![bureaucratized societies.At this point the visual was subsumed,taken over,by the verbal as
its means of recording. Consequently its former public uses, possibilities and potentials for
independent representation disappeared, declined and withered away.
In the case of other cultures, however, this development did not occur. Here the visual
continued, along with the verbal means of representation. Instances of this abound: from
the one extreme of the Inca quipu strings (sensorily the tactile mode of representation) to
Australian Aboriginal drawings, sand-paintings and carvings. These encode, in a manner
not at all directly dependent on, or a ‘translation’ of, verbal language, meanings of the
culture which are deemed to be best represented in visual form. They are connected with
language,or language with them,so that wall-paintings or sand-paintings,for instance,are
accompanied by verbal recounts of geographical features,journeys,ancestor myths,and so
on. However, in these cases there is no question of the priority of the one over the other
mode, and the visual has certainly not become subsumed to the verbal as its form of
representation.
In this connection it is interesting to consider the history of two words which in a sense
are synonymous with Western notions of literacy, the words grammar and syntax. Gram-
mar derives from the Greek grammatike (‘the art of reading and writing’, ‘grammar’,
‘alphabet’); related words were gramma (‘sign’, ‘letter’, ‘alphabet’), grammatikos (‘liter-
ate’, ‘(primary) teacher’, ‘grammarian’). This etymology records the state of things in the
Hellenistic period (from approximately 300bc); in earlier times the meaning ‘sign’, as in
‘painted or drawn [etc.] mark’ was the primary meaning. In Homer, for example, the verb
graphein still means ‘scratch’, ‘scratch in’, as in engraving, and from there it comes to
mean both ‘writing’ and ‘drawing’, ‘painting’. Syntaxis, in pre-Hellenistic times, meant
‘contract’, ‘wage’, ‘organization’, ‘system’, ‘battle formation’, with syntagma, for instance,
‘contingent of troops’, ‘constitution (of a state)’, ‘book or treatise’. Only in the Hellenistic
period does syntaxis come to mean (among its other meanings) ‘grammatical construc-
tion’. The verb syntasso, again, means both ‘arrange battle formations’ and ‘concentrate
(one’s thoughts)’, ‘organize’, ‘write’, ‘compose’.
While we do not wish to place too much emphasis on etymology,nevertheless the history
of these two words which are so crucial to our notions of literacy points to forms of social
organization and order, on the one hand, and to visual ‘markings’ on the other. Together
they indicate the initially quite independent organization of the mode of images and the
mode of verbal language. At the same time, the subsequent history of the word grammar
brings out clearly the subordination of the visual medium to the medium of verbal lan-
guage. Cultures which still retain the full use of both media of representation are, from the
point of view of ‘literate cultures’, regarded as illiterate, impoverished, underdeveloped,
when in fact they have a richer array of means of representation than that overtly and
consciously available to literate cultures. Nevertheless, as we pointed out earlier, literate
cultures do make use of means of visual communication other than writing, be it that they
are seen as uncoded replicas of reality or as a means of individual expression by children or
artists. In other words, they are not treated as either the expressions of, or accessible to
means of reading based on, articulated, rational and social meanings.
Our unconventional history of writing is one that treats the coming together of visual
22 · The semiotic landscape](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-43-320.jpg)
![and verbal representation as only one possibility, and one, furthermore, that brings with it
not just those benefits of writing which are well enough understood, but also the negative
aspects incurred in the loss of an independent form of representation, the diminution of
modes of expression and representation. From that point of view cultures such as Austral-
ian Aboriginal cultures are seen as having both modes of representation: the visual (or
perhaps a whole set of visual forms of representation) and the verbal. The point of this
history is not only the political one of undermining the notion of ‘illiterate culture’ (or
‘merely oral culture’), but also the attempt to see to what extent the conventional history
blinds us to the facts and uses of visual communication in so-called literate cultures.
In this book we develop the hypothesis that in a literate culture the visual means of
communication are rational expressions of cultural meanings, amenable to rational
accounts and analysis. The problem which we face is that literate cultures have system-
atically suppressed means of analysis of the visual forms of representation, so that there is
not, at the moment, an established theoretical framework within which visual forms of
representation can be discussed.
THE ‘OLD’ AND THE ‘NEW’ VISUAL LITERACY IN BOOKS FOR THE VERY
YOUNG
So far we have distinguished two kinds of visual literacy: one in which visual communica-
tion has been made subservient to language and in which images have come to be regarded
as unstructured replicas of reality (the ‘old visual literacy’, in our terms); and another in
which (spoken) language exists side by side with, and independent of, forms of visual
representation which are openly structured, rather than viewed as more or less faithful
duplicates of reality (the ‘new’, in our terms). We have looked at these as historical and
cultural alternatives. But they also exist side by side, at least in contemporary Western
culture, and we suggest that we are in the middle of a shift in valuation and uses from the
one mode to the other, from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ visual literacy, in many important social
contexts. The examples we will now discuss suggest that the very first books children
encounter may already introduce them to particular kinds of visual literacy.
Figure 1.1 shows a typical two-page spread from Baby’s First Book, a book which, on
its inside cover, declares that ‘the text and illustrations, though oversimple to grown-ups,
will satisfy their [i.e. the toddlers’] cravings for the repetition of what they already know,
and will help them associate the words with the objects’.When we wrote the first version of
this chapter, in 1989, it was still widely distributed, and today it is already making a
comeback as an object of nostalgia.
Figure 1.2 shows a typical page from Dick Bruna’s On My Walk. This book is one of a
set of four,the others being In My Home, In My Toy Cupboard and On the Farm.It consists
of eight pages and, with the exception of the front and back covers, the pages contain no
words whatsoever.
Compared to the picture of the bird in the tree, the picture of the bath is realistic,
detailed and complex. If we were to analyse it into its components, if we were to try
· 23
The semiotic landscape](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-44-320.jpg)
![Kemble, in his (appendix) list of "patronymical names," which he
regards as "those of ancient Marks," has two references, from the
"Codex Diplomaticus," to "Bruningas," but he gives no conjecture as
to the locality of its modern representative.
Mr. C. A. Weddle, of Wargrove, near Warrington, in 1857, when
advocating the claims of Brunton, in Northumberland, after summing
up the various names mentioned by the old writers, and referring to
their evident corruption and variation, says—
"Two of them in particular, Weardune and Wendune, I have never
seen noticed by any modern writer, yet Weardune appears to me the
most important name, if Brunanburh be excepted, and EVEN THIS
IS NOT MORE SO. As to Wendune it is evidently a mistake in the
transcribing for Werdune, the Anglo-Saxon r being merely n, with a
long bottom stroke on the left."
Mr. Weddle finds a Warden Hill, about two miles from the farm-
house in "Chollerford field," in the neighbourhood of Brunton. This
he considers as very conclusive evidence in favour of the locality
being the Brunanburh of which we are in search. If such be the
case, the existence of Wearden, or Worden, in the immediate
neighbourhood of Brunhill, Bamber, and Brunedge, must
unquestionably be more so, and especially when taken in connection
with the large amount of corroborative evidence with which it is
surrounded. The term Weardune is sometimes written Weondune,
which, after the correction of the n, as suggested by Mr. Weddle, is
Weorden. The ancient seat of the Faringtons, of Leyland and
Farington, is variously written Werden, Worden, and Wearden, and it
is pronounced by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood Wearden at
the present day. It must have been a place of some importance in
the time of the Roman occupation. Many coins, and a heavy gold[37]
signet ring, bearing the letters S P Q R, have been found there. The
place is situated near the great Roman highway, and, if Anlaf's
troops covered the "pass of the Ribble" near Brunhull, Brunburh and
Brunedge, Wearden is precisely the neighbourhood where](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-56-320.jpg)
![name Rother applied to one of the head waters which, uniting near
Stockport, form the Mersey. This stream is generally called the
Etherow.[38] This is the nearest approach to Ethrunan that I have
been able to meet with. If rother, by a kind of metathesis, is an
equivalent to ether, perhaps I can detect two distinct remains of the
word Ethrunanwerch, in the neighbourhood of Wearden. On the
ordnance map we have, about a mile from Werden Hall, Rotherham
Top, and a stream, recently diverted for the purpose of the Liverpool
water supply, named the Roddlesworth. This word implies a place on
the bank of a stream, and as the d and th are phonetic equivalents,
it may be read Rothelsworth or Ethrunlesworth; indeed, Mr. Baines
expressly says, "Withnall, or Withnell, also a part of the lordship of
Gunoldsmores, containing Rothelsworth, a name derived from
Roddlesworth, or Mouldenwater, a rapid stream." On the one-inch to
the mile ordnance map there is a name which preserves the form of
the first part of the word without the transposition, or metathesis, to
which I have referred. Not far from Worden Hall is a small hamlet
named "Ethrington." The fact that these names exist in the
neighbourhood strengthens the probability that the etymology is not
altogether fanciful, and consequently lends support to the
presumption that the locality suggested may be the true site of
Athelstan's great victory.
I have said that there are several places in Lancashire, even, which
answer to Brunan or Brun. The following are amongst the number:
On the Wyre, near the commencement of the Roman agger or
"Danes' Pad," as it is locally termed, which led from the Portus
Setantiorum of Ptolemy to York, is a place named Bourne, written in
the Domesday survey Brune. Bourne Hall is situated upon a "dune"
or hill, which commands a relatively recently blocked up channel of
the Wyre. Therefore Brunnandune or Brunford would strictly apply to
it. Bryning-with-Kellamergh, near Warton, in the parish of Kirkham,
is described in a charter of the reign of John, as Brichscrach Brun
and Kelmersburgh. In the time of Henry III. it is described as
Brininge. Not far from Rochdale is a spot named "Kildanes," near
Bamford. The site is not much more than two miles from a place](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-58-320.jpg)
![after three weeks and three days, he returned into Scotland without
engaging."
Dr. Kuerden, writing shortly before the guild of 1682, laments the
destruction of documentary evidence relating to this famous Preston
festival during the turmoil of civil war. After enumerating the dates of
those still preserved, in his day, in the Corporation records, he says
—"These are such as doth appeare within the Records and Gild
Books, that yet remain extant and in being, though some I conceive
to be omitted, as one Gild in Henry 6th dayes occasion'd, as I
conceive, in those distractions and civil wars betwixt the Houses of
Lancaster and York; another Gild Merchant omitted to be kept in K.
H. 8th dayes, occasioned, as may be thought, by the Revolutions at
that time in Church affayres; the next that are wanting may be
through the loss of Records in K. Edw. 3rd dayes [sic.] wheras the
Scottish army burnt the Burrough of Preston to the very ground."
Kuerden is in error with reference to the king's reign in which this
disaster occurred; Bruce's foray took place in the reign of Edward II.
In the "History of Preston and its Environs," p. 50, I say—"A tradition
still remains that Roman Ribchester was destroyed by an
earthquake; another that it was reduced to ashes in the early part of
the fourteenth century, during the great inroad of the Scots under
Bruce. Both are highly improbable. Had Roman Ribchester remained
a place of any importance till the period referred to, it could scarcely
have failed to have attracted the notice of some of the elder
chroniclers or topographers. True, the Saxon village may have
shared the fate of Preston, in the celebrated foray of our northern
neighbours, and hence the tradition! An earthquake in England, of
sufficient magnitude to bury a Roman 'city,' (to use the elder
Whitaker's emphatic style,) 'must' have found some one to record it.
Other facts, however, demonstrate that this tradition can have no
better foundation than the vague conjecture of ignorant peasants;
who, on first discovering remains of ancient buildings beneath the
soil, naturally attributed their subterranean location to the action of
some earthquake, in that mysterious period usually denominated the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-64-320.jpg)
![besides eight or nine slaine, with the losse of twelve men taken
prisoners, which afterwards were released by Sir John Meldrum upon
his coming to Preston the night following, from whence the enemy
fled."
Four years afterwards, Cromwell achieved his great victory over the
Duke of Hamilton and the Marquis of Langdale. Reference has been
made, in the previous chapter, to the rapid march of the
Parliamentary forces from Skipton, by Clitheroe, to Stonyhurst,
where they encamped on the evening of August 16th, 1648. Some
difference respecting the then famous "Covenant" prevented
Langdale's forces from combining heartily with those of the Duke.
His English troops were encamped on Ribbleton Moor, to the east of
Preston. Hamilton's Scotch forces were widely scattered. Some of his
advanced horse lay at Wigan; his main army occupied Preston, while
his rear, under Monro, were in the neighbourhood of Garstang. Short
work was made, notwithstanding the great numerical superiority,
with such discipline and divided councils, by a soldier of Cromwell's
calibre. In the words of Thomas Carlyle, he "dashed in upon him, cut
him in two, drove him north and south, into as miserable ruin as his
worst enemy could wish." "The bridge of Ribble" was fiercely
contested. When the Parliamentary troops, with "push of pike"
(Cromwell's equivalent for the modern phrase "at the point of the
bayonet"), at length prevailed, the duke's army retreated over the
Darwen, which joins the Ribble in the immediate neighbourhood.
Night put an end to the conflict. Before daylight the Royalist army
decamped, but was hotly pursued, through Chorley, Wigan, and
Warrington, into the midland counties, and rapidly destroyed. The
Duke of Hamilton was taken prisoner at Uttoxeter, and a similar fate
befel Langdale at Nottingham.[39]
This victory is celebrated as one of Cromwell's greatest military
achievements, by Milton, in his famous sonnet:—
TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-66-320.jpg)
![Cromwell, our chief of men, who, through a cloud
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way has plough'd,
And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies and his work pursued,
While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbued,
And Dunbar field resound thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than War; new foes arise
Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains:
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.
The number of the troops engaged in this short but brilliant
campaign is stated variously by different authorities. There is an
entry in the records of the Corporation of Preston which says
"Decimo Septimo die Augustie, 1648, 24 Car,—That Henry Blundell,
gent., being mayor of this town of Preston, the daie and yeare
aforesaid, Oliver Cromwell, lieutenant-general of the forces of the
Parliament of England, with an army of about 10,000 at the most,
(whereof 1500 were Lancashire men, under the command of Colonel
Ralph Assheton, of Middleton), fought a battail in and about Preston
aforesaid, and over-threw Duke Hamilton, general of the Scots,
consisting of about 26,000, and of English, Sir Marmaduke Langdale
and his forces, joined with the Scots, about 4,000; took all their
ammunition, about 3,000 prisoners, killed many with very small losse
to the parliament army; and in their pursuit towards Lancaster,
Wigan, Warrington, and divers other places in Cheshire,
Staffordshire, and Nottinghamshire, took the said Duke and
Langdale, with many Scottish earls and lords, and about 10,000
prisoners more, all being taken [or] slayne, few escaping, and all
their treasure and plunder taken. This performed in less than one
week."](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-67-320.jpg)
![next morning; but severall wounded, and divers of our good Horses
killed."
Anno Domini 1715. "Time's whirligig" hath brought about strange
changes. A "Restoration" and a "Glorious Revolution" have passed
across the stage. The faithful followers of the dethroned Stuarts, the
"royalists" of the last century, have been transformed into the
"rebels" of this. The partizans of Prince James Francis Edward
Stuart, styled the "Elder Pretender," after a successful march from
Scotland, arrived at Preston, and took possession of the town.
The "Chevalier" was proclaimed king. Brigadier Macintosh was
anxious to defend the "pass" at Ribble-bridge, but, as the previous
fortifications of the town had been destroyed, it was determined
instead to barricade the entrance to the principal streets. The town
was besieged for two days by Generals Wills and Carpenter. After a
brave defence, notwithstanding the incompetency of "General"
Forster, the partizans of the Stuart were compelled to surrender at
discretion.[40]
In 1745, Prince Charles Edward, or the "Young Pretender," as he was
styled, marched from Scotland on his way to Derby, through
Preston; and again, a little more expeditiously on his return
therefrom.
Mr. Robert Chambers says—"The clansmen had a superstitious
dread, in consequence of the misfortunes of their party at Preston,
in 1715, that they would never get beyond this town; to dispel the
illusion, Lord George Murray crossed the Ribble, and quartered a
number of men on the other side." A single repulse could scarcely
justify such foreboding. The name of the Ribble had evidently
become associated with previous disasters, as well as with the
relatively recent surrender of the Scotch and English forces under
Forster, Derwentwater, and Macintosh in 1715.
Considering the many exquisite poetical effusions which the
misfortunes of the Stuarts added to Scottish literature, it is surprising](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-72-320.jpg)
![that nothing, but some of the veriest doggrels in relation thereto,
can be met with on the southern side of the border. "Brigadier
Macintosh's Farewell to the Highlands" is beneath criticism, and
"Long Preston Peggy to Proud Preston went" is not much better. In
May, 1847, a story appeared in "New Tales of the Borders and the
British Isles." It is introduced by the first stanza of the ballad. The
scene is laid at Walton-le-dale and Preston, 1815. It is a sad jumble
of fact and fiction. It confounds with one another events in the
campaigns of 1715 and 1745, and illustrates, to some extent, the
confusion of history and artistic fiction discussed in the preceding
pages of this work. Peggy, who, in her old age, after a somewhat
profuse indulgence in ardent spirits, had still some remains of a
handsome face and fine person, frequently sung the song of which
she was the heroine, five and twenty years after the occurrence of
the events which gave rise to it.[41]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-73-320.jpg)
!["Ia Rau is used to express all in the Marquesas Isles. Rau signifies
leaves, so that the term implies something as numerous as the
leaves of a tree. Rau is also now used for sound, an expression
which includes in itself the conception of all, but which originally
signified a fact, a real and concrete phenomenon, and it was felt as
such in the ancient speech in which it was used in this sense. So
again in Tahiti huru, ten, originally signified hairs; rima, five, was at
first used for hand; riri, anger, literally means he shouts. Uku in the
Marquesas Isles means to lower the head, and is now used for to
enter a house. Kùku, which had the same original name in New
Zealand, now expresses the act of diving. The Polynesian word toro
at first indicated anything in the position of a hand with extended
fingers, whence comes the Tahitian term for ox, puaátoro, stretching
pig, in allusion to the way in which an ox carries his head. Toó
(Marquesas), to put forward the hand, is now used for to take.
Tongo (Marquesas), to grope with extended arms, leads to protongo
tongo, darkness. In New Zealand, wairua, in Tahiti varua, signifies
soul or spirit, from vai, to remain in a recumbent position, and rua,
two; that is to be in two places, since they believed that in sickness
or in dreams the soul left the body.[42] Throughout Polynesia, moe
signifies a recumbent position or to sleep, and in Tahiti moe pipiti
signifies a double sleep or dream, from moe, to sleep, and piti, two.
In New Zealand, moenaku means to try to grasp something during
sleep; from naku, to take in the fingers.
