Abstracts
This work, mostly based on the Semiolinguistic Theory of Discourse Analysis, intends to discuss aspects of the verbal-visual semiosis in illustrated books regarding the process of pathemization, that is, the triggering of emotions from descriptive staging. It is assumed that pathemization, of an intentional nature, is activated in the text-reader interaction due to a manifested discursive planning in (verbal and visual) representations endowed with cultural valuation prone to reactive emotions. The observed complementarity between word and image in the analyzed illustrated books allows for not only a higher density of meaning, but also for the enhancement of qualities and categories that are not always "signifiable." The symbolization by analogy updated in the images (visual or metaphorical), or in the superposition of both, complexifies signification, allowing not only for effects of meaning, but also for felt effects, stemming from knowledge and beliefs on which representations are founded, whether verbally or visually configured.
Pathemization; Descriptive Verbal-Visual Staging; Illustrated Books; Semiolinguistic Theory
Este trabalho, pautado prioritariamente na Teoria Semiolinguística de Análise do Discurso, pretende problematizar aspectos da semiose verbo-visual de livros ilustrados no que concerne ao processo da patemização, i.e., ao desencadeamento de emoções a partir da encenação descritiva. Pressupõe-se que a patemização, de caráter intencional, é acionada na interação texto-leitor em função de um planejamento discursivo manifesto em representações (verbais e visuais) dotadas de uma valoração cultural propensa à emoção reativa. A complementaridade observada entre palavra e imagem nos livros ilustrados analisados não só permite uma maior densidade significativa, mas também a exacerbação de qualidades e categorias nem sempre "significáveis". A simbolização por via analógica atualizada nas imagens (visuais ou metafóricas), ou na superposição de ambas, complexifica a significação, possibilitando-lhe não só efeitos de sentido, mas também efeitos sentidos, suscitados pelos saberes de conhecimento e de crença nos quais se fundam as representações, sejam elas configuradas verbal ou visualmente.
Patemização; Encenação descritiva verbo-visual; Livros ilustrados; Teoria Semiolinguística
ARTICLES
Verbal visuality at the service of pathemization in illustrated books
Beatriz dos Santos Feres
Universidade Federal Fluminense UFF, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; beatrizferes@yahoo.com.br
ABSTRACT
This work, mostly based on the Semiolinguistic Theory of Discourse Analysis, intends to discuss aspects of the verbal-visual semiosis in illustrated books regarding the process of pathemization, that is, the triggering of emotions from descriptive staging. It is assumed that pathemization, of an intentional nature, is activated in the text-reader interaction due to a manifested discursive planning in (verbal and visual) representations endowed with cultural valuation prone to reactive emotions. The observed complementarity between word and image in the analyzed illustrated books allows for not only a higher density of meaning, but also for the enhancement of qualities and categories that are not always "signifiable." The symbolization by analogy updated in the images (visual or metaphorical), or in the superposition of both, complexifies signification, allowing not only for effects of meaning, but also for felt effects, stemming from knowledge and beliefs on which representations are founded, whether verbally or visually configured.
Keywords: Pathemization; Descriptive Verbal-Visual Staging; Illustrated Books; Semiolinguistic Theory
Making One Feel with Words and Images
This article intends to highlight some aspects of a discussion that is not meant to be exhaustive, but that is looked upon from other perspectives. This study aims to combine notions concerning utterances as the real unit of communication (BAKHTIN, 1986) and the way meaning is produced in a verbal-visual conformation under the overriding perspective of the Semiolinguistic Theory of Discourse Analysis (CHARAUDEAU, 1992; 2007; 2008; 2010).
Ultimately what this study proposes is to call readers' attention to some common aspects between verbal and visual dimensions, regarding the use of representations prone to pathemization, i.e., to the triggering of emotions in the descriptive staging in illustrated books. The choice of illustrated books as the corpus of analysis is justified by the complementary nature (in a redundant, additive or contradictory action) of verbality and visuality, which favors the proposed reflection. As for the descriptive staging, it is agreed that it deserves attention because it is the discursive procedure that, besides evoking knowledge and beliefs which are necessary to the characterization of beings and to the discursive perspectivization, also leads to the analysis of visuality since the image itself is predominantly descriptive and, therefore, portrays referential and representational functions in the sense of bearing not only the "visible" qualities present in it, but also attributed values by the social group, as it occurs with words. Moreover, in general, the implicit qualification established in the descriptive staging demonstrates an ideologizing nature which can be perceived when observing text marks.
