Code: The Unspoken Rhetoric

Exploring Code, Discourse, and Digital Identity

Kevin Brock raises a perplexing idea about computer code functioning as a form of persuasive communication. Rhetorical code studies, as Beck (2016) explains, offer a way to understand how software use and development involve communicative work. Not only through code texts themselves but also through the algorithmic logics expressed within those texts.

From my understanding, code is usually framed as a set of operational commands written for the computer to follow. Brock complicates this view by reminding us that code is stored as text files with language-specific syntax and vocabulary. He explains that there is both “high-level” and “low-level” code. High-level code is more accessible to humans but must be translated into a lower-level language before the computer can execute it. Low-level languages, on the other hand, are less human-readable and more directly tied to machine operations.

The Silent Language of Software

Code, then, involves more than commands. It involves discourse. Brock emphasizes the discourse surrounding how code is written and developed. It includes words inside the code and also the conversations around it, emails, documentation, forum threads, and collaborative discussions. Developers communicate with each other inside the code itself by leaving notes called comments.

These comments help others understand what each line or section is intended to do, why a decision was made, and how a block of code should be interpreted. In that way, comments function as annotations that clarify intent and guide interpretation. Yet, as Brock notes, they can also sometimes create confusion. His example of the Heartbleed security patch illustrates this perfectly. A fragment like “/ silently discard /” tells the coder that a line quietly discards something and if the software fails to do so, a developer debugging the issue knows to look there first.

In this sense, code files are rhetorical spaces. Rhetorical action occurs both in the human conversations embedded within comments and external discussions and in the logic and structure of the code itself. This underlies Brock’s larger argument that code, far from being purely technical, is communicative, persuasive, and socially meaningful.

From Myspace Layouts to Modern Coding Practices

This idea that code is not only technical but also communicative, persuasive, and socially meaningful brought back a memory that might age me. Myspace was an early lived experience of rhetorical code. In the early days of social media, I couldn’t wait to get home from school just to change my profile. Myspace allowed users to copy and paste small snippets of HTML to personalize their pages. I didn’t think of it as coding at the time, but I was using code to communicate identity, shape how others experienced my page, and signal belonging to certain groups or aesthetics. Everyone wanted the most eye-catching page: glitter backgrounds, custom text, background images, and music playlists that played automatically. These layout choices persuaded viewers to see me in a particular light.

Just as importantly, we shared the code. Friends posted “layout codes,” explained how to layer images or embed playlists, and shared tutorials in forums. That exchange was its own form of discourse. We weren’t professional developers, but we were participating in a social ecosystem built through code. In retrospect, the Myspace era shows that code has always been communicative, persuasive, and socially meaningful long before most of us thought of ourselves as programmers.