"We can understand something of the mysterious exercise of human
intelligence in its earliest development from this habit of symbolizing
and presenting in an outward form an abstract conception, thus
giving a concrete meaning and material expression to the external
fact. We see how everything assumed a concrete, living form, and
can better understand the conditions we have established as
necessary in the early days of the development of human life. This
attitude of the intelligence had been often stated before, but in an
incomplete way; the primitive and subsequent myths have been
confounded together;" [See ante, p.p. 44, et seq., et 116.] "and it](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/908740-250615125829-3bbdff75/85/Reading-Images-The-Grammar-Of-Visual-Design-2nd-Edition-Gunther-Kress-76-320.jpg)
Reading Images The Grammar Of Visual Design 2nd Edition Gunther Kress
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- 6. This second edition of the landmark textbook Reading Images builds on its reputation as the first systematic and comprehensive account of the grammar of visual design. Drawing on an enormous range of examples from children’s drawings to textbook illustrations, photo-journalism to fine art, as well as three-dimensional forms such as sculpture and toys, the authors examine the ways in which images communicate meaning. Features of this fully updated second edition include: • new material on moving images and on colour • a discussion of how images and their uses have changed through time • websites and web-based images • ideas on the future of visual communication. Reading Images focuses on the structures or ‘grammar’ of visual design – colour, perspective, framing and composition – and provides the reader with an invaluable ‘tool-kit’ for reading images, which makes it a must for anyone interested in communication, the media and the arts. Gunther Kress is Professor of English at the Institute of Education, University of London. Theo van Leeuwen has worked as a film and television producer in the Netherlands and Australia and as Professor in the Centre for Language & Communication Research at Cardiff University. He is currently Dean at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney. They have both published widely in the fields of language and communication studies.
- 7. P r a i s e f o r t h e f i r s t e d i t i o n ‘Reading Images is the most important book in visual communication since Jacques Bertin’s semiology of information graphics. It is both thorough and thought- provoking; a remarkable breakthrough.’ Kevin G. Barnhurst, Syracuse University, USA ‘Fresh and stimulating. The sociocentric approach is by far the most penetrating approach to the subject currently available.’ Paul Cobley, London Guildhall University ‘A useful text for all students who are involved in areas which rely on both language and visual images for their expression and articulation of ideas.’ Catriona Scott, Middlesex University ‘This is the best detailed and sustained development of the “social semiotic” approach to the analysis of visuals. Clear, informative and theoretically developmental.’ Dr S. Cottle, Bath HE College ‘Excellent – wide ranging – accessible – tutors’ “Bible”.’ Jan Mair, Edge Hill University College of Higher Education ‘Extremely attractive and well laid out. Very useful bibliography.’ Dr M. Brottman, East London University ‘Very clearly written – it makes good connections between different areas of visual practice – especially useful for students from a variety of backgrounds attempting “mixed” coursework.’ Amy Sargeant, Plymouth University
- 9. First published 1996 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Second edition published 2006 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1996, 2006 Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording,or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kress, Gunther R. Reading images : the grammar of visual design / Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen. – 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Communication in design. I. Van Leeuwen, Theo, 1947– II. Title. NK1510.K64 2006 701–dc22 2006002242 ISBN10: 0–415–31914–5 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–31915–3 (pbk) ISBN10: 0–203–61972–2 (ebk) ISBN13: 9–78–0–415–31914–0 (hbk) ISBN13: 9–78–0–415–31915–7 (pbk) ISBN13: 9–78–0–203–61972–8 (ebk) This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
- 10. CONTENTS Preface to the second edition vii Preface to the first edition ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction: the grammar of visual 1 design 1 The semiotic landscape: language and 16 visual communication 2 Narrative representations: designing 45 social action 3 Conceptual representations: designing 79 social constructs 4 Representation and interaction: 114 designing the position of the viewer 5 Modality: designing models of reality 154 6 The meaning of composition 175 7 Materiality and meaning 215 8 The third dimension 239 9 Colourful thoughts (a postscript) 266 References 271 Index 287
- 12. P r e f a c e t o t h e s e c o n d e d i t i o n The first edition of Reading Images has had a positive reception among a wide group from the professions and disciplines which have to deal with real problems and real issues involving images. This has gone along with a broader agenda of concern with ‘multi- modality’, a rapidly growing realization that representation is always multiple. We do not think for a moment that this book represents anything like a settled approach, a definitive ‘grammar’ of images,and at times we have been worried by attempts to treat it in that way. We see it as an early attempt, one among many others, and we would like to see it treated very much as a resource for beginning to make inroads into understanding the visual as representation and communication – in a semiotic fashion – and also as a resource in the development of theories and ‘grammars’ of visual communication.In that spirit we want to stress that we see everything we have written here simultaneously as our fully serious and yet entirely provisional sense of this field. When we completed the first edition of this book we were aware of a number of ‘omissions’ – things we felt still needed doing. Some of these we have taken up in other ways,for instance in our attempt to develop a theory of multimodality;others we have tried to address in this second edition. Foremost among these have been the quite different issues of the moving image and of colour. The first of these has been constantly raised by those who have used the book, and rightly so. We hope that what we have said here can begin to integrate the field of moving images into our social semiotic approach to visual communication.The issue of colour was less frequently raised,yet constituted for us a kind of theoretical test case, as much to do with the issue of colour itself as to do with a theory of multimodal social semiotics much more widely considered. Here, too, we feel that we have provided just a first attempt for a different approach. In addition we have added a number of new examples from CD-ROMs and websites, domains of visual communication that had hardly begun to develop when we wrote the first edition, and are now of central importance for many users of this book. One persistent criticism of the first edition from a group of readers has been that the book was (too) linguistic.The first comment we would make is to say that for us ‘formality’ in the domain of representation is not in any way the same as ‘being linguistic’. So to some extent we think that that criticism rests on that kind of misunderstanding. We also think that there is a difference between explicitness and formality. We certainly have aimed for the former,and often (but not always) for the latter.Nor do we think that either explicitness or formality are the enemies of innovation, creativity, imagination: often all these latter rest on the former. It is the case that our starting point has been the systemic functional grammar of English developed by Michael Halliday, though we had and have attempted to use its general semiotic aspects rather than its specific linguistically focused features as the grounding for our grammar. As Ferdinand de Saussure had done at the beginning of the last century,we see linguistics as a part of semiotics;but we do not see linguistics as the
- 13. discipline that can furnish a ready-made model for the description of semiotic modes other than language. Then we had thought, in our first attempt, that to show how visual communication works in comparison to language might be helpful in understanding either and both – but that, too, was misunderstood maybe as an attempt to impose linguistic categories on the visual. We have therefore tried to refine and clarify those sections of the book that deal with the relation between language and visual communication,and to delete or reformulate material which we think might have given rise to these misunderstandings, hopefully with no loss of clarity. A careful reading of this second edition of our book will show, we trust, that we are as concerned to bring out the differences between language and visual communication as we are the connections, the broader semiotic principles that connect, not just language and image, but all the multiple modes in multimodal communication. In our growing understanding of this domain, reflected in the reworking of this book, we owe a debt of gratitude for support, comment and critique to many more people than we can mention or even than we actually know. But the names of some friends, colleagues, students, fellow researchers and critics who were not already acknowledged in our preface to the first edition have to be mentioned. Among these are Carey Jewitt, Jim Gee, Ron Scollon, Paul Mercer, Brian Street, Radan Martinec, Adam Jaworski, David Machin, Klas Prytz, Teal Triggs, Andrew Burn, Bob Ferguson, Pippa Stein, Denise Newfield, Len Unsworth, Lesley Lancaster and the many researchers whose work has both given us confidence and new ideas, and extended our understanding of this field – and of course, and crucially, we acknowledge the support from our publishers and editors at Routledge, Louisa Semlyen and Christabel Kirkpatrick. viii · Preface to the second edition
- 14. P r e f a c e t o t h e f i r s t e d i t i o n This book grew out of discussions about visual communication which spanned a period of seven years. Both of us had worked on the analysis of verbal texts, and increasingly felt the need of a better understanding of all the things that go with the verbal: facial expressions, gestures, images, music, and so on. This was not only because we wanted to analyse the whole of the texts in which these semiotic modes play a vital role rather than just the verbal part, but also to understand language better. Just as a knowledge of other languages can open new perspectives on one’s own language, so a knowledge of other semiotic modes can open new perspectives on language. In 1990 we published a first version of our ideas on visual communication, Reading Images, with Deakin University Press. It was written for teachers, and we concentrated on children’s drawings and school textbook illustrations, although we also included examples from the mass media, such as advertisements and magazine layout. Since then we have expanded our research to other fields of visual communication: a much wider range of mass media materials; scientific (and other) diagrams, maps and charts; and the visual arts. We have also made a beginning with the study of three-dimensional communication: sculpture, children’s toys, architecture and everyday designed objects. The present book therefore offers a much more comprehensive theory of visual communication than the earlier book. In Australia, and increasingly elsewhere, our work has been used in courses on com- munication and media studies, and as a methodology for research in areas such as media representation, film studies, children’s literature and the use of illustrations and layout in school textbooks. The present book has benefited greatly from the suggestions and com- ments of those who have used our work in these ways, and of our own undergraduate and postgraduate students, initially at the University of Technology and Macquarie University in Sydney, later at the Institute of Education and the London College of Printing in London, and also at the Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore. We began our work on visual communication in the supportive and stimulating environment of the Newtown Semiotics Circle in Sydney; discussions with our friends, the members of this Circle, helped shape our ideas in more ways than we can acknowledge. If any two people from that first period were to be singled out, it would be Jim Martin, who gave us meticulous, detailed, extensive and challenging comments on several of the chapters of the earlier book, and Fran Christie, who had urged us to write it. But here we would also like to make a special mention of Bob Hodge,whose ideas appear in this book in many ways, even if not always obviously so. Of those who used our book in teaching and research, and whose comments on the earlier book have helped us rethink and refine our ideas, we would like to mention the research team of the Disadvantaged Schools Programme in Sydney, in particular Rick Iedema, Susan Feez, Peter White, Robert Veel and Sally Humphrey; Staffan Selander,
- 15. through whose Centre for Textbook Research in Härnösand our work came to be taken up by researchers in the field of textbook research in Sweden and several other European countries; the members of the ‘Language and Science’ research team at the Institute of Education, Isabel Martins, Jon Ogborn and Kieran McGillicuddy; Philip Bell; Basil Bernstein; Paul Gillen and Teun van Dijk. Three writers influenced our ideas in different and fundamental ways. One is Roland Barthes. Although we see our work as going beyond his seminal writing on visual semiotics in several ways, he remains a strong inspiration. There is not a subject in semiotics on which Barthes has not written originally and inspiringly. He has provided for us a model of what semiotics can be, in the range of his interests, in the depth of his work, and in his engagement with the social and cultural world. Equally significant for us is Michael Halliday. His view of language as a social semiotic, and the wider implications of his theories, gave us the means to go beyond the structuralist approach of 1960s Paris School semiotics, and our work is everywhere influenced by his ideas. Then there is Rudolf Arnheim. The more we read his work, the more we realize that most of what we have to say has already been said by him, often better than we have done it, albeit it usually in commentaries on individual works of art rather than in the form of a more general theory. He is commonly associated with Gestalt psychology: we would like to claim him as a great social semiotician. We would like to than our editor, Julia Hall, for her encouragement and invaluable help in producing this book. Jill Brewster and Laura Lopez-Bonilla were involved in various stages of the book; their encouragement and help made the work possible and enjoyable. x · Preface to the first edition
- 16. A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s Plate 3 Joshua Smith by William Dobell, 1943, © DACS 2004. Plate 5 Cossacks by Vassily Kandinsky, 1910–1911. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2004. Photography © Tate, London 2005. Plate 6 Historic Colours by Colin Poole, reproduced by kind permission of PhotoWord Syndication Ltd. Plate 7 Palgrave colour scheme reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. 1.1+1.13 ‘My bath’ from Baby’s First Book by B. Lewis, illustrated by H. Wooley, copyright © Ladybird Books Ltd., 1950. 1.2 Bird in tree from On My Walk, by Dick Bruna, 1988. Illustration Dick Bruna © Mercis bv, 1972. 1.4 Magazine cover with naturalistic photograph, cover of Newsweek, April 9, 2004 © 2004 Newsweek, Inc. Photograph by Karim Sahib-AFP-Getty Images. Reprinted by permission. 1.5 Magazine cover with conceptual photograph,cover of Newsweek, November 12,2001 © 2001 Newsweek, Inc. Reprinted by permission. 1.6 Image from ‘Interactive Physics’. Courtesy of MSC Software. 2.5 Communication model from Watson,J.and Hill,A.(1980) A Dictionary of Communi- cation and Media Studies, London, Arnold, p. 143. Reproduced by permission of Hodder Headline PLC. 2.6 Two Communication Models from Watson, J. and Hill, A. (1980) A Dictionary of Communication and Media Studies, London, Arnold p. 147. Reproduced by permission of Hodder Headline PLC. 2.10 Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge by El Lissitzky, 1919–20. © DACS 2004. 2.11 Kasimir Malevich (1878–1935) “Suprematist Composition: Red Square and Black Square”, 1914, New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) © 2004, Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. 2.17 Gulf War Diagram, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 February, 1991 reproduced by permission of Sydney Morning Herald. 2.18 Speech circuit from Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics, 1974, F. de Saussure, translated by Roy Harris by permission of Gerald Duckworth & Co.
- 17. 2.20 Vittel advertisements reproduced by kind permission of Nestlé Group. 2.22 Communication Model from Watson, J. and Hill, A. (1980) A Dictionary of Communication and Media Studies, London, Arnold p. 147. Reproduced by permission of Hodder Headline PLC. 2.23 Arctic tundra system, fig. 7.5, p.172 from Sale, C., Friedman, B. and Wilson, G. Our Changing World, Book 1, Pearson Education Australia. Reproduced by permission of the publisher. 2.24 Communication Model from Watson, J. and Hill, A. (1980) A Dictionary of Com- munication and Media Studies,London,Arnold p.54.Reproduced by permission of Hodder Headline PLC. 3.1 Guide interface from ‘Dangerous Creatures’, 1994. Screenshot reprinted by permis- sion from Microsoft Corporation. 3.2 Sekonda advertisement reproduced by kind permission of Sekonda/Time Products. 3.3 Sources of signs from Eco, U. (1976) A theory of semiotics, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, p.177. Reproduced by permission of the publisher. 3.5 Semantic field diagram from Eco, U. (1976) A theory of semiotics, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, p.78. Reproduced by permission of the publisher. 3.7 Network from Sharples, M. and Pemberton, ‘Representing writing: external represen- tations and the writing process’ in N. Williams and P. Holt, eds Computers and Writing. Reproduced by kind permission of Intellect Ltd, www.intellectbooks.com 3.13 Resort wear, Australian Women’s Weekly, December 1987. © Australian Women’s Weekly/ACP Syndication. Reproduced with permission. 3.19 Electrical circuit diagram from J. Hill, 1980, Introductory Physics. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Group. 3.20 The place of linguistics on the map of knowledge from Halliday, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic, London, Arnold. Reproduced by permission of Hodder Headline PLC. 3.21 ‘Women at work’,Fig.III–6,p.29,from Pictographs and Graphs: How to Make and Use Them by Rudolf Modley and Dyno Lowenstein. © 1952 by Harper & Brothers. Copy- right renewed 1980 by Peter M. Modley and Marion E. Schilling. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 3.28 ‘Fun with fungi’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 June 1992, reproduced by permission of Sydney Morning Herald. 4.2 ATM screen reproduced by kind permission of National Australia Bank. 4.4 The murder of Dr Chang, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 July 1991, reproduced by permission of Sydney Morning Herald. xii · Acknowledgements
- 18. 4.5 Playstation website reproduced by kind permission of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd. 4.7 New look Ford Mondeo from www.ford.co.uk reproduced by kind permission of Ford. 4.8 Fiesta ‘Rock solid’ website reproduced by kind permission of Ogilvy Group Holdings Ltd and Ford. 4.16 ‘Prison Guard’ by Danny Lyon, 1969, from Conversations with the dead. © Danny Lyon.Magnum Photos. Reproduced with permission. 4.19 Gulf war map, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 January 1991, reproduced by permission of Sydney Morning Herald. 4.20 An increase in tourism, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 January 1991, reproduced by permission of Sydney Morning Herald. 4.22 Detail from a fourteenth-century Spanish nativity, from Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. The New Version. © 1974 The Regents of the University of California. Reproduced by permission of University of California Press. 5.1 Speech circuit from Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics, 1974, F. de Saussure, translated by Roy Harris by permission of Gerald Duckworth & Co. 5.2 Schematized speech circuit from Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics, 1974, F. de Saussure, translated by Roy Harris by permission of Gerald Duckworth & Co. 5.6 Card-players (Van Doesburg, 1916–17) photograph/picture: Tim Koster, ICN, Rijswijk/Amsterdam. Reproduced with permission of Institut Collectie Nederland. 5.7 Composition 9 (Van Doesburg, 1917). Collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Reproduced with permission. 5.8 Colour Project for the Schröder Residence (Gerrit Rietveld, 1923–4) © DACS 2005. 5.9 Photograph of the Schröder Residence, Gerrit Rietveld, © DACS 2004. 5.11 © Oxford University Press from The Young Geographer Investigates: Mountains by Terry Jennings (OUP, 1986), reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. 5.12 Drawing by Newton. By permission of the Warden and Fellows, New College, Oxford, and The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. MS 361, vol. 2, fol. 45V. 5.13 Drawing of Stretton’s experiment, figure 8.1 (p.141) from The Eye and Brain: Psychology of Seeing 5/e by Richard Gregory, 1998, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. Gregory, Richard, Eye and Brain. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. 6.2 Gold-diggers, Australian Women’s Weekly, November 1987. © Australian Women’s Weekly/ACP Syndication. Reproduced with permission. · xiii Acknowledgements
- 19. 6.3 Sony Middle East website reproduced by kind permission of Sony Gulf FZE. 6.9 Gerbner’s communication model from Watson, J. and Hill, A. (1980) A Dictionary of Communication and Media Studies, London, Arnold. Reproduced by permission of Hodder Headline PLC. 6.10 Royal couple. H.M. The Queen’s wedding, photograph by Baron, Camera Press, London. H.M. The Queen and Prince Philip, photograph by H.R.H. Prince Andrew, Camera Press, London. Reproduced with permission. 6.12 Buddhist painting from Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. The New Version.© 1974 The Regents of the University of California. Reproduced by permission of University of California Press. 6.13 ‘Going on holiday’ from Prosser, R. (2000) Leisure, Recreation and Tourism, London, Collins Educational. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © R. Prosser, 2000. 6.14 Andersch et al.’s communication model from Watson, J. and Hill, A. (1980) A Dictionary of Communication and Media Studies, London, Arnold. Reproduced by permission of Hodder Headline PLC. 6.16 Vertical triptych from the website of Oxford University reproduced by kind permis- sion of Oxford University. 6.23 Screenshot from CD-ROM ‘3D Body Adventure’, Knowledge Adventure, 1993 provided courtesy of Knowledge Adventure, Inc. 7.1 Roy Lichtenstein, Big Painting, 1965. © The Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2004. 8.1 Jacob and the Angel (Jacob Epstein, 1940) © The Estate of Jacob Epstein/Tate, London 2005. Image supplied by and reproduced by permission of Granada TV. 8.2 People in the Wind (Kenneth Armitage, 1952). Reproduction courtesy of Kenneth Armitage Estate. Photography © Tate, London 2005. 8.5 Woman by Joan Miró, 1970 © Successio Miro, DACS 2004. 8.6 Les Heures des Traces (Hour of the Traces) by Alberto Giacometti, 1930 © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2004. Photography © Tate, London 2005. 8.7 Jacob and the Angel (Jacob Epstein, 1940) © The Estate of Jacob Epstein/Tate, London 2005. Image supplied by and reproduced by permission of Granada TV. 8.8 Playmobil ‘family set’ and ‘ethnic family’ from Playmobil catalogue. Reproduced by kind permission of Playmobil UK Ltd. 8.9 Recumbent Figure by Henry Moore, 1938. Illustrated on p. 250; has been reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation. Photography © Tate, London 2005. xiv · Acknowledgements