The problem of the verbal-visual relation will be analyzed, therefore, not only in relation to processes of socially countersigned value implicitation, but also in relation to the evaluation of common functions concerning verbality and visuality in the semiotization of the world. We hope that this article contributes to the understanding of textual meaning production, taking into account the symbolic character of visuality and the imaginative character of verbality.
In order to offer some material for reflection on the presented ideas, examples from two illustrated books will be given: I can't wait (CALI; BLOCH, 2005) and Mania de explicação (FALCÃO, 2011). It is known, though, that these examples only represent one among other analytical possibilities that are offered by the mixed semiosis in this kind of text.
1 Between Symbolization and Imagination: Common Functions and Ways
Semiolinguistics, one of the theories which focus on Discourse Analysis, adopts a psychosocial-communicative perspective concerning the investigation of the relation between form and meaning. It takes into account the restrictions from the interactional circuit as well as from the shared knowledge of the interagents.
Semio-, from "semioses," evokes the fact that meaning production and its configuration are made through a form-meaning relation (in different semiological systems), under the responsibility of an intentional subject, with a social influence project, in a given frame of action; linguistics to highlight the main subject of the form in question the one of natural languages. These, for their double articulation, for their combinatorial particularity of their units (sintagmatical-paradigmatical in many levels: word, sentence, text), impose a semiotization procedure of the world different from other languages
In other words, this theory articulates questions about the phenomenon of language in relation to the various dimensions that put it in operation: cognitive, social, psychosocial, semiotical, communicative. Some of them present a more external character (when they are related to the logic of actions and social influence), while others, a more internal one (when they focus on aspects related to the production of meaning texts).
Although studies on verbality prevail in Semiolinguistics, some points stand out from this citation, leading to a possible extension of the analysis to the verbal-visual semiotization, that is, to a semiosis constituted by elements that go beyond natural languages (which includes visuality, in this case). At the footnote of the page in which the quote is Charaudeau states: "This means that, although other semiological forms take part in this process, they are, somehow, under the domain of verbal language."
Semiotization (purely verbal or verbal-visual) is only achieved at the convergence between the elements that constitute, through planning, the material expression of the text, and others, which are evoked in the utterance due to the activation of different forms of knowledge including those that are related to actions and conventional behaviors passed on from generation to generation as part of a "culture" (in a broad sense), and those that are part of a "socio-discursive imaginary" seized in the individual socialization. The inscribed evidences from the elements in the textual surface trigger this process, which is achieved either by the constituents of verbality or by visuality, which according to this study, perform the same function of inserting data and evoking knowledge, each in their own way, from the extra-textual repertoire which is shared by the interagents involved in communication.
Although verbal-visuality constitutes a complex materiality with many meaningful resources, whose access to the extra-textual world is done by diverse ways, discourse, which is of the order of immanence and not of the order of manifestation, as it is the case of the text (FIORIN, 2012, p.148), consists of ideas, ideals, and memory, remaining as one unit and comprising different kinds of knowledge organized in a network and evoked by an endless associative process.
Verbality, configured by means of the linguistic sign, is characterized as a material expression which is organized according to a previous system, providing signs whose choice is based on a combinatorial process subjected to organizational rules as well as to paradigm-based relationships. The verbal sign, or a set of verbal signs, assumes the status of an utterance when, in a communicative exchange, also undergoes adjustments demanded by the context, that is, by the mutual influence exerted by the participants of the exchange which is mediated by the text, by the assumption of shared knowledge as well as by the conformation to the discursive genres of current use. The linear character of the verbal sign submits it to a successive array of elements in a temporal organization. The strong symbolic capacity of verbality allows for a high degree of abstraction and of categorization of the things of the world, which makes it possible to say that everything can be identified in a particular perspective.
