Composition (language)

The term composition (from Latin com- "with" and ponere "to place") as it refers to writing, can describe authors' decisions about, processes for designing, and sometimes the final product of, a composed linguistic work.

In original use, it tended to describe practices concerning the development of oratorical performances, and eventually essays, narratives, or genres of imaginative literature, but since the mid-20th century emergence of the field of composition studies, its use has broadened to apply to any composed work: print or digital, alphanumeric or multimodal.

Other such qualities to be included, especially when considering ones' audience and methods of persuasion, would be the rhetorical appeals:[3] As oral discourse shifted to more written discourse, the stage of memory and delivery began to fade, yet the first three stages hold its rank in the writing process of most composition classrooms.

[citation needed] While, strictly speaking, even a printed page of text is multimodal,[4] the teaching of composition has begun to attend to the language of visuals.

Some have suggested privileging only the linguistic mode limits the opportunity to engage in multiple symbols that create meaning and speak rhetorically.