- 20. 8.10 King and Queen by Henry Moore, 1952–3. Illustrated on p. 253; has been repro- duced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation. Photography © Tate, London 2005. 8.11 Church of Santa Maria Della Spina from Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Percep- tion: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. The New Version. © 1974 The Regents of the University of California. Reproduced by permission of University of California Press. 8.12 Connected and disconnected narrative process, pp. 83–84 from S. Goodman and D. Graddol, Redesigning English – new texts, new identities, London, Routledge, 1997. Reproduced by permission of the publisher. 8.13 Overshoulder shot in computer game,Delta Force.Image courtesy of NovaLogic Inc. © 2004. All rights reserved. 8.14 Dynamic interpersonal relations in the opening scene of The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1947), pp. 91–92 from S. Goodman and D. Graddol, Redesigning English – new texts, new identities, London, Routledge, 1997. Reproduced by permission of the publisher. · xv Acknowledgements
- 22. I n t r o d u c t i o n : t h e g r a m m a r o f v i s u a l d e s i g n The subtitle of this book is ‘the grammar of visual design’. We hesitated over this title. Extensions of the term ‘grammar’ often suggest ‘rules’. In books with titles like The Grammar of Television Production one learns, for instance, about the rules of continuity; knowing these rules is then what sets the ‘professional’ apart from the ‘amateur’.What we wish to express is a little different. In our view, most accounts of visual semiotics have concentrated on what might be regarded as the equivalent of ‘words’ – what linguists call ‘lexis’ – rather than ‘grammar’, and then on the ‘denotative’ and ‘connotative’, the ‘icono- graphical’ and ‘iconological’ significance of the elements in images, the individual people, places and things (including abstract ‘things’) depicted there. In this book, by contrast, we will concentrate on ‘grammar’ and on syntax, on the way in which these elements are combined into meaningful wholes. Just as grammars of language describe how words combine in clauses, sentences and texts, so our visual ‘grammar’ will describe the way in which depicted elements – people, places and things – combine in visual ‘statements’ of greater or lesser complexity and extension. We are by no means the first to deal with this subject. Nevertheless, by comparison to the study of visual ‘lexis’, the study of visual ‘grammar’ has been relatively neglected, or dealt with from a different perspective, from the point of view of art history, or of the formal, aesthetic description of composition, or the psychology of perception, or with a focus on more pragmatic matters, for instance the way composition can be used to attract the viewer’s attention to one thing rather than another,e.g.in such applied environments as advertising or packaging. All these are valid approaches, and in many places and many ways we have made use of the insights of people writing from these different perspectives. Yet the result has been that, despite the very large amount of work done on images, not much attention has been paid to the meanings of regularities in the way image elements are used – in short, to their grammar – at least not in explicit or systematic ways. It is this focus on meaning that we seek,above all,to describe and capture in our book.We intend to provide usable descriptions of major compositional structures which have become estab- lished as conventions in the course of the history of Western visual semiotics, and to analyse how they are used to produce meaning by contemporary image-makers. What we have said about visual ‘grammar’ is true also of the mainstream of linguistic grammar: grammar has been, and remains, ‘formal’. It has generally been studied in isolation from meaning. However, the linguists and the school of linguistic thought from which we draw part of our inspiration – linguists following the work of Michael Halliday – have taken issue with this view, and see grammatical forms as resources for encoding interpretations of experience and forms of social (inter)action. Benjamin Lee Whorf argued the point in relation to languages from different cultures. In what he called ‘Stand- ard Average European’ languages, terms like ‘summer’, ‘winter’, ‘September’, ‘morning’, ‘noon’, ‘sunset’ are coded as nouns, as though they were things. Hence these languages
- 23. make it possible to interpret time as something you can count, use, save, etc. In Hopi, a North American Indian language, this is not possible. Time can only be expressed as ‘subjective duration-feeling’. You cannot say ‘at noon’, or ‘three summers’. You have to say something like ‘while the summer phase is occurring’ (Whorf, 1956). The critical linguists of the East Anglia School, with whom one of us was connected, have shown that such different interpretations of experience can also be encoded using the resources of the same language, on the basis of different ideological positions. Tony Trew (1979: 106–7) has described how, when the Harare police – in what was in 1975 still Rhodesia – fired into a crowd of unarmed people and shot thirteen of them, the Rhodesia Herald wrote, ‘A political clash has led to death and injury’, while the Tanzanian Daily News wrote, ‘Rhodesia’s white suprematist police . . . opened fire and killed thirteen unarmed Africans.’ In other words, the political views of newspapers are not only encoded through different vocabularies (of the well-known ‘terrorist’ vs ‘freedom fighter’ type), but also through different grammatical structures; that is, through the choice between coding an event as a noun (‘death’, ‘injury’) or a verb (‘kill’), which for its grammatical completion requires an active subject (‘police’) and an object (‘unarmed Africans’). Grammar goes beyond formal rules of correctness. It is a means of representing patterns of experience. . . . It enables human beings to build a mental picture of reality, to make sense of their experience of what goes on around them and inside them. (Halliday, 1985: 101) The same is true for the ‘grammar of visual design’. Like linguistic structures, visual structures point to particular interpretations of experience and forms of social interaction. To some degree these can also be expressed linguistically. Meanings belong to culture, rather than to specific semiotic modes. And the way meanings are mapped across different semiotic modes, the way some things can, for instance, be ‘said’ either visually or verbally, others only visually,again others only verbally,is also culturally and historically specific.In the course of this book we will constantly elaborate and exemplify this point. But even when we can express what seem to be the same meanings in either image-form or writing or speech, they will be realized differently. For instance, what is expressed in language through the choice between different word classes and clause structures, may, in visual communication,be expressed through the choice between different uses of colour or differ- ent compositional structures. And this will affect meaning. Expressing something verbally or visually makes a difference. As for other resonances of the term ‘grammar’ (‘grammar’ as a set of rules one has to obey if one is to speak or write in ‘correct’, socially acceptable ways), linguists often protest that they are merely describing what people do, and that others insist on turning descriptions into rules. But of course to describe is to be involved in producing knowledge which others will transform from the descriptive into the normative, for instance in educa- tion. When a semiotic mode plays a dominant role in public communication, its use will inevitably be constrained by rules, rules enforced through education, for instance, and 2 · Introduction
- 24. through all kinds of written and unwritten social sanctions. Only a small elite of experi- menters is allowed to break the rules – after all, breaking rules remains necessary to keep open the possibility of change. We believe that visual communication is coming to be less and less the domain of specialists, and more and more crucial in the domains of public communication. Inevitably this will lead to new, and more rules, and to more formal, normative teaching. Not being ‘visually literate’ will begin to attract social sanctions. ‘Visual literacy’ will begin to be a matter of survival, especially in the workplace. We are well aware that work such as ours can or will help pave the way for develop- ments of this kind. This can be seen negatively, as constraining the relative freedom which visual communication has so far enjoyed,albeit at the expense of a certain marginalization by comparison to writing; or positively, as allowing more people greater access to a wider range of visual skills.Nor does it have to stand in the way of creativity.Teaching the rules of writing has not meant the end of creative uses of language in literature and elsewhere, and teaching visual skills will not spell the end of the arts. Yet, just as the grammar creatively employed by poets and novelists is, in the end, the same grammar we use when writing letters, memos and reports, so the ‘grammar of visual design’ creatively employed by artists is,in the end,the same grammar we need when producing attractive layouts,images and diagrams for our course handouts, reports, brochures, communiqués, and so on. It is worth asking here what a linguistic grammar is a grammar of. The conventional answer is to say that it is a grammar of ‘English’ or ‘Dutch’ or ‘French’ – the rules that define English as ‘English’,Dutch as ‘Dutch’,and so on.A slightly less conventional answer would be to say that a grammar is an inventory of elements and rules underlying culture- specific forms of verbal communication. ‘Underlying’ here is a shorthand term for some- thing more diffuse and complex,more like ‘knowledge shared more or less by members of a group,explicitly and implicitly’.This brings in subtle matters of what knowledge is and how it is held and expressed, and above all the social question of what a ‘group’ is. That makes definitions of grammar very much a social question, one of the knowledges and practices shared by groups of people. We might now ask, ‘What is our “visual grammar” a grammar of?’ First of all we would say that it describes a social resource of a particular group, its explicit and implicit knowledge about this resource, and its uses in the practices of that group. Then, second, we would say that it is a quite general grammar, because we need a term that can encompass oil painting as well as magazine layout, the comic strip as well as the scientific diagram. Drawing these two points together, and bearing in mind our social definition of grammar, we would say that ‘our’ grammar is a quite general grammar of contemporary visual design in ‘Western’ cultures, an account of the explicit and implicit knowledge and prac- tices around a resource, consisting of the elements and rules underlying a culture-specific form of visual communication. We have quite deliberately made our definition a social one, beginning with the question ‘What is the group? What are its practices?’ and from there attempting to describe the grammar at issue,rather than adopting an approach which says, ‘Here is our grammar;do the practices and knowledges of this group conform to it or not?’ In the book we have, by and large, confined our examples to visual text-objects from ‘Western’ cultures and assumed that this generalization has some validity as it points to a · 3 Introduction
- 25. communicational situation with a long history that has evolved over the past five centuries or so, alongside writing (quite despite the differences between European languages), as a ‘language of visual design’. Its boundaries are not those of nation-states, although there are, and very much so, cultural/regional variations. Rather, this visual resource has spread, always interacting with the specificities of locality, wherever global Western culture is the dominant culture. This means, first of all, that it is not a ‘universal’ grammar. Visual language is not – despite assumptions to the contrary – transparent and universally understood; it is cultur- ally specific. We hope our work will continue to provide some ideas and concepts for the study of visual communication in non-Western forms of visual communication. To give the most obvious example, Western visual communication is deeply affected by our convention of writing from left to right (in chapter 6 we will discuss this more fully). The writing directions of cultures vary: from right to left or from left to right, from top to bottom or in circular fashion from the centre to the outside.Consequently different values and meanings are attached to such key dimensions of visual space. These valuations and meanings exert their influence beyond writing, and inform the meanings accorded to different com- positional patterns, the amount of use made of them, and so on. In other words, we assume that the elements, such as ‘centre’ or ‘margin’, ‘top’ or ‘bottom’, will play a role in the visual semiotics of any culture, but with meanings and values that are likely to differ depending on that culture’s histories of use of visual space,writing included.The ‘universal’ aspect of meaning lies in semiotic principles and processes, the culture-specific aspect lies in their application over history, and in specific instances of use. Here we merely want to signal that our investigations have been restricted, by and large, to Western visual com- munication. Even though others have begun to extend the applications of the principles of this grammar, we make no specific claims for the application of our ideas to other cultures. Within Western visual design, however, we believe that our theory applies to all forms of visual communication. We hope that the wide range of examples we use in the book will convince readers of this proposition. Our stress on the unity of Western visual communication does not exclude the possibility of regional and social variation.The unity of Western design is not some intrinsic feature of visuality, but derives from a long history of cultural connection and interchange, as well as now from the global power of the Western mass media and culture industries and their technologies. In many parts of the world, Western visual communication exists side by side with local forms. Western forms might be used, for instance, in certain domains of public communication, such as public notices, sites of public transport, the press, advertising, and the visual arts, as well as in somewhat more ‘private’ domains, in the home, and in markets and shops,for instance.Often the relation is hierarchical,with one form overlaid on another (see Scollon and Scollon, 2003; Kress, 2003), and often – as in advertising, for instance – the two are mutually transformed and fused. Where Western visual communication begins to exert pressure on local forms, there are transitional stages in which the forms of the two cultures mix in particular ways. In looking at advertisements in English-language maga- zines from the Philippines, for instance, we were struck by the way in which entirely conventional Western iconographical elements were integrated into designs following the 4 · Introduction
- 26. rules of a local visual semiotic. In advertisements on the MTR in Hong Kong, some advert- isements conform to the ‘Eastern’ directionality, others to the Western, yet others mix the two. As with the Filipino advertisements, discourses and iconography can be ‘Western’, mixed in various ways with those of the ‘East’, while colour schemes can, at the same time, be distinctly non-Western. The situation there is in any case complicated (as it is, differ- ently, in Japan) by the fact that directionality in the writing system has become compli- cated in several ways: by the adoption, in certain contexts, of ‘Western’ directionality and the Roman alphabet alongside the continued use of the more traditional directionalities and forms of writing. And as economic (and now often cultural) power is re-weighted, the trend can go in both or more directions: the influence of Asian forms of visual design is becoming more and more present in the ‘West’. Superimposed on all this are the increas- ingly prominent diasporic communities – of Greeks, Lebanese, Turks, of many groups of the Indian subcontinent, of new and older Chinese communities (for instance, Hong Kong Chinese around the Pacific Rim) – which seemingly affect only the members of this diaspora, and yet in reality are having deep influences well beyond them. Within Europe,increasing regionality counterbalances increasing globalization.So long as the European nations and regions still retain different ways of life and a different ethos, they will use the ‘grammar of visual design’ distinctly. It is easy, for example, to find examples of the contrasting use of the left and right in the composition of pages and images in the British media.It is harder to find such examples in,for instance,the Greek or the Spanish or the Italian media, as students from these countries have assured us and demonstrated in their work – after trying to do the assignments we had set them at home during their holidays. In the course of our book we will give some examples of this, for instance in connection with newspaper layout in different European countries.However,we are not able to do more than touch on the subject; and the issue of different ‘dialects’ and ‘inflections’ needs to be explored more fully in the future. In any case, the unity of languages is a social construct, a product of theory and of social and cultural histories. When the borders of (a) language are not policed by acad- emies, and when languages are not homogenized by education systems and mass media, people quite freely combine elements from the languages they know to make themselves understood. Mixed languages (‘pidgins’) develop in this way, and in time can become the language of new generations (‘creoles’). Visual communication, not subject to such policing, has developed more freely than language, but there has nevertheless been a dominant language, ‘spoken’ and developed in centres of high culture, alongside less highly valued regional and social variants (e.g. ‘folk art’). The dominant visual language is now controlled by the global cultural/technological empires of the mass media,which dissemin- ate the examples set by exemplary designers and, through the spread of image banks and computer-imaging technology, exert a ‘normalizing’ rather than explicitly ‘normative’ influence on visual communication across the world. Much as it is the primary aim of this book to describe the current state of the ‘grammar of visual design’, we will also discuss the broad historical, social and cultural conditions that make and remake the visual ‘language’. · 5 Introduction
- 27. A SOCIAL SEMIOTIC THEORY OF REPRESENTATION Our work on visual representation is set within the theoretical framework of ‘social semiot- ics’.It is important therefore to place it in the context of the way ‘semiotics’ has developed during, roughly, the past 75 years. In Europe, three schools of semiotics applied ideas from the domain of linguistics to non-linguistic modes of communication. The first was the Prague School of the 1930s and early 1940s. It developed the work of Russian Formalists by providing it with a linguistic basis. Notions such as ‘foregrounding’ were applied to language (e.g.the ‘foregrounding’,for artistic purposes,of phonological or syntactic forms through ‘deviation’ from standard forms, for artistic purposes) as well as to the study of art (Mukarovsky), theatre (Honzl), cinema (Jakobson) and costume (Bogatyrev). Each of these semiotic systems could fulfil the same communicative functions (the ‘referential’ and the ‘poetic’ functions). The second was the Paris School of the 1960s and 1970s, which applied ideas from de Saussure and other linguists to painting (Schefer), photography (Barthes, Lindekens), fashion (Barthes), cinema (Metz), music (Nattiez), comic strips (Fresnault-Deruelle), etc. The ideas developed by this School are still taught in countless courses of media studies, art and design, etc., often under the heading ‘semiology’, despite the fact that they are at the same time regarded as having been overtaken by post- structuralism. Everywhere students are learning about ‘langue’ and ‘parole’; the ‘signifier’ and the ‘signified’; ‘arbitrary’ and ‘motivated’ signs; ‘icons’, ‘indexes’ and ‘symbols’ (these terms come from the work of the American philosopher and semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce, but are often incorporated in the framework of ‘semiology’), and so on. Generally this happens without students being given a sense of, or access to, alternative theories of semiotics (or of linguistics). We will compare and contrast this kind of semiotics with our own approach, in this introduction as well as elsewhere in the book. This third, still fledg- ling, movement in which insights from linguistics have been applied to other modes of representation has two sources, both drawing on the ideas of Michael Halliday, one grow- ing out of the ‘Critical Linguistics’ of a group of people working in the 1970s at the University of East Anglia, leading to the outline of a theory that might encompass other semiotic modes (Hodge and Kress), the other, in the later 1980s, as a development of Hallidayan systemic-functional linguistics by a number of scholars in Australia, in semiot- ically oriented studies of literature (Threadgold, Thibault), visual semiotics (O’Toole, ourselves) and music (van Leeuwen). The key notion in any semiotics is the ‘sign’. Our book is about signs – or, as we would rather put it, about sign-making. We will be discussing forms (‘signifiers’) such as colour, perspective and line, as well as the way in which these forms are used to realize meanings (‘signifieds’) in the making of signs. But our conception of the sign differs somewhat from that of ‘semiology’, and we wish therefore to compare the two views explicitly. In doing so we use the term ‘semiology’ to refer to the way in which the Paris School semiotics is generally taught in the Anglo-Saxon world, through the mediation of influential textbooks such as the series of media studies textbooks edited by John Fiske (Fiske and Hartley, 1979;Dyer,1982;Fiske,1982;Hartley,1982;O’Sullivan et al.,1983).In doing this we do not seek to repudiate those who went before us. We see a continuity between their work 6 · Introduction
- 28. and ours, as should be clear from our main title, Reading Images, which echoes that of the first volume in Fiske’s series, Reading Television (Fiske and Hartley, 1979). We would like to begin with an example of what we understand by ‘sign-making’. The drawing in figure 0.1 was made by a three-year-old boy. Sitting on his father’s lap, he talked about the drawing as he was doing it:‘Do you want to watch me? I’ll make a car . . . got two wheels . . . and two wheels at the back . . . and two wheels here . . . that’s a funny wheel. . . .’ When he had finished, he said, ‘This is a car.’ This was the first time he had named a drawing,and at first the name was puzzling.How was this a car? Of course he had provided the key himself: ‘Here’s a wheel.’ A car, for him, was defined by the criterial characteristic of ‘having wheels’, and his representation focused on this aspect. What he represented was, in fact, ‘wheelness’. Wheels are a plausible criterion to choose for three- year-olds, and the wheel’s action, on toy cars as on real cars, is a readily noticed and describable feature.In other words,this three-year-old’s interest in cars was,for him,most plausibly condensed into and expressed as an interest in wheels. Wheels, in turn, are most plausibly represented by circles, both because of their visual appearance and because of the circular motion of the hand in drawing/representing the wheel’s action of ‘going round and round’. To gather this up for a moment, we see representation as a process in which the makers of signs, whether child or adult, seek to make a representation of some object or entity, whether physical or semiotic, and in which their interest in the object, at the point of making the representation, is a complex one, arising out of the cultural, social and psycho- logical history of the sign-maker, and focused by the specific context in which the sign- maker produces the sign. That ‘interest’ is the source of the selection of what is seen as the criterial aspect of the object, and this criterial aspect is then regarded as adequately representative of the object in a given context. In other words, it is never the ‘whole object’ but only ever its criterial aspects which are represented. These criterial aspects are represented in what seems to the sign-maker, at the moment of sign-making, the most apt and plausible fashion, and the most apt and plausible repre- sentational mode (e.g. drawing, Lego blocks, painting, speech). Sign-makers thus ‘have’ a 䉱 Fig 0.1 Drawing by a three-year-old child · 7 Introduction