Parallel, paralinguistic, kinesics, imagistic, cultural systems, etc. are connected to verbality and are repeatedly evoked in utterances, constituting the shared knowledge of participants. These systems produce their own codes, on which the programming of effects of meaning established in the relation between the surface of the text and context (situational and discursive) depends. In the definition of one of the explored types of codes, Eco (2012, p.393) states that:
It is defined as "Paralinguistics" the studies of suprasegmental traces (tones of voice) and of facultative variants that corroborate the linguistic communication and present themselves as systematizable and conventionalized (or, recognized as "natural", are somehow systematizable). These are phenomena that have become a more accurate object of studies due to new register systems, which allow the analysis of even the least perceptible variations to direct observation. Kinesics is usually associated to Paralinguistics, understood as studies of gesture and body movements of conventional meaningful value
Visuality, in a broad sense, is composed of elements grasped by vision, either by a direct experience with the world or by a mediated relation through images produced by men, which represent the world, that is, by visual language. Visuality can be seen as an Imagistic System, composed of other systems, such as Kinesics, Chromatic Systems, Outfit, Design and of enunciative systems (merely visual or verbal-visual) ad hoc, which are updated, for example, in advertising texts, in comic books, and in book illustrations, creating a visual syntax according to the recurrences and conventions related to each genre. The Imagistic System is, therefore, composed of signs whose signifier is of the visual order and whose signified depends, to some extent, on iconicity, i.e., a motivated relation (by similarity or quality coincidence) between signifier and signified, or, in Peirce's (2003) words, between sign and object. An image reaches the symbolic nature by overcoming the mere referentiality as it becomes conventional and incorporates values to the sign, ensuring its representational character.
Iconicity, however, acts not only on the visual level, but also on the verbal level, either when the relation between signifier and signified, in some level, is motived by a similarity between their constituent parts (intrasign iconicity), or when a sign relates to others due to a similarity with the signifier or to the signified (extrasign iconicity). Onomatopoeias, rhymes, and metaphors are based on iconicity as can be observed in some language structures, for example, in quantification, when repetitions mean intensity (I'm very, very tired...), or in word order, when this order means chronological succession (I came, I saw, I conquered.). Extending the process to the verbal/text sign, similarity can also act on intertextuality. Lastly, as the image can reach the symbolic and representational level, the word, in many levels, can be iconic in itself.
2 Verbal-Visual Descriptive Staging: the Exposable and theUunspeakable
Charaudeau (2010) states that the sign is a carrier of "something" that helps to build images; there are representations that carry an "availability" for the emotional reaction due to the knowledge of shared beliefs by the group with which they are connected. Besides the signs that "describe" emotions, like "anguish," "indignation," there are representations that trigger them, as "victim," "murderer," "war," because they lead the interpretation to a pathemic universe. From this reflection, we realize that the mode of referencing used in a text can add a pathemic character to it. Thus, the descriptive staging procedures, essentially referential and representational, decisively contribute to pathemization, once they are responsible for the discursive perspective established in the text.
For Discourse Analysis, emotions are treated as intended effects, assumptions, programmed on/by the utterance. This occurs by means of pathemic expressions, or pathemic description. In the first case, the pathemic effect is established from the interlocutory exchange and from the identity construction in an utterance, which is, at the same time, elocutive and allocutive (centered on the speaker and clearly directed to the interlocutor) and in which an emotional state is manifested ("I'm afraid!", "Have some pity!", facial expression of panic, etc.). In the second case, the pathemic effect depends on the relation that, supposedly, in a projective way, links the addresser to the described situation and to the protagonists of the narrated scene ("The crowd is furious!"). It is not the case that the purpose of a text is to stir an emotion (even though it might be possible to have it as the theme or even to evoke it), but to provoke it by means of specific mechanisms.
The proper devices to evoke emotions should not be catalogued out of the signs system, since triggering emotions is also one of the functions of the signs; beyond the sign systems, there should not be more than stimuli. An onion makes me cry, as a stimulus, but the image of a lacerating scene will only make me cry after I have perceived it as a sign (ECO, 2012, p.79).
Eco1s citation corroborates Charaudeau's statement that the sign is also assigned the function of arousing emotions, of making one feel. And making one feel is a manifested task in the imaginary zone, in the specific space for representation, for mnemonics and for sensitivity. The social imaginary, according to Charaudeau, fulfills the role of storing knowledge that allows becoming common (communicating) who the individual is, how he/she should act, and who he/she will believe in. This constitutes the cognitive repertoire which, more or less consciously, offers meanings, directions for the "re-discovery" of data, memories, sensations, emotions, that is, all the elements related to empirical or virtual solidarity experiences that unite the beings by identifying them as members of a group. It is the social imaginary that, among other aspects, guides the individual to the purpose of language acts and provokes specific expectations of meaning due to the character of the communicative exchange. As an interlocutor, the individual is embedded into the communicative project according to the goals related to the intentionality of the texts: Prescriptive texts aim to make do; informative texts aim to make know; initiative texts aim to make believe, and pathemic texts aim to make feel (CHARAUDEAU, 2007, p.69).
