku Library and the Donner Institute Library where our students had the chance to see and handle rare books. Our students enjoyed these practical, hands-on sessions tremendously, and they were a rare treat for the teachers as well!
Onwards to the second half of the project
At the moment we’re looking forward to a second workshop with our collaborators, to be held on Friday 3 November. Based on our good experiences from the first workshop, we’re expecting a day full of invigorating discussions. Time will be reserved for discussing article drafts and presenting on-going research as well as discussing the current stage of our quantitative survey of graphic devices.
Plans are also underway for an international conference on the themes of graphic devices and graphic literacies in 2025 – stay tuned for more information!
Text: Aino Liira & Matti Peikola | Photos: Aino Liira
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1. Jeake, Samuel. Logistikēlogia, or Arithmetick surveighed and reviewed: in four books. Viz. 1 book 1 part intergers. 2 part fractions. 2 book 1 part geodæticals. 2. part figurals 3 book 1 part decimals. 2 part astronomicals. 3 part logarithmes. 4 part coffics. 5 part surds. 6 part species. 4 book 1 part ratios. 2 part proportions disjunct. 3 part proportions continued. 4 part Æquations. Wherein the nature of numbers absolutely abstract, generally and specially contract, with their simple and comparative elements, are plainly declared, and fully handled. Every part furnished with such necessary rules, cases, theoremes, questions, observations, and varieties of operation, as principally to them belong, ... and delivered in so familiar a style, as may befit mean capacities, and if practically applied, become more than ordinarily useful both in mechanical and mathematica arts and sciences. By Samuel Jeake senior. London: printed by J.R. and J.D. for Walter Kettilby, 1696. Wing J499.
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