- 29. meaning, the signified, which they wish to express, and then express it through the semiotic mode(s) that make(s) available the subjectively felt, most plausible, most apt form, as the signifier.This means that in social semiotics the sign is not the pre-existing conjunction of a signifier and a signified,a ready-made sign to be recognized,chosen and used as it is,in the way that signs are usually thought to be ‘available for use’ in ‘semiology’. Rather we focus on the process of sign-making, in which the signifier (the form) and the signified (the meaning) are relatively independent of each other until they are brought together by the sign-maker in a newly made sign. To put it in a different way, using the example just above, the process of sign-making is the process of the constitution of a sign/metaphor in two steps: ‘a car is (most like) wheels’ and ‘wheels are (most like) circles’. Putting it in our terms: the sign-maker’s interest at this moment of sign-making has settled on ‘wheelness’ as the criterial feature of ‘car’. He constructs, by a process of analogy,two metaphors/signs:first,the signified ‘wheel’ is aptly represented by the signifier ‘circle’ to make the motivated sign ‘wheel’; second, the signified ‘car’ is aptly represented by the signifier ‘many wheels’ to make the motivated sign ‘car’. The resulting sign, the drawing glossed ‘this is a car’, is thus a motivated sign in that each conjunction of signifier and signified is an apt, motivated conjunction of the form which best represents that which is to be meant. This sign is thus the result of a double metaphoric process in which analogy is the constitutive principle. Analogy, in turn, is a process of classification: x is like y (in criterial ways).Which metaphors (and,‘behind’ the metaphors,which classifications) carry the day and pass into the semiotic system as conventional, and then as naturalized, and then as ‘natural’, neutral classifications, is governed by social relations of power. Like adults, children are engaged in the construction of metaphors. Unlike adults, they are, on the one hand, less constricted by culture and its already-existing and usually invisible metaphors, but, on the other hand, usually in a position of less power, so that their meta- phors are less likely to carry the day. It follows that we see signs as motivated – not as arbitrary – conjunctions of signifiers (forms) and signifieds (meanings). In ‘semiology’ motivation is usually not related to the act of sign-making as it is in our approach, but defined in terms of an intrinsic relation between the signifier and the signified. It is here that Peirce’s ‘icon’, ‘index’ and ‘symbol’ make their appearance, incorporated into ‘semiology’ in a way which in fact contradicts some of the key ideas in Peirce’s semiotics. The ‘icon’ is the sign in which ‘the signifier– signified relationship is one of resemblance, likeness’ (Dyer, 1982: 124) – i.e. objective likeness, rather than analogy motivated by ‘interest’, establishes the relation. The ‘index’ is the sign in which ‘there is a sequential or causal relation between signifier and signified’ (Dyer, 1982: 125); that is, a logic of inference, rather than analogy motivated by ‘interest’. The third term in the triad, ‘symbol’, by contrast, is related to sign production, as it ‘rests on convention, or “contract” ’ (Dyer, 1982: 125), but this very fact makes it ‘arbitrary’, ‘unmotivated’, a case of meaning by decree rather than of active sign-making. In our view signs are never arbitrary, and ‘motivation’ should be formulated in relation to the sign-maker and the context in which the sign is produced, and not in isolation from the act of producing analogies and classifications.Sign-makers use the forms they consider apt for the expression of their meaning,in any medium in which they can make signs.When 8 · Introduction
- 30. children treat a cardboard box as a pirate ship, they do so because they consider the material form (box) an apt medium for the expression of the meaning they have in mind (pirate ship), and because of their conception of the criterial aspects of pirate ships (con- tainment, mobility, etc.). Language is no exception to this process of sign-making. All linguistic form is used in a mediated, non-arbitrary manner in the expression of meaning. For children in their early, pre-school years there is both more and less freedom of expres- sion: more, because they have not yet learned to confine the making of signs to the cultur- ally and socially facilitated media, and because they are unaware of established conven- tions and relatively unconstrained in the making of signs; less, because they do not have such rich cultural semiotic resources available as do adults. So when a three-year-old boy, labouring to climb a steep hill,says,‘This is a heavy hill’,he is constrained by not having the word ‘steep’ as an available semiotic resource. The same is the case with the resources of syntactic and textual forms. ‘Heavy’, in ‘heavy hill’, is, however, a motivated sign: the child has focused on particular aspects of climbing a hill (it takes a lot of energy; it is exhausting) and uses an available form which he sees as apt for the expression of these meanings. The adult who corrects by offering ‘steep’ (‘Yes, it’s a very steep hill’) is, from the child’s point of view, not so much offering an alternative as a synonym for the precise meaning which he had given to ‘heavy’ in that context. Both the child and the parent make use of ‘what is available’; it happens that different things are available to each. But to concentrate on this is to miss the central aspect of sign-making, especially that of children. ‘Availability’ is not the issue. Children, like adults, make their own resources of representation. They are not ‘acquired’, but made by the individual sign-maker. In ‘semiology’, countless students across the world are introduced to the terms ‘langue’ and ‘parole’, with ‘langue’ explained, for instance, as ‘the abstract potential of a language system . . . the shared language system out of which we make our particular, possibly unique, statements’ (O’Sullivan et al., 1983: 127) or, in our terms, as a system of available forms already coupled to available meanings, and with ‘parole’ defined as: an individual utterance that is a particular realization of the potential of langue. . . . By extension we can argue that the total system of television and film conventions and practices constitutes a langue,and the way they are realized in each programme or film a parole. (O’Sullivan et al., 1983: 127) We clearly work with similar notions, with ‘available forms’ and ‘available classifications’ (‘langue’) and individual acts of sign-making (‘parole’),and we agree that such notions can usefully be extended to semiotic modes other than language. But for us the idea of ‘poten- tial’ (what you can mean and how you can ‘say’ it, in whatever medium) is not limited by a system of ‘available meanings’ coupled with ‘available forms’, and we would like to use a slightly less abstract formulation:a semiotic ‘potential’ is defined by the semiotic resources available to a specific individual in a specific social context. Of course, a description of semiotic potential can amalgamate the resources of many speakers and many contexts. · 9 Introduction
- 31. But the resulting ‘langue’ (the langue of ‘English’ or of ‘Western visual design’) is in the end an artefact of analysis. What exists, and is therefore more crucial for understanding representation and communication, are the resources available to real people in real social contexts. And if we construct a ‘langue’, a meaning potential for ‘Western visual design’, then it is no more and no less than a tool which can serve to describe a variety of sign- making practices, within boundaries drawn by the analyst. It follows that we would not draw the line between ‘langue’ and ‘parole’ as sharply as it is usually done. Describing a ‘langue’ is describing a specific set of semiotic resources available for communicative action to a specific social group. Here are some antecedents of the car drawing. Figure 0.2 is a drawing made by the same child, some ten months earlier. Its circular motion is expressive of the child’s exuber- ant, enthusiastic and energetic actions in making the drawing. In figure 0.3, made about three months later, the circular motion has become more regular. The exuberance and energy are still there,but the drawing has acquired more regularity,more interest in shape: ‘circular motion’ is beginning to turn into ‘circle’. In other words, the meanings of figure 䉱 Fig 0.2 Drawing by a two-year-old child 10 · Introduction
- 32. 0.2 persist in figure 0.3, transformed, yet with significant continuity: figure 0.3 gathers up, so to speak, the meanings of figure 0.2, and then transforms and extends them. Figure 0.4,finally,shows a series of circles,each drawn on a separate sheet,one circle to each sheet. The movement from figure 0.2 to figure 0.4 is clear enough, as is the con- ceptual and transformative work done by the child over a period of fourteen months (figure 0.4 dates from the same period as figure 0.1). Together the drawings show how the child developed the representational resources available to him, and why circles seemed such an apt choice to him:the expressive,energetic physicality of the motion of figure 0.2 persisted as the child developed this representational resource, so that the circular motion remained part of the meaning of circle/wheel. But something was added as well: the transformation of representational resources was also a transformation of the child’s subjectivity,from the emotional,physical and expressive disposition expressed in the act of representing ‘circular motion’ to the more conceptual and cognitive disposition expressed in the act of represent- ing a ‘car’. Children,like all sign-makers,make their ‘own’ representational resources,and do so as 䉱 Fig 0.3 Drawing by a two-year-old child · 11 Introduction
- 33. part of a constant production of signs, in which previously produced signs become the signifier-material to be transformed into new signs. This process rests on the interest of sign-makers. This transformative, productive stance towards sign-making is at the same time a transformation of the sign-makers’ subjectivity – a notion for which there was little place in a ‘semiology’ which described the relation between signifiers and signifieds as resting on inference or objective resemblance, or on the decrees of the social ‘contract’. We have used children’s drawings as our example because we believe that the produc- tion of signs by children provides the best model for thinking about sign-making. It applies also to fully socialized and acculturated humans, with the exception of the effects of ‘convention’. As mature members of a culture we have available the culturally produced semiotic resources of our societies,and are aware of the conventions and constraints which are socially imposed on our making of signs. However, as we have suggested, in our approach adult sign-makers, too, are guided by interest, by that complex condensation of cultural and social histories and of awareness of present contingencies. ‘Mature’ sign- makers produce signs out of that interest, always as transformations of existing semiotic materials,therefore always in some way newly made,and always as motivated conjunctions of meaning and form. The effect of convention is to place the pressure of constant limita- tions of conformity on sign-making; that is, the way signifiers have been combined with signifieds in the history of the culture, acts as a constantly present constraint on how far one might move in combining signifiers with signifieds. Convention does not negate new making; it attempts to limit and constrain the semiotic scope of the combinations. This, then, is our position vis-à-vis ‘European’ semiology: where de Saussure had (been assumed to have) said that the relation of signifier and signified in the sign is arbitrary and conventional, we would say that the relation is always motivated and conventional. Where he had seemingly placed semiotic weight and power with the social, we wish to assert the effects of the transformative role of individual agents,yet also the constant presence of the social: in the historical shaping of the resources, in the individual agent’s social history, in 䉱 Fig 0.4 Drawing by a three-year-old child 12 · Introduction
- 34. the recognition of present conventions, in the effect of the environment in which represen- tation and communication happen. Yet it is the transformative action of individuals, along the contours of social givens, which constantly reshapes the resources, and makes possible the self-making of social subjects. One of the now taken-for-granted insights of socially oriented theories of language is the variation of language with the variation of social context.The accounts of this variation differ, ranging from correlation (‘language form x relates to social context y’) to determin- ation (‘language form x is produced by social actors y or in social context y’). A social semiotic approach takes the latter view, along the following lines. (1) Communication requires that participants make their messages maximally under- standable in a particular context. They therefore choose forms of expression which they believe to be maximally transparent to other participants. On the other hand, communication takes place in social structures which are inevitably marked by power differences, and this affects how each participant understands the notion of ‘maximal understanding’. Participants in positions of power can force other participants into greater efforts of interpretation, and their notion of ‘maximal understanding’ is there- fore different from that of participants who do their best to produce messages that will require a minimal effort of interpretation, or from that of participants who, through lack of command of the representational system, produce messages that are harder to interpret (e.g. children, learners of a foreign language). The other partici- pants may then either make the effort required to interpret these messages or refuse to do so, whether in a school or in a railway station in a foreign country. (2) Representation requires that sign-makers choose forms for the expression of what they have in mind, forms which they see as most apt and plausible in the given context. The examples above instantiate this: circles to stand for wheels, and wheels to stand for cars; heavy to stand for significant effort, and significant effort to stand for climbing a steep slope. Speakers of a foreign language use exactly the same strategy. They choose the nearest, most plausible form they know for the expression of what they have in mind. The requirements of communication are no different in more usual circumstances, they are simply less apparent. The interest of sign-makers, at the moment of making the sign,leads them to choose an aspect or bundle of aspects of the object to be represented as being criterial, at that moment, for representing what they want to represent, and then choose the most plausible, the most apt form for its representation. This applies also to the interest of the social institutions within which messages are produced, and there it takes the form of the (histories of) conventions and constraints. APPLICATIONS In the previous section we have focused on the theoretical background of our work,but our aims are not just theoretical. They are also descriptive and practical. We seek to develop a · 13 Introduction
- 35. descriptive framework that can be used as a tool for visual analysis. Such a tool will have its use for practical as well as analytical and critical purposes. To give some examples of the former, educationalists everywhere have become aware of the increasing role of visual communication in learning materials of various kinds,and they are asking themselves what kind of maps, charts, diagrams, pictures and forms of layout will be most effective for learning. To answer this question they need a language for speaking about the forms and meanings of these visual learning materials. Within the media, visual design is less and less the province of specialists who had generally seen little need for methodical and analytic- ally explicit approaches, and had relied instead on creative sensibilities honed through experience. But where media forms are relatively recently introduced – as is the case, for example,with advertising in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia – there is no such resistance to combining systematic analysis and practice. And with the advance of easy to use soft- ware for desktop publishing, the production of diagrams and charts, image manipulation, etc., visual design becomes less of a specialist activity, something many people will do alongside other activities. This has already led to rapid growth in the number of courses in this area – and designing such courses requires more of an analytical grasp of principles than learning on the job by example and osmosis. Last, and maybe at bottom at the root of much of this change,is ‘globalization’,which – maybe nearly paradoxically – demands that the cultural specificities of semiotic,social,epistemological and rhetorical effects of visual communication must be understood everywhere,since semiotic entities from anywhere now appear and are ‘consumed’ everywhere. Analysing visual communication is, or should be, an important part of the ‘critical’ disciplines. Although in this book we focus on displaying the regularities of visual com- munication, rather than its (‘interested’, i.e. political/ideological) uses, we see images of whatever kind as entirely within the realm of the realizations and instantiations of ideol- ogy, as means – always – for the articulation of ideological positions. The plain fact of the matter is that neither power nor its use has disappeared. It has only become more difficult to locate and to trace. In that context there is an absolute need in democratic terms for making available the means of understanding the articulations of power anywhere, in any form. The still growing enterprise of ‘critical discourse analysis’ seeks to show how lan- guage is used to convey power and status in contemporary social interaction, and how the apparently neutral,purely informative (linguistic) texts which emerge in newspaper report- ing, government publications, social science reports, and so on, realize, articulate and disseminate ‘discourses’ as ideological positions just as much as do texts which more explicitly editorialize or propagandize. To do so we need to be able to ‘read between the lines’, in order to get a sense of what discursive/ideological position, what ‘interest’, may have given rise to a particular text, and maybe to glimpse at least the possibility of an alternative view. It is this kind of reading for which critical discourse analysis seeks to provide the ways and means. So far, however, critical discourse analysis has mostly been confined to language, realized as verbal texts, or to verbal parts of texts which also use other semiotic modes to realize meaning.We see our book as a contribution to a broadened critical discourse analysis, and we hope that our examples will demonstrate its potential for this kind of work. 14 · Introduction
- 36. Our examples include ‘text-objects’ of many kinds, from works of art to entirely ordin- ary, banal artefacts such as maps, charts, pages of different kinds, including those of websites,etc.We have included works of art not just because of their key role in the history of conventions and constraints, hence in the formation of the ‘grammar of visual design’, but also because they,too,articulate ideological positions of complex and potent kinds,and they, too, should be approached from the point of view of social critique. As is perhaps already obvious from what we have said so far, we believe that visual design, like all semiotic modes, fulfils three major functions. To use Halliday’s terms, every semiotic fulfils both an ‘ideational’ function, a function of representing ‘the world around and inside us’ and an ‘interpersonal’ function, a function of enacting social interactions as social relations. All message entities – texts – also attempt to present a coherent ‘world of the text’, what Halliday calls the ‘textual’ function – a world in which all the elements of the text cohere internally, and which itself coheres with its relevant environment. Whether we engage in conversation, produce an advertisement or play a piece of music, we are simultaneously communicating, doing something to, or for, or with, others in the here and now of a social context (swapping news with a friend; persuading the reader of a magazine to buy something; entertaining an audience) and representing some aspect of the world ‘out there’, be it in concrete or abstract terms (the content of a film we have seen; the qualities of the advertised product; a mood or melancholy sentiment or exuberant energy conveyed musically), and we bind these activities together in a coherent text or communi- cative event. The structure of our book reflects this. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the patterns of representation which the ‘grammar of visual design’ makes available, and hence with the ways we can encode experience visually. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the patterns of interaction which the ‘grammar of visual design’ makes available, and hence with the things we can do to, or for, each other with visual communication, and with the relations between the makers and viewers of visual ‘texts’ which this entails. Chapter 6 deals with the ‘textual’ function,with the way in which representations and communicative acts cohere into meaningful wholes. Chapter 7 deals with the materiality of visual signs – the tools we make them with (ink, paint, brushstrokes, etc.) and the materials we make them on (paper, canvas, computer screens, etc.); these, too, contribute to the meaning of visual texts. Chapter 8 extends the previous chapters into the domain of three-dimensional visuals and moving images. Again we assume that there is something like a Western ‘grammar of three-dimensional visual design’, a set of available forms and meanings used in sculpture as well as, for instance, in three-dimensional scientific models, or in children’s toys – and a Western ‘grammar of the moving image’. We will begin, however, by discussing some of the broader themes we have touched on in this introduction. · 15 Introduction
- 37. 1 T h e s e m i o t i c l a n d s c a p e : l a n g u a g e a n d v i s u a l c o m m u n i c a t i o n In the early years of schooling, children are constantly encouraged to produce images, and to illustrate their written work. Teachers comment on these illustrations as much as they do on the written part of the text,though perhaps not quite in the same vein:unlike writing, illustrations are not ‘corrected’ nor subjected to detailed criticism (‘this needs more work’, ‘not clear’, ‘spelling!’, ‘poor expression’, and so on). They are seen as self-expression, rather than as communication – as something which the children can do already, spon- taneously, rather than as something they have to be taught. By the time children are beyond their first two years of secondary schooling, illustra- tions have largely disappeared from their own work. From here on, in a somewhat contra- dictory development, writing increases in importance and frequency and images become specialized. This is made more problematic by the facts of the present period, in which writing and image are in an increasingly unstable relation. We might characterize the situation of say twenty or thirty years ago in this way: texts produced for the early years of schooling were richly illustrated, but towards the later years of primary school images began to give way to a greater and greater proportion of written text.In as much as images continued, they had become representations with a technical function, maps, diagrams or photographs illustrating a particular landform or estuary or settlement type in a geog- raphy textbook, for instance. Thus children’s own production of images was channelled in the direction of specialization – away from ‘expression’ and towards technicality. In other words, images did not disappear, but they became specialized in their function. In many ways the situation in school remains much the same, with two profoundly important provisos. On the one hand all school subjects now make much more use of images, particularly so in the years of secondary schooling. In many of these subjects, certainly in the more technical/scientific subjects such as (in England) Science, Informa- tion Technology or Geography, images have become the major means of representing curricular content. In the more humanistic subjects – for example, History, English and Religious Studies – images vary in their function between illustration, decoration and information.This trend continues,and it is the case for worksheets,in textbooks and in CD- ROMs. On the other hand, there is no teaching or ‘instruction’ in the (new) role of images (though in England, in the school subject Information Technology, there is teaching in desktop publishing). Most importantly, assessment continues to be based on writing as the major mode. Students are called upon to make drawings in Science, Geography and His- tory; but, as before, these drawings tend not to be the subject of the teacher’s attention, judging by their (written) comments on the children’s work. In other words, materials provided for children make intense representational use of images; in materials demanded from children – in various forms of assessment particularly – writing remains the expected and dominant mode. Outside school, however, images play an ever-increasing role, and not just in texts for
