Journal 5

So far in the course, I believe the three most important concepts we have learned pertaining to everyday writing have been rhetorical exigence, kairos, and constraints. All three of these concepts weigh heavily on the creation and interpretation of everyday writing and they also tie into tattoos. We have learned that exigence is the concept that writers can call a certain response from their audience depending on a certain moment in time. Relating to the topic of tattoos, once someone gets a tattoo, they can get differing responses to that tattoo depending on the moment they are in. For example, homosexuality was far less accepted in the 80s, so if someone had a tattoo letting everyone know they had HIV, it would be looked at very differently than in 2014. Next, kairos is the idea that the writer must pay close attention to the time and place of where they are writing because this can effect the readers response. People in the POZ magazine who had been diagnosed with HIV chose to use kairos in order to provoke a certain reaction from the readers of the magazine. Lastly, constraints are things from the writers past and background that can influence their work. Constraints tie into tattoos because a significant amount of people who wish to get tattoos, do it because things in their past have lead them to get the certain tattoo they wish. Also, these tattoos are usually meaningful to the person.

I believe tattoos can be categorized as everyday writing. Tattoos, even though they vary between strange symbols to meaningful quotes, are unique to the writer whose body they are on. They are a common way for someone to communicate or express something without having to actually say anything. This idea ties into the quote by Brouwer on page 423, “for the tattoo wearer the body announces the invisible even when the wearer remains vocally silent.”