The imaginary results from a double interaction: man with the world, and man with man. Representations mingle and instruct each other; thus, the imaginary cannot be all conscious: Some can be rationalized by discourses-texts that circulate in institutions; others, however, are found in implied judgments from utterances, ways of speaking, socio-lingual rituals, from ethical, aesthetics, etc. judgments, and they naturally work as a shared evidence by the group; even when submerged into what is called the collective unconsciousness, the imaginary constitutes a long-term collective memory, only identifiable by a historical and anthropological approach. It is the one that organizes knowledge, systematizing it according to the interests of the social group it is related to.
The imaginary constitutes the basis for the creation of expectations in the process of meaning production and, as it determines the perspectivization of the world, it is, in a reciprocal (but not always proportional) action, overdetermined by the world or by man's actions. Marked on the material expression of utterances, the ideologies that constitute them are expressed.
Codes are systems of expectations in the universe of signs. Ideologies are systems of expectations in the universe of knowledge. There are informative messages that revolutionize the system of expectations in the universe of signs. And there are behavioral decisions, insights that revolutionize the systems of expectations in the universe of knowledge (ECO, 2012, p.86)
In other words, in the universe of knowledge, there is a system of expectations that guides the meanings and the effects of meaning, but it only occurs when this ideological system is manifested by language, through the system of signs, of varied configurations, including verbal-visuality.
In descriptive staging, beings of the extratextual world are described through mechanisms of identification, qualification, and localization-situationalization (CHARAUDEAU, 1991; 2008). By naming a being, pointing out its existence in a cutting of reality, a way of seeing is presented, since it is not possible to communicate the totality of this being, but a part of its essence, according to the category in which it is framed. By qualifying it, an "extra" feature is chosen, the one that distinguishes and reinforces the cutting. By localizing/situationalizing it, the being is related to a position in History and to recognizable scenes of the everyday life of a group, in a space-time cutting that also identifies and singularizes it. The speaker's way of seeing, constituted of the set of exposed qualities of the referred object, materializes himself/herself in the text and communicates a point of view. The more subjective the description is, the more likely it will be to assign value to the being based on beliefs.
The descriptive staging in illustrated books takes part in a double semiosis (verbal-visual). Even though the verbal semiosis differs from the visual one in several aspects, many rules, previously studied only in relation to the verbal sign, can be applied to the visual sign, such as the notion of textual cohesion and coherence, or even the pathemizing representation. Taking into account the difference between the compulsory linear disposition of the verbal text and the double articulation of the sign, according to the aprioristic system in which it takes part, and the holistic disposition of the imagetic text and its heuristic system, inaugurated in conformation to the utterance (though a grammar of the visual is also discussed), it is relevant, for this reflection, to point to the role assigned to the images that overcome a simple referential identification and raise conventional symbolization (BARTHES, 1990). To this "logical conventionality" of verbality, which extends itself to visuality, an inverse movement is added: The analogical processing, fundamentally imagistic, spreads itself to the logical processing in metaphors, for example. In short, although different in nature, verbal and visual semiosis present common resources that identify them, or, at least, approach them and complement each other in their fundamental differences in relation to many aspects.
The exposable and the unspeakable, as aspects of what is hardly referenced by means of precise conventional symbols, appropriate this complementarity in order to arouse effects of meaning and felt effects. It is considered exposable and unspeakable what is more presented than represented by a perceptible, sensorial, figurative material expression, or, in other words, what is just evoked from an utterance without being necessarily named. Pathemization acts in this field, making one feel from affective inferences that make feelings and sensations emerge. For this purpose, iconicity, including the one based on verbality, plays an essential role, as it is intended to be highlighted in the following examples.
In I Can't Wait, by Davide Cali and Serge Bloch (2005), a red woolen yarn (the only colored element in the book) composes all illustrations, taking different shapes and, at the same time, acting, metaphorically, as a "conducting wire" of the text, or as the protagonist's "lifeline." All presented scenes have a complement to the verbal expression "I can't wait," repeated in the title. The illustration, in simple black lines with a white background, reveals moments, chronologically organized, that represent common facts in everyone's lives: puerile concerns, youth, passion, going to war, returning from war, marriage, family formation, widowhood, old age, and the hope that families grow and that the cycle of life is repeated.