- 38. children. Whether in the print or electronic media, whether in newspapers, magazines, CD- ROMs or websites, whether as public relations materials, advertisements or as infor- mational materials of all kinds, most texts now involve a complex interplay of written text, images and other graphic or sound elements, designed as coherent (often at the first level visual rather than verbal) entities by means of layout. But the skill of producing multi- modal texts of this kind, however central its role in contemporary society, is not taught in schools. To put this point harshly, in terms of this essential new communication ability, this new ‘visual literacy’, institutional education, under the pressure of often reactionary political demands, produces illiterates. Of course, writing is itself a form of visual communication. Indeed, and paradoxically, the sign of the fully literate social person is the ability to treat writing completely as a visual medium – for instance by not moving one’s lips and not vocalizing when one is reading, not even ‘subvocalizing’ (a silent ‘speaking aloud in the head’, to bring out the full paradox of this activity). Readers who move their lips when reading, who subvocalize, are regarded as culturally and intellectually tainted by having to take recourse to the culturally less valued mode of spoken language when reading visual script. This ‘old’ visual literacy, writing, has for centuries now been one of the most essential achievements and values of Western culture, and one of the most essential goals of education, so much so that one major and heavily value-laden distinction made by Western cultures has been that between literate (advanced) and non-literate (oral and primitive) cultures.No wonder that the move towards a new literacy, based on images and visual design, can come to be seen as a threat, a sign of the decline of culture, and hence a particularly potent symbol and rallying point for conservative and even reactionary social groupings. The fading out of certain kinds of texts by and for children, then, is not a straight- forward disvaluation of visual communication, but a valuation which gives particular prominence to one kind of visual communication,writing,and to one kind of visual literacy, the ‘old’ visual literacy. Other visual communication is either treated as the domain of a very small elite of specialists, or disvalued as a possible form of expression for articulate, reasoned communication,seen as a ‘childish’ stage one grows out of.This is not a valuation of language as such over visual communication,because even now the structures,meanings and varieties of spoken language are largely misunderstood, and certainly not highly valued in their variety in the education system (with some exceptions, such as in formal ‘debating’) or in public forums of power. To sum up: the opposition to the emergence of the visual as a full means of representa- tion is not based on an opposition to the visual as such, but on an opposition in situations where it forms an alternative to writing and can therefore be seen as a potential threat to the present dominance of verbal literacy among elite groups. In this book we take a fresh look at the question of the visual.We want to treat forms of communication employing images as seriously as linguistic forms have been.We have come to this position because of the now overwhelming evidence of the importance of visual communication, and the now problematic absence of the means for talking and thinking about what is actually communicated by images and by visual design. In doing so, we have to move away from the position which Roland Barthes took in his 1964 essay ‘Rhetoric of · 17 The semiotic landscape
- 39. the image’ (1977: 32–51). In this essay (and elsewhere, as in the introduction to Elements of Semiology; Barthes, 1967a), he argued that the meaning of images (and of other semiotic codes, like dress, food, etc.) is always related to and, in a sense, dependent on, verbal text. By themselves, images are, he thought, too ‘polysemous’, too open to a variety of possible meanings. To arrive at a definite meaning, language must come to the rescue. Visual meaning is too indefinite;it is a ‘floating chain of signifieds’.Hence,Barthes said,‘in every society various techniques are developed intended to fix the floating chain of signi- fieds in such a way as to counter the terror of uncertain signs; the linguistic message is one of these techniques’ (1977: 39). He distinguished between an image–text relation in which the verbal text extends the meaning of the image, or vice versa, as is the case, for example, with the speech balloons in comic strips, and an image–text relation in which the verbal text elaborates the image, or vice versa. In the former case, which he called relay, new and different meanings are added to complete the message. In the latter case, the same mean- ings are restated in a different (e.g. more definite and precise) way, as is the case, for example, when a caption identifies and/or interprets what is shown in a photograph. Of the two,elaboration is dominant.Relay,said Barthes,is ‘more rare’.He distinguished two types of elaboration,one in which the verbal text comes first,so that the image forms an illustra- tion of it,and one in which the image comes first,so that the text forms a more definite and precise restatement or ‘fixing’ of it (a relation he calls anchorage). Before approximately 1600 (the transition is, of course, very gradual), Barthes argued, ‘illustration’ was dominant. Images elaborated texts, more specifically the founding texts of the culture – mythology, the Bible, the ‘holy writ’ of the culture – texts, therefore, with which viewers could be assumed to be familiar.This relation,in which verbal texts formed a source of authority in society, and in which images disseminated the dominant texts in a particular mode to particular groups within society, gradually changed to one in which nature, rather than discourse, became the source of authority. In the era of science, images, ever more naturalistic,began to function as ‘the book of nature’,as ‘windows on the world’, as ‘observation’,and verbal text served to identify and interpret,to ‘load the image,burden- ing it with a culture, a moral, an imagination’. This position does explain elements of communication. Any one of the image–text rela- tions Barthes describes may at times be dominant, although we feel that today there is a move away from ‘anchorage’. Compare, for example, the ‘classic’ documentary film in which the viewer is first confronted with ‘images of nature’, then with the authoritative voice of a narrator who identifies and interprets the images, with the modern ‘current affairs’ item, in which the viewer is first confronted with the anchorperson’s verbal dis- course and, either simultaneously or following on from the verbal introduction, with the ‘images of nature’ that illustrate, exemplify and authenticate the discourse. But Barthes’ account misses an important point: the visual component of a text is an independently organized and structured message,connected with the verbal text,but in no way dependent on it – and similarly the other way around. One important difference between the account we develop in this book and that of earlier semioticians is our use of work in linguistic theories and descriptions. This is a difficult argument to make, but worth making clearly. We think that this book would not 18 · The semiotic landscape
- 40. have been possible without the achievements of linguistics, yet we do not, in the way some critics of our approach have suggested, see our approach as a linguistic one. So what have we used from linguistics, and how have we used it? And, equally, what have we not used from linguistics? To start with the latter question, we have not imported the theories and methodologies of linguistics directly into the domain of the visual, as has been done by others working in this field.For instance,we do not make a separation of syntax,semantics and pragmatics in the domain of the visual; we do not look for (the analogues of) sen- tences, clauses, nouns, verbs, and so on, in images. We take the view that language and visual communication can both be used to realize the ‘same’ fundamental systems of meaning that constitute our cultures, but that each does so by means of its own specific forms, does so differently, and independently. To give an example, the distinction between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ meanings has played an important role in Western culture ever since the physical sciences began to develop in the sixteenth century. This distinction can be realized (that is, given concrete, material expression, hence made perceivable and communicable) with linguistic as well as visual means. The terms ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ can therefore be applied to both: they belong to the meaning potential of a culture and its society. But the way the distinction is realized in language is quite different from the way it is realized in images. For example, in language an idea can be realized subjectively by using a ‘mental process verb’ like believe in the first person (e.g. We believe that there is a grammar of images); or objectively through the absence of such a form (e.g. There is a grammar of images). Visual represen- tation, too, can realize both subjectivity, through the presence of a perspectival angle, and objectivity, through its absence, a point which will be discussed more fully in chapter 4. Mental process clauses and nominalization are unique to language. Perspective is unique to images. But the kinds of meaning expressed are from the same broad domain in each case;and the forms,different as they are,were developed in the same period,in response to the same cultural changes. Both language and visual communication express meanings belonging to and structured by cultures in the one society; the semiotic processes, though not the semiotic means, are broadly similar; and this results in a considerable degree of congruence between the two. At the same time, however, each medium has its own possibilities and limitations of meaning. Not everything that can be realized in language can also be realized by means of images, or vice versa. As well as a broad cultural congruence, there is significant difference between the two (and other semiotic modes, of course). In a language such as English one needs to use a verb in order to make a full utterance (believe, is); and language has to use names to refer to whatever is to be represented (a grammar of images, believe, we). But language does not have or need angles of vision to achieve perspective, nor does it have or need spatial dispositions of elements to achieve the meanings of syntactic relations:images have and need both. The meaning potentials of the two modes are neither fully conflated nor entirely opposed. We differ from those who see the meaning of language as inherent in the forms and the meaning of images as derived from the context, or the meanings of language as ‘conscious’ and the meanings of images as ‘unconscious’. To return to the first of our two questions – What have we used from linguistics, and · 19 The semiotic landscape
- 41. how have we used it? – perhaps the most significant borrowing is our overall approach, an ‘attitude’ which assumes that, as a resource for representation, images, like language, will display regularities,which can be made the subject of relatively formal description.We call this a ‘grammar’ to draw attention to culturally produced regularity. More specifically, we have borrowed ‘semiotic orientations’, features which we taken to be general to all human meaning-making, irrespective of mode. For instance, we think that the distinction between ‘objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ is a general cultural/semiotic issue which can be realized linguistically as well as visually, though differently so, as we have said. Or, as another instance, we have taken Michael Halliday’s social semiotic approach to language as a model, as a source for thinking about general social and semiotic processes, rather than as a mine for categories to apply in the description of images. His model with its three functions is a starting point for our account of images, not because the model works well for language (which it does,to an extent),but because it works well as a source for thinking about all modes of representation. Maybe most to the point is this: our approach to communication starts from a social base.In our view the meanings expressed by speakers,writers,printmakers,photographers, designers, painters and sculptors are first and foremost social meanings, even though we acknowledge the effect and importance of individual differences. Given that societies are not homogeneous, but composed of groups with varying, and often contradictory, interests, the messages produced by individuals will reflect the differences, incongruities and clashes which characterize social life. It is likely, and in our experience often the case, that the different modes through which texts are constructed show these social differences, so that in a multimodal text using images and writing the writing may carry one set of meanings and the images carry another. In an advertisement, for instance, it may be that the verbal text is studiously ‘non-sexist’,while the visual text encodes overtly sexist stereotypes.Given the still prevalent sense about the meaning of images, it is possible to pretend that the meaning carried in the image is there only ‘in the eye of the beholder’, something that it would not be possible to assert about verbally realized meanings. Our examples in this book are quite deliberately drawn from very many domains, and from different historical periods. We hope that our ideas will help anyone interested in communication to see in images not only the aesthetic and expressive, but also the struc- tured social, political and communicative dimensions. We will draw examples from the kinds of texts which are already fully based on the new visual literacy and play a dominant role in any public sphere, magazine articles, advertisements, textbooks, websites and so on. This is not because we want to promote these texts as a kind of model which should replace other kinds of texts,but because their role in the lives of children and adults is so important that we simply cannot afford to leave the ability to think and talk about them (and, indeed, to produce them) to a handful of specialists. We have a particular interest in the place of the visual in the lives of children, and we hope to show that children very early on, and with very little help (despite all the encouragement),develop a surprising ability to use elements of the visual ‘grammar’ – an ability which, we feel, should be understood better and developed further, rather than being cut off prematurely as is, too often, the case at present; and an ability that should also be available to adults. 20 · The semiotic landscape
- 42. AN UNCONVENTIONAL HISTORY OF WRITING The dominance of the verbal, written medium over other visual media is firmly coded and buttressed in conventional histories of writing. These go something like this. Language in its spoken form is a natural phenomenon, common to all human groups. Writing, however, is the achievement of only some (historically, by far the minority of) cultures. At a particu- lar stage in the history of certain cultures, there developed the need to make records of transactions of various kinds, associated usually with trade, religion or (governing) power. These records were initially highly iconic; that is, the relation between the object to be recorded and the forms and means of recording was close and transparent. For instance, the number of notches in a stick would represent the number of objects stored or traded or owed. The representation of the object would usually also be transparent: a wavy line eventually became the Chinese ideogram for ‘water’; the hieroglyphic image of the ox’s head which initially ‘stood for’ ‘ox’ eventually became the letter aleph (ℵ),alpha (α),a.This example illustrates what in these histories is regarded as the rarest of all achievements,the invention of alphabetic writing. Alphabetic writing developed,it seems clear,out of iconic,image-based scripts.In these original script forms, an object was initially represented by an image of that object. Over time, in the use of the script by different groups, speaking different languages, the image of the object came to stand for the name of the object and then for its initial letter.Aleph,‘ox’ in Egyptian hieroglyphics, after centuries of travel and constant transformation through the cultures and languages of the eastern Mediterranean, became the letter alpha, and eventually the letter a in the Roman alphabet. Clearly this was a process where each step involved considerable abstraction, so much so that, seemingly, alphabetic writing has been invented only once in the history of human cultures. All present alphabetic scripts, from India to the Middle East to Europe, are developments of that initial step from Egyptian (or possibly Sumerian) iconic hieroglyphic representation to the Phoenician alphabet, and from there westward to the Greek-speaking world, and eastward to the Indian subcontinent, or, in the region of its origin, developing into the Arabic version of the alphabet. This is indeed an impressive cultural history, impressive enough to have stood as the accepted historical account of the achievement of (alphabetic) writing, unquestioned for centuries. Within this account, all cultures with forms of visual representation that are not directly connected to language are treated as cultures without writing.However,it is worth investigating this history, and in particular the crucial step from visual representation to the link with language, a little more closely. Prior to this step (in reality a development spanning millennia) there were two separate and independent modes of representation.One was language-as-speech; the other, the visual image, or visual marks. Each served a par- ticular set of purposes such as the construction of histories and myths, the recording of genealogies and transactions,and the recording and measurement of objects.In the case of some cultures, however, the one form of representation ‘took over’ the other, as a means of recording;that is,visual representation became specialized – one could say,reduced – to function as a means of the visual representation of speech,perhaps in highly organized and · 21 The semiotic landscape
- 43. bureaucratized societies.At this point the visual was subsumed,taken over,by the verbal as its means of recording. Consequently its former public uses, possibilities and potentials for independent representation disappeared, declined and withered away. In the case of other cultures, however, this development did not occur. Here the visual continued, along with the verbal means of representation. Instances of this abound: from the one extreme of the Inca quipu strings (sensorily the tactile mode of representation) to Australian Aboriginal drawings, sand-paintings and carvings. These encode, in a manner not at all directly dependent on, or a ‘translation’ of, verbal language, meanings of the culture which are deemed to be best represented in visual form. They are connected with language,or language with them,so that wall-paintings or sand-paintings,for instance,are accompanied by verbal recounts of geographical features,journeys,ancestor myths,and so on. However, in these cases there is no question of the priority of the one over the other mode, and the visual has certainly not become subsumed to the verbal as its form of representation. In this connection it is interesting to consider the history of two words which in a sense are synonymous with Western notions of literacy, the words grammar and syntax. Gram- mar derives from the Greek grammatike (‘the art of reading and writing’, ‘grammar’, ‘alphabet’); related words were gramma (‘sign’, ‘letter’, ‘alphabet’), grammatikos (‘liter- ate’, ‘(primary) teacher’, ‘grammarian’). This etymology records the state of things in the Hellenistic period (from approximately 300bc); in earlier times the meaning ‘sign’, as in ‘painted or drawn [etc.] mark’ was the primary meaning. In Homer, for example, the verb graphein still means ‘scratch’, ‘scratch in’, as in engraving, and from there it comes to mean both ‘writing’ and ‘drawing’, ‘painting’. Syntaxis, in pre-Hellenistic times, meant ‘contract’, ‘wage’, ‘organization’, ‘system’, ‘battle formation’, with syntagma, for instance, ‘contingent of troops’, ‘constitution (of a state)’, ‘book or treatise’. Only in the Hellenistic period does syntaxis come to mean (among its other meanings) ‘grammatical construc- tion’. The verb syntasso, again, means both ‘arrange battle formations’ and ‘concentrate (one’s thoughts)’, ‘organize’, ‘write’, ‘compose’. While we do not wish to place too much emphasis on etymology,nevertheless the history of these two words which are so crucial to our notions of literacy points to forms of social organization and order, on the one hand, and to visual ‘markings’ on the other. Together they indicate the initially quite independent organization of the mode of images and the mode of verbal language. At the same time, the subsequent history of the word grammar brings out clearly the subordination of the visual medium to the medium of verbal lan- guage. Cultures which still retain the full use of both media of representation are, from the point of view of ‘literate cultures’, regarded as illiterate, impoverished, underdeveloped, when in fact they have a richer array of means of representation than that overtly and consciously available to literate cultures. Nevertheless, as we pointed out earlier, literate cultures do make use of means of visual communication other than writing, be it that they are seen as uncoded replicas of reality or as a means of individual expression by children or artists. In other words, they are not treated as either the expressions of, or accessible to means of reading based on, articulated, rational and social meanings. Our unconventional history of writing is one that treats the coming together of visual 22 · The semiotic landscape
