Abstract
How might argumentation scholars approach sound? Using the analytics afforded by strategic maneuvering, this essay identifies three unique features of sonic presentational devices: they are immersive, immediate and embodied. Although these features offer arguers presentational resource, they also pose new problems to the reasonable resolution of disagreement: immersion hazards overlap (mask), immediacy risks rate of delivery beyond reflection (velocity), and materiality can coerce listeners (force). To theorize strategic use of sound, I reconstruct and analyze a popular Radiolab segment “The Unconscious Toscanini of the Brain.” I find Radiolab uses three different sonic figures: (1) synchronicity, or the translation of data into sound to foreground temporal relations; (2) musical stings, an auditory invocation of embodied memory and (3) the wave, a sonic strategy to arouse and narrow attention. I conclude that Radiolab’s use of sound is reasonable because it extends the critical discussion.
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