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Verbal and Visual Communication

Verbal and Visual Communication. W.J.T. Mitchell, ”Pictures and Paragraphs: Nelson Goodman and the Grammar of Difference” in Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. VERBAL temporal successive linear hierarchical chronological causal fluid/mobile diachronic digital (Mitchell 53)

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Verbal and Visual Communication

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  1. Verbal and Visual Communication W.J.T. Mitchell,”Pictures and Paragraphs: Nelson Goodman and the Grammar of Difference” in Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology

  2. VERBAL temporal successive linear hierarchical chronological causal fluid/mobile diachronic digital (Mitchell 53) symbolic (Mitchell 53) VISUAL spatial simultaneous fixed/stable/solid synchronic analogical (Mitchell 53) iconic (Mitchell 53) Characteristics of the verbal and the visual messages/signs

  3. The implication of Goodman’s Languages of Art • „language will provide the model for all the symbolic systems, including the pictorial” (Goodman qtd. in Mitchell 55) • „[...] semiology is required [...] there is no meaning which is not designated, and the world of signifieds is none other than that of language.” (Barthes qtd. in Mitchell 56) • superiority of language/linguistic imperialism • extreme conventionalism (Mitchell 65) • the abolishment of the boundaries between sign types • no difference between pictures and maps (Mitchell 65)

  4. Hans Holbein, The Ambassadors (1533)

  5. Hans Holbein, The Ambassadors (1533)the undistorted skull

  6. The problematic of the iconic sign • The most difficult to assimilate into semiotics ↔ verbal sign • C.S. Peirce’s definition: any sign that ”may represent its object mainly by its similarity” (Mitchell 56). • iconic signs are partially ruled by convention/refer to an established stylistic rule (Eco qtd. in Mitchell 57) → arbitrary connection between signifier and signified/unmotivated • yet they are at the same time motivated/propose a new rule (Eco qtd. in Mitchell 57) → motivation: natural connection between signifier and signified

  7. Peirce’s sign system ICON-SYMBOL-INDEX Icon: sign by physical resemblance or analogy Index: • sign by ‘causal’ or ‘existential’ connection • has a correlation in space and time with its meaning • Has a direct influence by its object (e.g. thermometer, sundial, clock, weathervane, smoke-fire) Symbol: sign by convention, it’s arbitrary

  8. Photographic sign • Composites of iconic and indexical signs (Mitchell 59) • non-mediated vs mediated • non-coded vs coded ~ cf. Barthes’s idea of the photographic image as non-coded as opposed to a drawing that is coded even if it is denotational due to its manner of execution and its focus (43) • direct vs indirect • perceptual vs conceptual • empirical vs symbolic • Analogous to impressions (as mental signs) and ideas (as in empirical epistemology) (60)

  9. Moholy-Nagy, Untitled (c. 1927)

  10. IMAGE ”Super dense”/”replete” symbol ~ read like an ungraduated thermometer Syntactically and semantically dense and continuous → every mark is loaded with semantic potential → no mark can be isolated as a unique and distinct character Its meaning depends on its relations with all the other marks in a dense, continuous field (67) TEXT ”Disjunct” set of symbols (gaps without significance) (68) Discontinuous ~ read like a graduated thermometer Image vs Text Goodman’s categorisation

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