- 44. and verbal representation as only one possibility, and one, furthermore, that brings with it not just those benefits of writing which are well enough understood, but also the negative aspects incurred in the loss of an independent form of representation, the diminution of modes of expression and representation. From that point of view cultures such as Austral- ian Aboriginal cultures are seen as having both modes of representation: the visual (or perhaps a whole set of visual forms of representation) and the verbal. The point of this history is not only the political one of undermining the notion of ‘illiterate culture’ (or ‘merely oral culture’), but also the attempt to see to what extent the conventional history blinds us to the facts and uses of visual communication in so-called literate cultures. In this book we develop the hypothesis that in a literate culture the visual means of communication are rational expressions of cultural meanings, amenable to rational accounts and analysis. The problem which we face is that literate cultures have system- atically suppressed means of analysis of the visual forms of representation, so that there is not, at the moment, an established theoretical framework within which visual forms of representation can be discussed. THE ‘OLD’ AND THE ‘NEW’ VISUAL LITERACY IN BOOKS FOR THE VERY YOUNG So far we have distinguished two kinds of visual literacy: one in which visual communica- tion has been made subservient to language and in which images have come to be regarded as unstructured replicas of reality (the ‘old visual literacy’, in our terms); and another in which (spoken) language exists side by side with, and independent of, forms of visual representation which are openly structured, rather than viewed as more or less faithful duplicates of reality (the ‘new’, in our terms). We have looked at these as historical and cultural alternatives. But they also exist side by side, at least in contemporary Western culture, and we suggest that we are in the middle of a shift in valuation and uses from the one mode to the other, from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ visual literacy, in many important social contexts. The examples we will now discuss suggest that the very first books children encounter may already introduce them to particular kinds of visual literacy. Figure 1.1 shows a typical two-page spread from Baby’s First Book, a book which, on its inside cover, declares that ‘the text and illustrations, though oversimple to grown-ups, will satisfy their [i.e. the toddlers’] cravings for the repetition of what they already know, and will help them associate the words with the objects’.When we wrote the first version of this chapter, in 1989, it was still widely distributed, and today it is already making a comeback as an object of nostalgia. Figure 1.2 shows a typical page from Dick Bruna’s On My Walk. This book is one of a set of four,the others being In My Home, In My Toy Cupboard and On the Farm.It consists of eight pages and, with the exception of the front and back covers, the pages contain no words whatsoever. Compared to the picture of the bird in the tree, the picture of the bath is realistic, detailed and complex. If we were to analyse it into its components, if we were to try · 23 The semiotic landscape
- 45. and identify all the different elements of this picture, we might encounter problems. Are the ripples in the water to be counted as components? Are the shadows, cast by the tub and towel? And if we were to try and identify the relations between these components, what would we have to say, for example, about the relation between the duck and the soap? We ask these questions because they are the kinds of questions with which one might start if one wanted to show that images are structured messages, amenable to constituent analysis. Isn’t the structure here that of the cultural object ‘bathroom’, rather than one imposed by the conventions of a visual code? Isn’t this picture unproblem- atically, transparently readable (recognizable), provided one knows what bathrooms look like? This is the line Paris School semioticians such as Roland Barthes and Christian Metz took in the 1960s. Commenting on photography, Barthes said: In order to move from the reality to its photograph it is in no way necessary to divide up this reality into units and to constitute these units as signs, substantially different from the object they communicate. . . . Certainly, the image is not the reality but at least it is its perfect analogon and it is exactly this analogical perfection which, to commonsense, defines the photograph. Thus can be seen the special status of the photographic image: it is a message without a code. (Barthes, 1977: 17) 䉱 Fig 1.1 My bath (from Baby’s First Book, Ladybird) 24 · The semiotic landscape
- 46. And he extends this argument to other pictorial modes, albeit with a qualification: Are there other messages without a code? At first sight, yes: precisely the whole range of analogical reproductions of reality – drawings, paintings, cinema, theatre. However, each of those messages develops in an immediate and obvious way a supplementary message . . . which is what is commonly called the style of the reproduction. (Barthes, 1977: 17) The picture of the bird in the tree, on the other hand, is much less naturalistic, much less detailed and much simpler than the picture of the bathroom.It is stylized and conventional, and quite clearly a ‘coded’ image. No depth, no shadows, no subtle nuances of colour: everything is plain and bold and simple.And the structure of the image,with its one central and four marginal images, does not imitate anything in the real world. It is a conventional visual arrangement, based on a visual code. As a result the components of the whole stand out as separate, distinct units, and the picture would seem quite amenable to constituent analysis. This is not just a matter of style: the structure of this picture could also be realized in more detailed styles. Bruna’s book dates from 1953, well before the era of computer ‘imaging’,but the picture of the bird in the tree could have been composed with a computer, aligning ready-made simple icons in a compositional configuration – it is in fact quite similar to the computer-drawn dinner invitation in figure 1.3. 䉱 Fig 1.2 Bird in tree (Bruna,1988) · 25 The semiotic landscape
- 47. Second, the picture of the bathroom is part of a two-page layout, and accompanied by words. Language comes first, authoritatively imposing meaning on the image, turning it into a typical instance of a bathroom by means of the generic label ‘Bath’. As a result the picture could be replaced by other images of bathrooms without much loss of meaning (one verbal text, many images, many possible illustrations). Here language is general, bestowing similarity and order on the diverse, heterogeneous world of images. Thus the book presents, on the one hand, an ‘uncoded’, naturalistic representation (‘the world as it is’ – empirical, factual, specific) and, on the other hand, a specific, authoritatively pre- scribed way of reading this ‘uncoded’ naturalistic picture.We will show later that,contrary to what Barthes and others argued in the 1960s, pictures of this kind are also structured, whether they are photographs, drawings, paintings or other kinds of pictures. For the moment, however, the important point is that they are not usually interpreted as such, that awareness of the structuredness of images of this kind is,in our society,suppressed and not part of ‘common sense’. In Dick Bruna’s On My Walk, by contrast, there are no words to authoritatively impose meaning on the image, and the image is no longer an illustration: the image carries the meaning, the words come second. Parents who read this book with their children could all tell a different story, could even use different languages (one image, many verbal texts). 䉱 Fig 1.3 Computer-drawn dinner invitation 26 · The semiotic landscape
- 48. The world of ‘one image, many different verbal texts’ (‘commentaries’) imposes a new mode of control over meaning, and turns the image, formerly a record of nature or a playground for children and artists, into a more powerful, but also more rigorously con- trolled and codified public language, while it gives language, formerly closely policed in many social institutions, a more private and less controlled, but also less powerful, status. The ‘readings’ which parents produce when they read On My Walk with their children may all be different, yet these different readings will necessarily have common elements, deriv- ing from their common basis – the elements included in the image, and the way these elements are compositionally brought together. Whatever story parents will tell about the page with the bird in the tree,it will necessar- ily have to be a story that creates a relation between, for instance, birds and aeroplanes (nature and technology) and birds and cats (prey and predator). It will also have to be a story in which the bird,safely in its tree,is the central character,literally and figuratively.In how many ways can cats and birds be related? Not that many, at least not if one assumes that books like On My Walk serve to introduce children to the world around them, rather than to the possible worlds of fantasies and utopias. Cats can ‘hunt’, ‘torture’, ‘kill’ and ‘eat’ birds. Birds can ‘escape’ cats or fail to do so. There are not that many stories to choose from. On the other hand, parents and their children can choose the order in which they want to deal with the various elements: the page is ‘non-linear’. It does not impose a sequential structure. And they can choose whether to tell the story of the bird and the cat as a political story, a story of powerful predators coming from another continent and native birds killed and threatened with extinction (as might be done, for instance, in Aus- tralia),or as a story that legitimizes the survival of the fittest.The story of the bird and the aeroplane, similarly, may be told from an environmentalist point of view, or as a story of evolutionary triumphs and human technological progress. Even where such discourses are not explicitly invoked, they will still communicate themselves to children through the parents’ attitudes towards the characters and the actions. Not only the elements on the individual pages, but also the pages themselves must be brought in relation to each other. The book as a whole must be readable as a coherent sequence. This is prompted by the title (On My Walk) as well as by the picture on the front cover, which shows all the elements together. We have investigated this a little further in connection with another book in the Bruna series, On the Farm. This book contains the following central pictures:house,farmer,cat,dog,apple tree,rooster,lamb,cow.Listing the ways in which these pictures can plausibly be linked to each other, we found that some (e.g. the apple tree and the house) can only be linked in spatial, locative terms (e.g. the apple tree is next to the house).Others (e.g.the animals and the house) can be related by verbs of ‘dwelling’ (e.g. the cow lies under the apple tree) or by the verbs of ‘motion’ (e.g. the cat climbs up the apple tree). Two of the animals (the cat and the dog) can relate to the other animals and to each other by means of antagonistic or co-operative actions (e.g. the dog barks at the cow; the dog leads the sheep). Only the farmer can relate to all the other elements in an agentive way. He can buy them, own them, build them, grow them, keep them, raise them, harvest them, shear them, slaughter them, and so on. In other words, whatever way the parents read these pictures, they will, in the end, have to deal with the · 27 The semiotic landscape
- 49. theme of spatial order, the theme of social interaction (projected on to animals) and the theme of human mastery over nature (as well as, via the marginal pictures, with the theme of procreation),and they will have to do all this in terms of the elements pre-selected by the book. An analysis of the way the elements can be opposed to each other shows that, whatever the classifications parents may construct, they will not be able to avoid engaging with the Western cultural distinctions between ‘untamed nature’, ‘domesticated/cultivated nature’ and ‘human technology’. And they will also have to recognize the distinction between animate and inanimate, flora and fauna, and between pets, farm animals and wild animals. It should be noted, however, that every page in the book (and in Bruna’s other books) contains at least one relation that does not easily fit the received classifications,that forms somewhat of a challenge and a puzzle. What, for example, is the relation between a rabbit and a basket of flowers? A beetle and a fence? Such visual enigmas can challenge parents and children to exercise their imagination, to include in their thinking elements that do not easily fit in with the traditional order of things, to tolerate some ambiguity, to allow the inclusion of the ‘other’ in their construction of the world. The two books, then, are very different in their stance towards the image. The Bruna stance presents highly processed, essentialized and idealized representations, and provides parents and,later,children with the opportunity to talk about the images in ways which are or seem appropriate to them, to apply specific values, specific discourses to these relatively abstract images. The Ladybird stance presents ostensibly less processed, more naturalistic visual representations and provides parents (and,later on,children) with a specific verbally realized way of reading the image. The Ladybird book is open and interactive from the perspective of the image, and authoritarian from the perspective of writing; the Bruna book works in the opposite way. The closure in the Bruna book lies in the limits which selection,form and structure of the images impose on the apparently open readings – these enter the discourses which are already ‘in’ the socialized parents, so that the whole, once orally transmitted to the children, will appear spontaneous and ‘natural’ to parents and children alike. Are they not, after all, merely engaged in an innocent reading of ‘what is there’ in the pictures? Thus the two books represent two different forms of social control over meaning. One is openly and explicitly located in the text itself; the other lies, perhaps more covertly and implicitly, in the way the book presents itself less as a text than as an organized resource for making texts, jointly with the parental discourses that will inevitably enter the text as well. These discourses, however, are not themselves part of Bruna’s books, of the public text meant to transcend their diversity.Instead they are relegated to the realm of the private,of ‘lifestyles’ where they do not threaten the order of the larger social world. There is never just ‘heteroglossia’ (many meanings),nor ever just ‘homoglossia’ (one authoritative mean- ing).Instead there is a role distribution among the different semiotics,a role distribution in which some semiotics are given a great deal of social power, but at the price of being subjected to greater institutional (and technological) control, while others are allowed relative freedom from control, but pay for this with diminished power. Today, we seem to move towards a decrease of control over language (e.g. the greater variety of accents 28 · The semiotic landscape
- 50. allowed on the public media, the increasing problems in enforcing normative spelling), and towards an increase in codification and control over the visual (e.g. the use of image banks from which ready-made images can be drawn for the construction of visual texts, and, generally, the effect of computer imaging technology). The two forms of control over meaning can be found elsewhere also. Compare, for example, the classic documentary film – in which an authoritative ‘voice of God’ narrator explains and interprets images of recorded reality – to the more modern ‘direct cinema’ documentary, in which control over meaning lies in the selection of images and in the sometimes hardly noticeable ways in which these images are edited together.Or think of the way in which,in the field of ‘cultural studies’,an emphasis on analysing ‘what the text says’ is gradually being replaced by an emphasis on ‘how different audiences read the same text’, an emphasis, in other words, on the apparent freedom of interpretation which, by diverting attention away from the text itself, allows the limitations which the text imposes on this ‘freedom of reading’ to remain invisible, and therefore, perhaps, all the more efficacious and powerful. In this connection the background of the Bruna book is worth brief mention.It was first printed in 1953, in Amsterdam, and reprinted many times in its country of origin. The first British printing was in 1978. The time lag is perhaps no accident. Unlike the British, the Dutch had, early in the twentieth century, recognized that their country did not have a ‘common culture’, but was divided into groups characterized by different and often oppos- ing ideologies, zuilen (literally ‘columns’, ‘pillars’), as the Dutch have called them. Dutch broadcasting, for example, had from its inception in the late 1920s a system in which different levensbeschouwelijke groups (i.e. ‘groups orientated towards a particular view of life’) ran broadcasting organizations which were allotted air time according to the size of their membership. Thus the same events would, on radio and later on television, be interpreted from a variety of different discursive ideological positions, while most other European countries had centralized, usually government-run, broadcasting organizations with one authoritative message. For a message to reach, in this context, the whole popula- tion,it had to be adaptable to a variety of cultural and ideological constructions and,as we have seen, the Bruna books use the visual medium to achieve exactly that. Perhaps the belated success of the series in countries like Britain and Australia shows that there is now, in these countries too, an increasing awareness that they no longer have a ‘common cul- ture’, and that, instead, they have become complex, diverse and discursively divided, and therefore in need of new forms of communication (although the Dutch zuilen system went in decline from the 1960s onwards). The changing distributions of meaning between language and image, which we suggest is now in full flow, was foreshadowed by various experiments in the Soviet Union of the early 1920s. While linguists and literary scholars like Voloshinov and Bakhtin wrote of language as socially divided, ‘multi-accentual’ and ‘heteroglossic’, constructivist artists like Malevich, El Lissitzky and Rodchenko, and film-makers like Eisenstein, rejected nat- uralism and began to elaborate a new visual language, capable of communicating new, revolutionary ideas visually.Then,as now,images became more stylized,more abstract and more obviously coded: the new visual language was explicitly compared with language, · 29 The semiotic landscape
- 51. with hieroglyphic writing, with the stylized masks of kabuki theatre. Then, as now, visual communication was also seen as transparent: colours and shapes were thought to have a direct, unmediated, ‘psychological’ impact, a non-semiotic capacity for stirring the emo- tions of the ‘masses’. Then, as now, visual communication was to be removed from the sphere of art, to become part of the more powerful and more public sphere of industrial production, of typography, design, architecture. This semiotic revolution was allied to the political revolution: constructivist posters and films had a propagandistic purpose – they sought to help bring about a cultural revolution, and they had to get their message across to a socially and linguistically heterogeneous population. The visual, thought to be able to produce an emotive immediacy, was to be the medium that could achieve this. In the end, the new semiotic order failed to establish itself permanently. It was crushed by Stalin. Old- fashioned centralist and repressive control over meaning (and with it a return to naturalist, ‘bourgeois’ art) prevailed over control by means of a form of propaganda that could allow pluralism and ideological cohesion to coexist. This time – though with very different polit- ical, social, technological and economic conditions – it may not fail. The semiotic shifts we have exemplified in our discussion of the two children’s books can be observed elsewhere, too. The shift from ‘uncoded’ naturalistic representations to styl- ized, conceptual images can be seen, for instance, on the covers of news magazines, which used to be dominated by documentary photographs – photographs recording events, or portraying newsworthy people.Occasionally this still happens,as in figure 1.4,but increas- ingly the photographs on magazine covers are contrived and posed, using conventional symbols to illustrate the essence of an issue, rather than documenting newsworthy events, as in figure 1.5, where a padlock and a United States flag, against a neutral background, illustrate the issue of tightened border control. Unlike the picture of the ‘Bird in Tree’ (figure 1.2), these are still photographic images, but they might as well be drawings. As an example of the changing relation between language and image, consider an extract from a Science CD-ROM for the lower years of high school (figure 1.6). Here language has here been displaced by the visual as decisively as in the Bruna book. Instead of the major medium of information, with the visual as ‘illustration’, it has become a medium for comment or labelling, with the visual as the central source of information. Two questions need asking: one is the question of implicit changes in notions and practices of reading, and of reading science in particular; the other is the question of changes in the constitution of what is represented here, science itself. The students/viewers/users of the science CD-ROM are no longer addressed via the hierarchically complex structures of scientific writing, with its specific demands for cognitive processing, and its need to ‘translate’ verbal forms to their three-dimensional or visual equivalents (as on the page reproduced in figure 1.7). They are addressed largely in the visual mode, and either as ‘scientists’ who understand abstraction from the empirically real, or as people focusing on the empirically real with the intention to understand the regularities lying ‘behind’ that reality. In other words, even though the visual mode might seem to provide direct access to the world, it is as amenable to realizing theoretical positions as is the verbal. More complex is the question whether, in this dramatic shift from the verbal to the visual, the very constitution of the school subject Science is undergoing a transformation. 30 · The semiotic landscape
- 52. Can everything that was communicable in the formation of scientific writing be said in these visually constructed forms? Conversely, are there possibilities of scientific communi- cation in the visual which were not available in the mode of writing? And which of these is a more apt medium for scientific theory? Will scientific theories change as the form of expression shifts from the written to the visual mode? We cannot take up these questions here, but if we are to make ourselves conscious of the far-reaching implications of these changes in the semiotic landscape, they need at least to be asked. Implicit in this is a central question,which needs to be put openly,and debated seriously: is the move from the verbal to the visual a loss or a gain? Our answer at this stage in our thinking is multiple. There are losses, and there are gains. Our argument throughout this book is that different semiotic modes – the visual, the verbal, the gestural, etc. – each have their potentialities and their limitations. A move from a central reliance on one mode to a central reliance on another will therefore inevitably have effects in both directions. But that is not the end of the story.We also have to consider what is represented.It may be that visual representation is more apt to the stuff of science than language ever was, or even that a science which is constructed visually will be a different kind of science. The world represented visually on the screens of the ‘new media’ is a differently constructed world to that which had been represented on the densely printed pages of the print media of some 䉱 Fig 1.4 Magazine cover with naturalistic photograph (Newsweek, 19 April 2004) · 31 The semiotic landscape
- 53. thirty or forty years ago.The resources it offers for understanding and for meaning-making differ from those of the world represented in language, and so do the citizens it produces. These are far-reaching questions and they can only be answered by considering the interconnections between the changing political, economic and cultural conditions gath- ered up under the label of globalization and the new possibilities for representation afforded by the new media of production and dissemination.We have barely hinted at these kinds of questions in our discussion of the Bruna and Ladybird books. Could it be the case that information is now so vast, so complex, that perhaps it has to be handled visually, because the verbal is no longer adequate? Mere nostalgia, mere social and cultural regrets or pessimism cannot help here. We, all of us, have our particular standpoints and our particular values carried forward from yesterday or from the day before yesterday. The first most important challenge is to understand this shift, in all of its detail, and in all of its meaning. From that understanding, we can hope to begin the task of constructing adequate new value systems. To summarize: (1) Visual communication is always coded. It seems transparent only because we know the code already, at least implicitly – but without knowing what it is we know, without 䉱 Fig 1.5 Magazine cover with conceptual photograph (Newsweek, 12 November 2001) 32 · The semiotic landscape
