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Rhetorical Use of Clothing

Annotated Bibliography:

Clothing (Rhetorically)

Christian Smith

ENC 1102

Professor Awesome

May 29, 2023

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Rhetorical Use of Clothing

Annotated Bibliography:

Clothing (Rhetorically)

Many people don’t think about what they wear. Someone could throw on any clothes

without batting an eye. But clothing is a form of communication among people. Downs (2017)

argues that rhetoric is “[An] operating system for human interaction and meaning making” (pg.

460). Going by his definition, clothing is a notable example of this. Someone could dress up,

wearing a collared shirt and khaki slacks for a business meeting to convey that they are a

professional person. In another example, someone could dress in pajamas which would convey

they are going to bed. People interpret what others wear to make opinions or assumptions about

what they are doing and what type of person they are.

People typically will dress similarly for certain situations. Genres form when people

encounter a certain situation and they act accordingly based on what others before them have

done (Dirk 2010, pg. 252). Dirk is arguing that because people start acting accordingly to these

situations, they form their own ‘genre’ which he describes as being a type of text for a certain

situation (2010). Comparably, clothing has its own genres built in; People will always dress the

same way for work, going out, going to bed, etc.

individuals can also dress the same way according to their discourse community. Johns

(1997) describes these “discourse communities” as communities whose members share the same

interests and beliefs. For example, someone in a

Rhetorical Use of Clothing

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golf club will dress in polos, shorts, and golf shoes because that is what allows them to play golf

(what their community is based around).

Clothes convey certain meanings as well. As argued by Johnson and Lennon (2017),

clothes can act as “a modifier of body processes and as a medium for communication.” They

describe this by saying that people can dress for cold weather (modifier) or they can dress to

convey a meaning (communication). In the communication sense this stands to be true. In a

study by Dorothy Behling (1995) She showed five images to high school students conveying

other people with distinctive styles being that of “preppy”, “cool”, “hip hop”, “dopers”,

“suckers” and asked to rank their IQ. She found that there was a great fluctuation in what the

students in the pictures wore and their perceived IQ’s. The lowest was wearing jeans and a t shirt

and the highest was wearing a suit. This makes sense. The study proves that there seems to be a

correlation between what someone wears and how they communicate themselves.

This is based off certain genres. Because historically, businesspeople and wealthy people

have worn suits they have been put into a genre that rhetorically conveys them as having more

worth than someone wears jeans and a t shirt. This also relates back to discourse communities.

Politicians for example are always

Rhetorical Use of Clothing

wearing suits whereas someone labeled a “thug” can usually be seen wearing busted jeans and

worn-out clothes. Politicians in society are deemed to be people of wealth

and power whereas thugs are seen as worthless purely based off clothes they wear as proved by

the study.
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In another example, Catch me if You Can starring Leonardo DiCaprio is a movie in which

the lead role (Leo) starts off as a thug and tries to forge checks. He is seen wearing worn out old

clothes and when he tries to cash in forged checks the teller automatically disregards him. Later

he steals a suit and puts it on and immediately his transactions are going through. Leonardo

rhetorically conveys himself as being worth more or having more intelligence to allow himself to

get away with crimes. It shows how clothing communicated his status.

In certain discourse communities, through rhetoric, clothing can convey a certain

meaning. Whether that be conveying someone as being poor, rich, smart, stupid, etc. Clothing

can also provide cultural purposes and convey that someone is a part of a certain religion or from

a specific area of the world. But in a rhetorical sense, clothing is a great medium of

communication from
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Annotated Bibliography

Behling, D. U., & Williams, E. A. (1991). Influence of dress on perception of

intelligence and expectations of scholastic achievement. Clothing and Textiles

Research Journal, 9(4), 1-7.

In Influence of dress on perception of intelligence and expectations of scholastic

achievement Behling creates a study. The study showed 5 different pictures to students in

different school areas with different socioeconomic statuses. The photos contained people

whom the kids had never seen wearing different clothes ranging from tattered jeans to a

suit. The students were told to assume the intelligence of the people in each photo. What

she found is that there was a massive fluctuation between the perceived intelligence level

of each person in the photos. The picture of the man in the suit had the highest perceived

intelligence and the picture of a man in jeans and a cut-off had the lowest.

This helps me in my research a ton. It provides a statistical link that proves clothing can

communicate a certain agenda purely through visuals. It helps me link a rhetorical aspect

to clothing which allows me to argue my claim.