The rectangular format of the book enables the visualization of images with a certain temporal distance between them, configured by the horizontal distance between the images. The cover is similar to a postal envelope, with postal stamps and a postmark indicating "air shipping.". On the first two pages, it is written: "I can't wait... to grow up." In the image, a boy pulls the red woolen yarn with all his strength (as it is expressed by his physiognomic expression, just like his body position). Metaphorically, the character shows the eagerness to grow, as denoted verbally. The performed action is, despite its concreteness, symbolic, codified: Applying some strength, pulling the red yarn, overlaps the intense desire, figurativizing it. Once more, an abstract idea and full of emotions, almost unspeakable in its entirety, relies on its iconicity to be exposed by a corresponding image due to the similarity that unites them.
In an image further ahead, the scene involves a pathemizing representation, i.e., potentially triggering of emotions. Here, the expression "I can't wait" is completed with "for the doctor to say: 'It's nothing.'" In the image, the protagonist, sitting on a chair, leans, showing interest to the woman who is being examined by the doctor (a man who seems to listen to the sounds of other person's body is identified by these actions as a doctor, also referred in the verbal part of the text). The situation of a medical appointment itself carries the reactive capacity related to emotion, because it refers to the precariousness of life. The red yarn, this time, links the man's hand to his wife, metaphorizing the union of their lives.
In another scene, the tangled red yarn over the characters, who present physiognomic expressions indicating contrariety, embodies the confusion that takes place in a family disagreement. The expression "I can't wait" is completed, in this scene, by "... for the other one to apologize."
Although in this case the iconicity prevails as the pathemizing resource that expresses the described emotion felt in the scene (the tangled yarn figuratizes the disagreement between the characters), it is also possible to highlight its representational character, because this kind of attitude, admittedly, refers to the feelings that embed it (annoyance, contrariety, sadness, anger), allowing this representation to set a pathemic aim, a potential triggering of emotions.
If the empiric observation of the world provides material for descriptions, reflection upon possible categorizations through abstraction and the use of language allows a series of definitions. In other words, the more figurative the textual configuration is, the more descriptive it will reveal itself; the more thematic, the more focused on definitions it will be.
In the descriptive staging observed in Mania de explicação, written by Adriana Falcão and illustrated by Mariana Massarani (2001), both processes are contemplated and are mingled. In this book, a girl tries to explain the world "in a way it would be more beautiful." To do so, the character uses verbal metaphors, while the illustrator uses visual metaphors. One can observe that the exposable and the unspeakable, in this book, act specifically as an attempt to define concepts which are very abstract including emotions , in a metaphorical configuration in which images and themes fit.
With the expression "preocupação é uma cola" ("concern is like glue"), the elements (concern and glue) are drawn closer due to a common quality: the grip. As glue is capable of being attached to an object, concern takes up thoughts in an irremovable way. Furthermore, concern is like a glue that does not release something that has not happened yet from the thought, that is, the anteriority of concern in relation to facts is highlighted here. Glue is metonymically represented by the image of an octopus that grips to the girl's head. It is known that the octopus is an animal with tentacles whose suction cups are capable of gripping the animal to any surface. In this case, it grips to the girl's head, as a metonym for thoughts. By means of metaphors, the most pernicious quality of concern is shown, taking advantage of the overlapping domains in order to express what concern is capable of making one feel. By the easy identification of the concept and the feeling that it can produce through iconic resources on which the text relies, it is possible to expose without saying, by means of the most persuasive and seductive way.
It is important to highlight that, in these books, the drawing traces are childlike and the illustrations are colorful and funny. These stylistic aspects of illustration reveal a communicative intention based on the identification of the reader-child with the images. As in Eco's quote, the imagistic sign presents the visible properties, the "optics" of the object it refers to (the tentacles of the octopus, its shape; the image of the girl with red glasses that characterize her throughout the book), the properties we presuppose they have (the adherence represented by the octopus, which presupposes nuisance; the girl's glasses presuppose intelligence), besides the ones we conventionalize as models (the smile of the octopus as a likable attitude; the sunbeams in the image of the girl).
The iconic symbols (read imagistic), precisely because of its constitution based on visuality, reveal themselves as very productive for the expression of features: either physically perceptible properties of the represented object, or attached values to a sign according to the exchange the interagents socially share.