- 54. having the means for talking about what it is we do when we read an image. A glance at the ‘stylized’ arts of other cultures should teach us that the myth of transparency is indeed a myth. We may experience these arts as ‘decorative’, ‘exotic’, ‘mysterious’ or 䉱 Fig 1.6 Contemporary science CD-ROM 䉱 Fig 1.7 Early twentieth-century science textbook (McKenzie, 1938) · 33 The semiotic landscape
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- 56. Kemble, in his (appendix) list of "patronymical names," which he regards as "those of ancient Marks," has two references, from the "Codex Diplomaticus," to "Bruningas," but he gives no conjecture as to the locality of its modern representative. Mr. C. A. Weddle, of Wargrove, near Warrington, in 1857, when advocating the claims of Brunton, in Northumberland, after summing up the various names mentioned by the old writers, and referring to their evident corruption and variation, says— "Two of them in particular, Weardune and Wendune, I have never seen noticed by any modern writer, yet Weardune appears to me the most important name, if Brunanburh be excepted, and EVEN THIS IS NOT MORE SO. As to Wendune it is evidently a mistake in the transcribing for Werdune, the Anglo-Saxon r being merely n, with a long bottom stroke on the left." Mr. Weddle finds a Warden Hill, about two miles from the farm- house in "Chollerford field," in the neighbourhood of Brunton. This he considers as very conclusive evidence in favour of the locality being the Brunanburh of which we are in search. If such be the case, the existence of Wearden, or Worden, in the immediate neighbourhood of Brunhill, Bamber, and Brunedge, must unquestionably be more so, and especially when taken in connection with the large amount of corroborative evidence with which it is surrounded. The term Weardune is sometimes written Weondune, which, after the correction of the n, as suggested by Mr. Weddle, is Weorden. The ancient seat of the Faringtons, of Leyland and Farington, is variously written Werden, Worden, and Wearden, and it is pronounced by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood Wearden at the present day. It must have been a place of some importance in the time of the Roman occupation. Many coins, and a heavy gold[37] signet ring, bearing the letters S P Q R, have been found there. The place is situated near the great Roman highway, and, if Anlaf's troops covered the "pass of the Ribble" near Brunhull, Brunburh and Brunedge, Wearden is precisely the neighbourhood where
- 57. Athelstan's forces, coming from the south, would encamp in front of them. Dr. Kuerden, upwards of two centuries ago, describes the northern boundary of the township of Euxton-burgh as the "Werden broke." Mr. Baines states that there is in Leyland churchyard "a stone of the 14th century, covering all that remains of the Weardens of Golden Hill." It is highly probable that the present Cuerden is itself a corruption of Wearden. The prefix Cuer is found in Cuerden, Cuerdale (where the great hoard was found), and Cuerdley near Prescot, and in no other part of England. The names in the locality, as I have previously said, are not recorded in the Domesday survey, but the Norman-French generally represented the English sound w by gu. Philologists regard the consonants c, q, ch, and g, as "identical" or "convertible," consequently, if I assume the initial C in Cuerden to be equivalent to G, we have a Norman-French method of writing Wearden. That cu was used to represent the sound of our w, is demonstrated by a reference to the survey itself, for in the Domesday record, Fishwick, now a portion of the borough of Preston, and situated on the opposite bank of the Ribble to Cuerdale, is actually written Fiscuic. Leland, too, in his Itinerary, spells the river Cocker indifferently with the initials C, G, and K. The district in the parish of Leyland, anciently styled Cunnolvesmores, is sometimes found written Gunoldsmores. Simeon of Durham says the battle was fought near Weondune, or Ethrunanwerch, or Brunnan byrge. I have never seen any attempt to identify this Ethrunanwerch with any modern locality in any part of the country. There is no such name to be found now, nor anything suggestive of it, in a gazetteer of England and Wales, and I therefore presume that it has either entirely disappeared or become so altered as to be unrecognizable. Consequently, if I fail in an attempt to identify it, not much injury will result therefrom. The termination werch presents no difficulty. It is evidently worth, as in Saddleworth, Shuttleworth, etc., and could easily give place to some other suffix indicating residence or occupation, or even locality. The prefix Ethrunan is more difficult to deal with, and I should perhaps not have attempted its solution, if I had not seen on a map the
- 58. name Rother applied to one of the head waters which, uniting near Stockport, form the Mersey. This stream is generally called the Etherow.[38] This is the nearest approach to Ethrunan that I have been able to meet with. If rother, by a kind of metathesis, is an equivalent to ether, perhaps I can detect two distinct remains of the word Ethrunanwerch, in the neighbourhood of Wearden. On the ordnance map we have, about a mile from Werden Hall, Rotherham Top, and a stream, recently diverted for the purpose of the Liverpool water supply, named the Roddlesworth. This word implies a place on the bank of a stream, and as the d and th are phonetic equivalents, it may be read Rothelsworth or Ethrunlesworth; indeed, Mr. Baines expressly says, "Withnall, or Withnell, also a part of the lordship of Gunoldsmores, containing Rothelsworth, a name derived from Roddlesworth, or Mouldenwater, a rapid stream." On the one-inch to the mile ordnance map there is a name which preserves the form of the first part of the word without the transposition, or metathesis, to which I have referred. Not far from Worden Hall is a small hamlet named "Ethrington." The fact that these names exist in the neighbourhood strengthens the probability that the etymology is not altogether fanciful, and consequently lends support to the presumption that the locality suggested may be the true site of Athelstan's great victory. I have said that there are several places in Lancashire, even, which answer to Brunan or Brun. The following are amongst the number: On the Wyre, near the commencement of the Roman agger or "Danes' Pad," as it is locally termed, which led from the Portus Setantiorum of Ptolemy to York, is a place named Bourne, written in the Domesday survey Brune. Bourne Hall is situated upon a "dune" or hill, which commands a relatively recently blocked up channel of the Wyre. Therefore Brunnandune or Brunford would strictly apply to it. Bryning-with-Kellamergh, near Warton, in the parish of Kirkham, is described in a charter of the reign of John, as Brichscrach Brun and Kelmersburgh. In the time of Henry III. it is described as Brininge. Not far from Rochdale is a spot named "Kildanes," near Bamford. The site is not much more than two miles from a place
- 59. named Burnedge or Brunedge. There is a Burnage between Manchester and Stockport. Burnley is situated on the river Burn, generally, however, called the Brun. This demonstrates how utterly impossible it is to identify the locality by the name Brunanburh. The Manchester, Rochdale, and Burnley sites are too far from the seashore. The fine old poem, describing the battle, says emphatically —"There were made flee the Northman's chieftain, By need constrained, To the ship's prow, With a little band. The bark drove afloat—The king departed—On the fallow flood his life he preserved." And, again, the poem says—"The Northmen departed In their nailed barks; Bloody relic of darts; On roaring ocean, O'er the deep water, Dublin to seek; Again Ireland shamed in mind." And further—"West Saxons onwards Throughout the day, In numerous bands, Pursued the footsteps of the loathed nations." I therefore contend that, in this particular, as well as those already disposed of, the "pass of the Ribble" answers to the locality of the struggle, as described by contemporary authority. Where this topographical feature is wanting, I hold it to be fatal. The ships of Anlaf might be attending the army in the estuaries of the Ribble or Wyre, and to them the defeated and routed forces would, of course, repair with headlong speed, after crossing the fords, the defence of which they had so gallantly, if unsuccessfully, attempted. During this hasty retreat, I contend it is highly probable the great Cuerdale hoard was deposited, and, owing to death, or other disaster, the precise locality could not be determined in after times, although the tradition of its deposition remained. There is plenty of analagous evidence in support of such a conjecture, to some of which I have already referred. In the seventh volume of "Collectania Antiqua," Mr. Charles Roach Smith, referring to the then recent discovery near the Roman station, "Procolitia," near the great Roman Wall, of an enormous mass (15,000) of Roman coins, weighing about 400 pounds, says he regards the hoard as part of the money set apart for the payment of the troops occupying the adjoining castrum, which, owing to some sudden panic in the reign of Gratian, was concealed in the well or fountain dedicated to a local divinity, Conesstina. The Saxon Chronicle, as well as Ethelwerd, as I have already stated, refer to the
- 60. burying of treasure under similar circumstances. The former says —"This year (A.D. 418) the Romans collected all the treasures that were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth, so that no one has since been able to find them, and some they carried with them into Gaul." Athelstan's connection with Preston and its neighbourhood, at the head of his army, is attested by stronger evidence than mere tradition. In the year 930 he granted the whole of the hundred of Amounderness to the cathedral church at York. He is said to have "purchased" the territory with his own money, a somewhat remarkable financial operation for a conquering king in the tenth century, in Anglo-Saxon and Pagan Danish times. But perhaps a previous grant to the church at Ripon influenced him in this matter. In the early part of the seventeenth century lived one William Elston, who, in a MS. entitled, "Mundana Mutabilia, or Ethelestophylax," now in the Harleian collection in the British Museum, placed upon record the following interesting particulars relative to this monarch—"It was once told me by Mr. Alexander Elston, who was uncle to my father and sonne to Ralph Elston, my great grandfather, that the said Ralph Elston had a deede or a copy of a deede in the Saxon tongue, wherein it did appear that king Ethelstan lying in camp in this county upon occacon of warres, gave the land of Ethelston vnto one to whom himself was Belsyre." (godfather). The township of Elston, in the parish of Preston, formerly written Ethelstan, is situated on the north bank of the Ribble a little above Cuerdale and Red Scar. To the south of Brindle and the east of Worden, near Whittle Springs, is a large tumulus, and the hill side on which it is situated has the appearance of having been, at some time, disturbed by human agency. A Roman vicinal way, from Wigan to Blackburn, or Mellor, where it joins the main highway from Manchester to Ribchester, passes near it. Remains of this road were discovered near Adlington not many years ago. Another ancient road, probably
- 61. of similar origin, leaves the main Roman military way from Warrington to Lancaster at Bamberbridge, and running in the direction of Manchester, crosses this in its neighbourhood. This tumulus is named "Pickering Castle;" which has an important significance. Tumuli are often termed "castles." We have the "Castle Hill" near Newton-in-Mackerfield, and the "Castle Hill" at Penwortham, near Preston. The tumulus near to "Whittle Springs" is very similar to these in appearance, and may, on excavation, prove to be a sepulchral mound. Pickering, according to the method of interpretation adopted by John Mitchell Kemble, in his "Saxons in England," should indicate the "Mark" of a sept or clan bearing that name, like the Faringas as at Farington, Billingas as at Billington, and many others. But there is not the slightest reference by any writer of such a name ever holding property in the neighbourhood, and Mr. Kemble places the Pickering, in Yorkshire, only among the probable instances, as he had never met with any account of a Saxon family or mark answering to it. As the letters P and V are interchangeable sounds, "vikingring" has been suggested as the original form of the word. Dr. Smith, in his annotations to Marsh's "Lectures on the English Languages," speaks of the "Danes being led by the vikings, the younger sons of their royal houses." As the old poem says—"Five kings lay on the battle-stead. Youthful kings By swords in slumber laid. So seven eke Of Anlaf's earls, Of the army countless." This interpretation seems not improbable; yet it may be no more than an accidental coincidence rather than a legitimate derivation. As P and B are equally interchangeable consonants, I am inclined to think that "Bickering Castle" may have been the original name of the tumulus. Bicra, in the modern Welsh, means to fight, from whence our word bickering. In this case, ing meaning field, the interpretation would be the "Castle of the Battle-Field." There is some good analogy in support of this view. Mr. Thos. Baines, in his "Lancashire and Cheshire: Past and Present," says—"The Peckforton Hills extend from Beeston Castle to the Dee. On one of them Bickerton Hill, 500 feet high, is a strong camp with a double line of earthworks. One front overlooks the plain of Cheshire. The earthwork is called the "Maiden Castle." Not far from Bickerton Hill is Bickley, where, according to
- 62. Ormerod, certain brass tablets were recently discovered, recording a grant of the freedom of the city of Rome to certain troops serving in Britain in the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98-117, some of whom may have been stationed in the neighbourhood where the tablets were found. We have in Lancashire the township of Bickerstaffe, and an adjoining wood named Bickershaw. Bickerstaffe was anciently written Bickerstat and Bykyrstath. Stadt, stad, or stead means a station or settlement. Thus we have battle-wood and battle-stead. We have seen that the old poem says—"Five kings lay on the battle-stead, youthful kings, by swords in slumber laid." Besides, we find Bicker and Bickering in Lincolnshire, and Bickerton in both Northumberland and the East Riding of Yorkshire. Whatever this may be worth, it is most desirable that this tumulus should be dug into, for remains might, and probably would, be found which could throw additional light upon the subject of the present investigation. In the yard of Brindle Parish Church, beneath the chancel window, is an ancient stone coffin, with a circular hollow for the head of the corpse. Nothing further is known respecting it, beyond that it was dug up somewhere in the neighbourhood, and had been removed to its present position with a view to its preservation. In 1867 I examined the Ancient British burial mound and its contents, then recently discovered in the park land attached to Whitehall, and contiguous to that of Low Hill House, the residence of Mr. Ellis Shorrock, at Over Darwen, and contributed a paper respecting it to the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society. In that paper I say—"I heard that there is a tradition, yet implicitly relied on, which speaks of a battle fought in the olden time somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tockholes in the Roddlesworth valley, and stories that remains, including those of horses, have been found, which are believed to confirm it. Respecting this I may have something to say in a future paper." What I have to say is this: that if a severe struggle took place near the tumulus to which I have referred, the routed army, following the Roman vicinal way to Ribchester, would pass by the locality, which is
- 63. not far distant. This adds another link in the chain of evidence by which I have sought to demonstrate that the most probable site of Athelstan's great victory at Brunanburh is that which I have indicated near the famous "pass of the Ribble," to the south of Preston, and that the great Cuerdale hoard of treasure was buried on the bank of the stream, during the disastrous retreat of the routed confederate armies. In the appendix to the "History of Preston and its Environs," published in 1857, after discussing Mr. Weddle's objections to a Lancashire site, I concluded with the following words—"These reasons, in conjunction with those advanced in the second chapter of this work, induce the author to prefer the locality, in the present state of the evidence, as the most probable site of the 'battle of the Brun.'" Although the evidence advanced in its favour on the present occasion is considerably in excess of that previously obtainable, I still merely reassert my previous conviction, without dogmatism, that, on weighing the whole of the evidence yet adduced, I am justified in maintaining that the site I name is the most probable which has yet been suggested; indeed, there is very little reliable evidence in favour of any other. But, in conclusion, I again reiterate what I wrote twenty-five years ago, when dealing with the Roman topography of the county, that "no permanent settlement of so difficult a question ought to be insisted upon, until every means of investigation and all the resources of logical inference have been fairly exhausted." I have already said that the neighbourhood of Preston and "the pass of the Ribble," as might have been expected from its topographical position, and consequent strategical importance, has been the scene of many known conflicts. Robert Bruce, in 1323, burned the town, but ventured no further southward. Holinshed says he "entered into England, by Carlisle, kept on his way through Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancaster, to Preston, which town he burnt, as he had done others in the counties he had passed through, and,
- 64. after three weeks and three days, he returned into Scotland without engaging." Dr. Kuerden, writing shortly before the guild of 1682, laments the destruction of documentary evidence relating to this famous Preston festival during the turmoil of civil war. After enumerating the dates of those still preserved, in his day, in the Corporation records, he says —"These are such as doth appeare within the Records and Gild Books, that yet remain extant and in being, though some I conceive to be omitted, as one Gild in Henry 6th dayes occasion'd, as I conceive, in those distractions and civil wars betwixt the Houses of Lancaster and York; another Gild Merchant omitted to be kept in K. H. 8th dayes, occasioned, as may be thought, by the Revolutions at that time in Church affayres; the next that are wanting may be through the loss of Records in K. Edw. 3rd dayes [sic.] wheras the Scottish army burnt the Burrough of Preston to the very ground." Kuerden is in error with reference to the king's reign in which this disaster occurred; Bruce's foray took place in the reign of Edward II. In the "History of Preston and its Environs," p. 50, I say—"A tradition still remains that Roman Ribchester was destroyed by an earthquake; another that it was reduced to ashes in the early part of the fourteenth century, during the great inroad of the Scots under Bruce. Both are highly improbable. Had Roman Ribchester remained a place of any importance till the period referred to, it could scarcely have failed to have attracted the notice of some of the elder chroniclers or topographers. True, the Saxon village may have shared the fate of Preston, in the celebrated foray of our northern neighbours, and hence the tradition! An earthquake in England, of sufficient magnitude to bury a Roman 'city,' (to use the elder Whitaker's emphatic style,) 'must' have found some one to record it. Other facts, however, demonstrate that this tradition can have no better foundation than the vague conjecture of ignorant peasants; who, on first discovering remains of ancient buildings beneath the soil, naturally attributed their subterranean location to the action of some earthquake, in that mysterious period usually denominated the
- 65. 'olden time.'" In Leland's day, the remains of the Roman temple dedicated to Minerva were believed to have been connected with Jewish religious rites and ceremonies, from the simple fact that they knew of no other non-Christian sect with whom to associate them. At the commencement of the campaign in 1643 between Charles I. and the Parliament, General Fairfax, from his head quarters at Manchester, ordered an attack upon Preston, then garrisoned by the king's troops. The town was at that time fortified by "inner and outer walls of brick," no vestige of which now remains, although it was recently not very difficult to trace their site. The command was entrusted to General Sir John Seaton. Captain Booth led the attack, and scaled the outer wall. The garrison defended the inner wall with great valour, "with push of pike," until Sir John Seaton, having stormed the defences on the eastern side, entered the town by Church-street, when they were overpowered, and the Parliamentary army obtained complete possession of the town, but not before the mayor, Adam Morte, and his son, had fallen in the conflict. Colonel Rosworm, the celebrated Parliamentary engineer, afterwards refortified the town. Shortly afterwards Major-General Seaton and Colonel Ashton marched from Preston, with the view to relieve Lancaster, then besieged by the Earl of Derby. The earl drew off his troops on their approach, and falling suddenly on Preston, in its then defenceless state, stormed the works in three places. After an hour's severe fighting the place surrendered. Lord Derby secured the magazine, and destroyed the military works, fearing the place might again fall into the enemy's hands. In August, 1664, a smart little struggle took place at Ribble Bridge, which Colonel Shuttleworth thus describes in his dispatch—"Right Honourable,—Upon Thursday last, marching with three of my troops upon Blackburn towards Preston, where the ennemie lay, I met eleven of their colours at Ribble Bridge, within a mile of Preston, whereupon, after a sharp fight, we took the Lord Ogleby, a Scotch Lord, Colonel Ennis, one other colonel slaine, one major wounded, and divers officers and soldiers to the number of forty in all taken,
- 66. besides eight or nine slaine, with the losse of twelve men taken prisoners, which afterwards were released by Sir John Meldrum upon his coming to Preston the night following, from whence the enemy fled." Four years afterwards, Cromwell achieved his great victory over the Duke of Hamilton and the Marquis of Langdale. Reference has been made, in the previous chapter, to the rapid march of the Parliamentary forces from Skipton, by Clitheroe, to Stonyhurst, where they encamped on the evening of August 16th, 1648. Some difference respecting the then famous "Covenant" prevented Langdale's forces from combining heartily with those of the Duke. His English troops were encamped on Ribbleton Moor, to the east of Preston. Hamilton's Scotch forces were widely scattered. Some of his advanced horse lay at Wigan; his main army occupied Preston, while his rear, under Monro, were in the neighbourhood of Garstang. Short work was made, notwithstanding the great numerical superiority, with such discipline and divided councils, by a soldier of Cromwell's calibre. In the words of Thomas Carlyle, he "dashed in upon him, cut him in two, drove him north and south, into as miserable ruin as his worst enemy could wish." "The bridge of Ribble" was fiercely contested. When the Parliamentary troops, with "push of pike" (Cromwell's equivalent for the modern phrase "at the point of the bayonet"), at length prevailed, the duke's army retreated over the Darwen, which joins the Ribble in the immediate neighbourhood. Night put an end to the conflict. Before daylight the Royalist army decamped, but was hotly pursued, through Chorley, Wigan, and Warrington, into the midland counties, and rapidly destroyed. The Duke of Hamilton was taken prisoner at Uttoxeter, and a similar fate befel Langdale at Nottingham.[39] This victory is celebrated as one of Cromwell's greatest military achievements, by Milton, in his famous sonnet:— TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL.