Dirk, K. (2010). Navigating Genre. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. (pp. 249- 261)

'Navigating Genres' by Kerry Dirk dives into teaching composition students about the

purpose and use of genres. Dirk describes genres as being a type of text for a certain

situation. He says that genres are created from the first piece of text used in a certain

situation where other authors who encounter the same situation write similarly to the first.
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He explains that genres are important because they teach us how we should write in these

various situations. For example, you would not want to write your mom a business letter

or send an informal text to a boss. He also explains that genres function rhetorically. This

means they usually have a purpose whether that be to inform someone, make someone

laugh, make someone sad, etc.

This article helps me understand what a genre is and how it relates to my research. I can

see how my own topic functions rhetorically within a specific genre. It broadened my

perspective on writing and functions to understand how clothing changes in different

discourse communities.

Downs, D. (2017). Rhetoric. In Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and

Meaning- Making (pp. 458-469-479–480).

Author Doug Downs is a scholar who is well-versed in studying rhetoric. In his article,

Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning-Making, he describes the

meaning of rhetoric and its elements. Downs wrote his article to explain his own

definition of rhetoric in a broader sense of how it is traditionally used and to contradict

the common misconceptions surrounding the concept. Downs says that rhetoric is a set of

rules and guidelines for all human interaction. It entices all aspects of how we

communicate including things like motivation and the "ecology" of the interaction. When

he talks about motivation, he says that all people have a bias and everything said has a

purpose and motivation which always alters what is being said. And for ecology, he talks
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about the environment and how being in a certain situation causes people to say

something deemed "correct" at that specific time. These are important to understand

because they can help someone communicate more efficiently if they take the concepts

Downs talks about into account and create their writing with them in mind.

This knowledge can help me develop my own literacy research. It will allow me to think

more about what I'm saying given the situation I'm writing in. When I think about

ecology, I will be able to take into account what will be the best thing to say at the right

time, which Downs describes as "Kairos." While describing a situation with a senator

Downs says, "Snyder was supposed to be the rhetor "in control" of his own speech, but

kairos dictated much of what the speech would be about and what Snyder could say in it."

The senator, Snyder, was giving a speech essentially apologizing for his policy choice,

and due to that his word choice reflected more of what citizens wanted to hear rather than

his actual beliefs. I can do things similarly and write more effectively when I am

considering my environment.

Johns, Ann M. (1997) “Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice:

Membership, Conflict, and Diversity.” Text, Role, and Context: Developing

Academic Literacies (pp.319-326).

In her article, Anna M. Johns describes what discourse communities are and the different

types of them. She says that people join certain communities or clubs based on similar

interests with members within the organizations. She claims that rules set in place for
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academic literacy should be taught to show students how texts are "socially constructed,"

but they should also be broken to give students a diverse perspective on literacy. She does

this by listing different authors' opinions and "rules" and then giving her own insight into

them.

This knowledge can help me conduct my own literacy research. It teaches that there are

many ways to look at topics and interpret them differently. It gives me insight into

looking at various perspectives from diverse viewpoints. It also tells that students should

use other authors' words to support a point they're making rather than just stating another

person's view.

Johnson, K. K., & Lennon, S. J. (2017). The social psychology of dress. Fairchild Bloomsbury.

The Social psychology of dress focuses on how dressing a certain way impacts people's

behavior. It talks about how people are perceived when they wear certain things. It gives

studies on how dressing certain ways communicates different ideas to the audience who

receives the information. It also discusses the meanings of certain clothes, how people

learn to clothe themselves and other ideas. They focus on two distinct aspects of clothing,

clothing for functional purposes and to communicate. And then they dive into statistics to

support their claims.

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This article allows me to explain the different meanings clothing communicates. It helps

me see my topic from multiple perspectives and provides me with studies to support my

own claim.

Spielberg, S. (Director). (2002). Catch Me If You Can [Film]. Dreamworks Pictures

Catch Me If You Can directed by Steven Spielberg is a movie about a man who becomes a

renowned bank robber and con artist. He uses deception and changes his appearance to lie

to people in order for him to achieve his goals. Throughout the movie he is on the run from

the FBI and the story line is about him escaping them while commiting more crimes.

This is useful for my research because it shows rhetorical aspects of the main character's

clothing and how it relates to him getting away with various robberies and crimes. He

purely gets away based off the rhetoric he uses which relates heavily to my topic.