In presenting language as symbolic action at heart, Burke (1966) broadened the scope of rhetoric to encompass “any use of symbol systems in general,” defining humankind as “‘the symbol-using, symbol-making, and symbol-misusing animal’” and the “ Inventor of the negative” (pp.
In my case, I define “rhetoric” as “the art of communication” in order to encompass purposes other than persuading (e.g., obfuscating), and “rhetorical artifact” as “any sign that communicates.” Even so, my analysis is at heart rhetorical, treating videogames as rhetorical artifacts, as others have (Bogost, 2008 Boone, 2008 Bourgonjon, Rutten, Soetaert, & Valcke, 2011 Colby, Johnson, & Colby 2013 Garrelts, 2013 Mateas & Stern, 2005 McAllister, 2006 Voorhees, 2009). Aside from analyzing videogames through a rhetorical lens, some of the cards games bring to the table are “genres at least as diverse as literary genres, layers of interactivity, different styles of gameplay, player and player-character identities…procedurality, the rules of gameplay, gaming culture, gaming terminology, gaming history, the gaming industry, theories of design” (Johnson & Colby, 2013, p.
As Colby, Johnson and Colby (2013) state, “By researching video games and gameplay practices, scholars have the opportunity to understand gamers’ complex learning and literacy development strategies, practices that carry significant implications for education in general” (p. Through analysis of a particular videogame, my aim here is to show how the medium’s multimodal nature lends itself to multidisciplinary approaches that can prove fruitful not only for understanding videogames as a form of digital rhetoric but for understanding multiliteracies. In fact, as Colby, Johnson and Colby (2013) point out, three academic conversations about videogames currently converge: “the study of games as games, digital games studies, ludology composition-rhetoric, writing studies, writing pedagogy and discourse analysis, literacy studies” (p.
Their ludological skeleton notwithstanding, more and more modern videogames embody artifacts of interest in rhetoric, literary, and literacy studies.
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