- 67. Cromwell, our chief of men, who, through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way has plough'd, And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud Hast reared God's trophies and his work pursued, While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbued, And Dunbar field resound thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains To conquer still; Peace hath her victories No less renown'd than War; new foes arise Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains: Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw. The number of the troops engaged in this short but brilliant campaign is stated variously by different authorities. There is an entry in the records of the Corporation of Preston which says "Decimo Septimo die Augustie, 1648, 24 Car,—That Henry Blundell, gent., being mayor of this town of Preston, the daie and yeare aforesaid, Oliver Cromwell, lieutenant-general of the forces of the Parliament of England, with an army of about 10,000 at the most, (whereof 1500 were Lancashire men, under the command of Colonel Ralph Assheton, of Middleton), fought a battail in and about Preston aforesaid, and over-threw Duke Hamilton, general of the Scots, consisting of about 26,000, and of English, Sir Marmaduke Langdale and his forces, joined with the Scots, about 4,000; took all their ammunition, about 3,000 prisoners, killed many with very small losse to the parliament army; and in their pursuit towards Lancaster, Wigan, Warrington, and divers other places in Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Nottinghamshire, took the said Duke and Langdale, with many Scottish earls and lords, and about 10,000 prisoners more, all being taken [or] slayne, few escaping, and all their treasure and plunder taken. This performed in less than one week."
- 68. Captain Hodgson notices the plundering propensities of the enemy, but, as we have seen in the previous chapter, he entertained no higher an opinion of his Lancashire allies, with respect to their "looting" proclivities. His estimate of the numbers of the army of the Parliament is somewhat less than that in the Corporation record. He says—"The Scots marched towards Kendal, we towards Rippon; where Oliver met us with horse and foot. We were then betwixt eight and nine thousand; a fine smart army, and fit for action. We marched up to Skipton; and the forlorn of the enemy's horse was come to Gargrave, and took some men away, and made others pay what money they pleased; having made havock in the country, it seems intending never to come there again." Cromwell, in his despatch "to the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the House of Commons," dated "Warrington, 20th August, 1648," of course attributes all the honour and glory to the Almighty, yet, modestly enough, he claims some credit as due to the Parliamentary army, if it rested merely upon the disparity in the number of the combatants. He says—"Thus you have a Narrative of the particulars of the success which God hath given you; which I could hardly at this time have done, considering the multiplicity of business, but truly, when I was once engaged in it, I could hardly tell how to say less, there being so much of God in it; and I am not willing to say more, lest there should seem to be any of man. Only give me leave to add one word, showing the disparity of forces on both sides, that you may see, and all the world acknowledge, the great hand of God in this business. The Scots army could not be less than twelve thousand effective foot, well armed, and five thousand horse; Langdale not less than two thousand five hundred foot, and fifteen hundred horse; in all Twenty-one-Thousand: and truly very few of their foot but were as well armed if not better than yours, and at divers disputes did fight two or three hours before they would quit their ground. Yours were about two thousand five hundred horse and dragoons of your old Army; about four thousand foot of your old Army; also about sixteen hundred Lancashire foot, and about five hundred Lancashire horse; in all about Eight thousand Six
- 69. hundred. You see by computation about two thousand of the Enemy slain; betwixt eight and nine thousand prisoners; besides what are lurking in hedges and private places, which the County daily bring in or destroy." Notwithstanding the great social and political importance of this victory, and the renown of the general by whom it was achieved, whose very name is yet associated in the minds of some with every odious moral feature, and, in the judgment of others, with the highest English statesmanship, unselfish patriotism, and sincere religious conviction, the amount of legendary story which it has left behind is singularly limited. I have heard of several localities in Lancashire, and some neighbouring counties, where tradition records that Oliver Cromwell once visited the district and slept in some specified house or mansion, although there exists not the slightest reliable evidence that Oliver was ever in the neighbourhood. This, in some instances, I fancy, may be accounted for by the fact that Cromwell's name has become a typical or generic one, and has done duty for nearly a couple of centuries with the public generally, for every commander, either generals or subordinate officers, belonging to the Parliamentary armies. One tradition, however, was well-known in my youthful days. The mound planted with trees on "Walton Flats" was always regarded as "the grave of the Scotch warriors." The place was rather a solitary one at night, and some superstitious fear was often confessed by others than children, when passing it after nightfall. It was in this mound, in 1855, whilst looking for remains of the said "Scotch warriors," that I came upon evidences of Roman occupation. Faith in the legend was attested when one of the workmen informed me that he had found in the mound a halfpenny with the figure of a Scotchman in the place of Britannia, on the reverse. I found it to be a Roman second brass coin, the military costume of a soldier suggesting to the labourer a kilted Highlander. Although at various times relics of the fight have been picked up, they are now extremely rare. The flood waters of the Ribble have occasionally
- 70. dislodged human bones, including skulls, from the banks, and these are almost universally, if somewhat vaguely, associated with "Scotch warriors," but without any definite notion as to the period or cause of their presence in the neighbourhood. I remember, many years ago, suggesting to a very old man employed on a rope-walk near the south bank of the river, that, as a number of English, including some Lancashire men, were slain in the great battle in 1648, it was possible a portion of the bones might belong to them. He did not deny the possibility; but simply remarked that he had never heard the remains attributed to any but the aforesaid "Scotch warriors;" and he was evidently, from his point of view, too "patriotic" to entertain, himself, the slightest doubt on the subject. A Protestant minister of Annandale, a Mr. Patten, who accompanied the Stuart army, and published a "History of the Rebellion" in 1715, condemns the Jacobite leaders for not defending the "Pass of the Ribble." The approach to the old bridge down the steep incline from Preston was by a lane, which was, he says, "very deep indeed." This lane was situated about midway between the present road and the hollow, yet visible, by which the Roman road passed to the north. He adds—"This is that famous lane at the end of which Oliver Cromwell met with a stout resistance from the King's forces, who from the height rolled down upon him and his men (when they had entered the lane) huge large millstones; and if Oliver himself had not forced his horse to jump into a quicksand, he had luckily ended his days there." Commenting on this passage in the "History of Preston," I say—"Notwithstanding Mr. Patten's political conversion afterwards, and his horror of the 'licentious freedom' of those who 'cry up the old doctrines of passive obedience, and give hints and arguments to prove hereditary right,' he appears to have retained all the antipathy of a Stuart partizan to the memory of Oliver Cromwell. Yet the loyalty of 1648 became rebellion in 1715, when Mr. Patten's head was in danger. Such is the mutation of human dogmatism." Cromwell, in a letter to the Solicitor-General, "his worthy friend, Oliver St. John, Esquire," shortly after the battle, relates an incident
- 71. which illustrates one of the phases of religious thought amongst our Puritan ancestors, and which is by no means extinct at the present time. He says—"I am informed from good hands, that a poor godly man died in Preston, the day before the fight; and being sick, near the hour of his death, he desired the woman that cooked to him, to fetch him a handful of grass. She did so; and when he received it, he asked, whether it would wither or not, now it was cut? The woman said 'yea.' He replied, 'So should this Army of the Scots do, and come to nothing, so soon as ours did but appear,' or words to this effect, and so immediately died." Thomas Carlyle's old Puritan blood is up, as he contemplates the possibility of some adverse critic citing this story as evidence of Cromwell's intellectual weakness, or, at least, of his proneness to superstition. He almost fiercely exclaims—"Does the reader look with any intelligence into that poor old prophetic, symbolic, Death-bed scene at Preston? Any intelligence of Prophecy and Symbol, in general; of the symbolic Man-child Mahershalal-hashbaz at Jerusalem, or the handful of Cut Grass at Preston—of the opening Portals of Eternity, and what departing gleams there are in the Soul of the pure and the just? Mahershalal-hashbaz ('Hasten-to-the-spoil,' so called), and the bundle of Cut Grass are grown somewhat strange to us! Read; and having sneered duly,—consider." In August, 1651, Colonel Lilburne defeated the Earl of Derby at Wigan-lane, in which engagement the gallant Major-general Sir Thomas Tildesley fell. On the day previous to the battle, a skirmish took place between the Royalists and the Parliamentary troops at the "pass of the Ribble." In his letter to Cromwell, Lilburne says—"The next day, in the afternoone, I having not foot with me, a party of the Enemies Horse fell smartly amongst us where our Horses were grazing, and for some space put us pretty hard to it; but at last it pleased the Lord to strengthen us so as that we put them to flight, and pursued them to Ribble-bridge, (this was something like our business at Mussleburgh), and kild and tooke about 30 prisoners, most Officers and Gentlemen, with the loss of two men that dyed
- 72. next morning; but severall wounded, and divers of our good Horses killed." Anno Domini 1715. "Time's whirligig" hath brought about strange changes. A "Restoration" and a "Glorious Revolution" have passed across the stage. The faithful followers of the dethroned Stuarts, the "royalists" of the last century, have been transformed into the "rebels" of this. The partizans of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, styled the "Elder Pretender," after a successful march from Scotland, arrived at Preston, and took possession of the town. The "Chevalier" was proclaimed king. Brigadier Macintosh was anxious to defend the "pass" at Ribble-bridge, but, as the previous fortifications of the town had been destroyed, it was determined instead to barricade the entrance to the principal streets. The town was besieged for two days by Generals Wills and Carpenter. After a brave defence, notwithstanding the incompetency of "General" Forster, the partizans of the Stuart were compelled to surrender at discretion.[40] In 1745, Prince Charles Edward, or the "Young Pretender," as he was styled, marched from Scotland on his way to Derby, through Preston; and again, a little more expeditiously on his return therefrom. Mr. Robert Chambers says—"The clansmen had a superstitious dread, in consequence of the misfortunes of their party at Preston, in 1715, that they would never get beyond this town; to dispel the illusion, Lord George Murray crossed the Ribble, and quartered a number of men on the other side." A single repulse could scarcely justify such foreboding. The name of the Ribble had evidently become associated with previous disasters, as well as with the relatively recent surrender of the Scotch and English forces under Forster, Derwentwater, and Macintosh in 1715. Considering the many exquisite poetical effusions which the misfortunes of the Stuarts added to Scottish literature, it is surprising
- 73. that nothing, but some of the veriest doggrels in relation thereto, can be met with on the southern side of the border. "Brigadier Macintosh's Farewell to the Highlands" is beneath criticism, and "Long Preston Peggy to Proud Preston went" is not much better. In May, 1847, a story appeared in "New Tales of the Borders and the British Isles." It is introduced by the first stanza of the ballad. The scene is laid at Walton-le-dale and Preston, 1815. It is a sad jumble of fact and fiction. It confounds with one another events in the campaigns of 1715 and 1745, and illustrates, to some extent, the confusion of history and artistic fiction discussed in the preceding pages of this work. Peggy, who, in her old age, after a somewhat profuse indulgence in ardent spirits, had still some remains of a handsome face and fine person, frequently sung the song of which she was the heroine, five and twenty years after the occurrence of the events which gave rise to it.[41]
- 74. APPENDIX. THE DISPOSAL OF ST. OSWALD'S REMAINS. Mr. John Ingram, in his "Claimants to Royalty," referring to the defeat of Don Sebastian, King of Portugal, in 1578, by the Moors, says—"After the fight, a corse, recognised by one of the survivors as the king's, was discovered by the victorious Moors, and forwarded by the Emperor of Morocco as a present to his ally, Philip the Second of Spain. In 1583, this monarch restored it to the Portuguese, by whom it was interred with all due solemnity in the royal mausoleum in the church of Our Lady of Belem." It thus seems that Dean Howson's conjecture, referred to at page 62, is, at least, not without precedent. THE DUN BULL, THE BADGE OF THE NEVILLES. Mr. W. Brailsford, in "The Antiquary" (August, 1882), referring to the marriage which united the properties of the Bulmers and the Nevilles, in 1190, says—"The dun bull, which is the badge of the Norman Nevilles, was in reality derived from the Saxon Bulmers, though it has been thought by some antiquarian searchers to have had its origin from the wild cattle which, once on a time, like those still existing at Chillingham, roamed in the park here, then and at a later date." THE GENESIS OF MYTHS. When the preceding pages were nearly all in type, I ordered a copy of the then just published essay entitled "Myth and Science," by Signor Tito Vignoli, in which the gradual development of mythic
- 75. thought and expression is expounded with great clearness and precision. He says, p. 87-93: "Doubtless it is difficult for us to picture for ourselves the psychical conditions of primitive men, at a time when the objects of perception and the apprehension of things were presented by an effort of memory to the mind as if they were actual and living things, yet such conditions are not hypothetical, but really existed, as any one may ascertain for himself who is able to realise that primitive state of mind, and we have said enough to show that such was its necessary condition. "The fact becomes more intelligible when we consider man, and especially the uneducated man, under the exciting influence of any passion, and how at such times he will, even when alone, gesticulate, speak aloud, and reply to internal questions which he imagines to be put to him by absent persons, against whom he is at the moment infuriated; the images of these persons and things are, as it were, present and in agitation within him; and these images, in the fervour of emotion and under the stimulus of excitement, appear to be actually alive, although only presented to the inward psychical consciousness. "In the natural man, in whom the intellectual powers were very slowly developed, the animation and personification effected by his mind and consciousness were threefold: first of the objects themselves as they really existed, then of the idea or image corresponding to them in the memory, and lastly of the specific types of these objects and images. There was within him a vast and continuous drama, of which we are no longer conscious, or only retain a faint and distant echo, but which is partly revealed by a consideration of the primitive value of words and their roots in all languages. The meaning of these, which is now for the most part lost and unintelligible, always expressed a material and concrete fact, or some gesture. This is true of classic tongues, and is well known to all educated people, and it recurs in the speech of all savage and barbarous races.
- 76. "Ia Rau is used to express all in the Marquesas Isles. Rau signifies leaves, so that the term implies something as numerous as the leaves of a tree. Rau is also now used for sound, an expression which includes in itself the conception of all, but which originally signified a fact, a real and concrete phenomenon, and it was felt as such in the ancient speech in which it was used in this sense. So again in Tahiti huru, ten, originally signified hairs; rima, five, was at first used for hand; riri, anger, literally means he shouts. Uku in the Marquesas Isles means to lower the head, and is now used for to enter a house. Kùku, which had the same original name in New Zealand, now expresses the act of diving. The Polynesian word toro at first indicated anything in the position of a hand with extended fingers, whence comes the Tahitian term for ox, puaátoro, stretching pig, in allusion to the way in which an ox carries his head. Toó (Marquesas), to put forward the hand, is now used for to take. Tongo (Marquesas), to grope with extended arms, leads to protongo tongo, darkness. In New Zealand, wairua, in Tahiti varua, signifies soul or spirit, from vai, to remain in a recumbent position, and rua, two; that is to be in two places, since they believed that in sickness or in dreams the soul left the body.[42] Throughout Polynesia, moe signifies a recumbent position or to sleep, and in Tahiti moe pipiti signifies a double sleep or dream, from moe, to sleep, and piti, two. In New Zealand, moenaku means to try to grasp something during sleep; from naku, to take in the fingers. "We can understand something of the mysterious exercise of human intelligence in its earliest development from this habit of symbolizing and presenting in an outward form an abstract conception, thus giving a concrete meaning and material expression to the external fact. We see how everything assumed a concrete, living form, and can better understand the conditions we have established as necessary in the early days of the development of human life. This attitude of the intelligence had been often stated before, but in an incomplete way; the primitive and subsequent myths have been confounded together;" [See ante, p.p. 44, et seq., et 116.] "and it
- 77. has been supposed that myth was of exclusively human origin, whereas it has its roots lower down in the vast animal kingdom. "Anthropomorphism, and the personification of the things and phenomena of nature, and their images and specific types, were the great source whence issued superstitions, mythologies, and religions, and, also, as we shall presently see, the scientific errors to be found among all the families of the human race. "For the development of myth, which is in itself always a human personification of natural objects and phenomena in some form or other, the first and necessary foundation consists, as we have abundantly shown, in the conscious and deliberate vivification of objects by the perception and apprehension of animals. And since this is a condition of animal perception, it is also the foundation of all human life, and of the spontaneous and innate exercise of the intelligence. In fact, man, by a two-fold process, raises above his animal nature a world of images, ideas, and conceptions from the types he has formed of various phenomena, and his attitude towards this internal world does not differ from his attitude towards that which is external. He personifies the images, ideas, and conceptions, by transforming them into living subjects, just as he had originally personified cosmic objects and phenomena. "This was the source of primitive, confused, and inorganic fetishism among all peoples; namely, that they ascribed intentional and conscious life to a host of natural objects and phenomena. Hence came the fears, the adoration, the guardianship of, or abhorrence for, some given species of stones, plants, animals, some strange forms or unusual natural object. The subsequent adoration of idols and images, all sorts of talismans, the virtue of relics, dreams,
- 78. incantations and exorcisms, had the same origin, and were all due to this primitive genesis of the fetish. the internal duplication of the external animation and personification of objects." ANGLO-SAXON HELMET. The remains of a very fine example of the Anglo-Saxon helmet referred to in chapter ii., was found by the late Mr. Bateman, in 1848, at Benty Grange, in Derbyshire. He says—"It was our good fortune to open a barrow which afforded a more instructive collection of relics than has ever been discovered in the country, and which are not surpassed in interest by any remains hitherto recovered from any Anglo-Saxon burial place in the kingdom." Amongst these remains was the head-piece referred to. After describing the details of its structure, he adds—"On the crown of the helmet is an elliptical bronze plate supporting the figure of an animal carved in iron, with bronze eyes, now much corroded, but perfectly distinct as the representation of a hog."
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