The iconic sign may [...] have, among the properties of the object, optical (visible), ontological (presupposed) and conventionalized ones (modeled, known to be non-existent, but effectively denoting, example: the sunbeams in a stick shape). A graphical scheme reproduces the relational properties of a mind scheme (ECO, 2012, p.107) [Emphasis added]
However, as it is possible to notice, iconicity is also present in metaphors and in verbal structures based on similarities, in which there is also a propensity to the enhancement of qualities. By using some excerpts from Mania de explicação (FALCÃO, 2011), it is possible to more closely observe the role of the iconic processing in verbality. In an attempt of definition, emotions are seen as utterance themes and, at the same time, are raised by the metaphors that bound them.
Anger is when the dog that lives inside of you shows its teeth.
Sadness is when a giant hand squeezes your heart.
Happiness is a carnival group that does not care if it is not February.
Happiness is now and is not in a hurry. (FALCÃO, 2001, p.36-37)
In all the sentences, emotion is equivalent to an image, to a scene liable to imagination, composed by ordinary elements. In the incongruity of the evoked elements, the need to produce meaning shifts attention from the references made about reality to the qualities that approach them.
"The dog that lives inside of you shows its teeth" approximates the impetus, the voracity, the "lack of reason," typical of anger, latent emotion in the human being (so it lives inside of you) to the attitude of a dog that "shows his teeth" to give fright. Anger and dog, abstract and concrete, come close according to what they resemble. Mental schemes, based on individual experiences, are superposed and associated in order to be able to point to a piece of reality which is difficult to define.
Likewise, in "a giant hand squeezes your heart," sadness is seen as the provoking agent of the squeeze in the heart, in a relation of cause and effect, basically metonymic, but also metaphorical, for the image embodies sadness and attaches an indefensible strength to it (giant hand).
In "carnival group that does not care if it is not February," from carnival group it is possible to see the presupposed happiness that motivates it (at least for those who have already experienced the fun of a carnival group), that makes the person sing, jump, have fun, and, thus, approximates it to the emotion to be defined. The adjective clause that does not care if it is not February disconnects joy from the temporal restriction indicated by the specificity of the carnival period.
In "happiness is now and is not in a hurry," although less figurative than the other analyzed images, it personifies the now, which means the present moment, which is not in a hurry, that is, which seems to be fulfilled in its essence, with no need to change its state. With such personification, the feeling of happiness approaches the person who is happy who, in this case, becomes aware of a moment of completeness such as that. The evocation of this state of happiness is possible due to the operated iconicity in personification.
Relevant Aspects of the Analysis
In Teoria do Efeito Estético (The Theory of the Aesthetic Effect), Borba (2003, p.23), based on Sociology of Knowledge, after considering language as the first institution, states the following:
The stabilization of the experience with family takes place with language, from which the child learns not only this specific fact, but alto a wide set of rules: the role played by the members of society; their patterns of conduct; the strategy to act in similar situations; the social identification; the possibility of a single role to be played by different individuals. Simultaneously, it is the recognition of these rules that will guide his/her interaction with others. Language fixations, from an early age, have allowed meanings to be attributed to actions of social partners so that individuals can establish a connection between their own actions and those of their peers.
This social conformation through language includes not only actions of everyday life, but also the development of the aesthetical attitude of sensitivity; the practice of a more refined and complex interpretive calculation; the ability to associate ideas and critical reflections upon reality as it is shown.
Exposing a person to an aesthetical language since their childhood is to invest in the formation of more contemplative and mature individuals, which leads to humanization. Illustrated books, though not exclusively created for children, because of their verb-visual semiosis and their double addressing (the child is also its target audience, besides the adult, who often mediates the reading), are suitable for this task, because they are set as a cultural material which is complex, synthetic and demanding, considering the domain of multiple languages and the establishment of the most varied relationships.
In the few listed examples, the exposable is blended with the unspeakable in order to reveal it. Whether through the imagistic signs, or in the evoked images by verbality, it causes effects that aim, above all, to make one feel. Genuinely, verbal aspects, as referencing and symbolization, are also observed in visuality. On the other hand, typical aspects of images, as the indication of qualities perceptible, assumed or instituted , are highlighted in verbality, either through metaphors or through the valuating character acquired by specific representations. In the observed verbal-visual semiotic complementarity in illustrated books, the complexity of signification that relies on contiguous and mutually influent processes, that sharpens imagination and cognition by means of mental images and knowledge from beliefs incessantly raised in the production of meaning is apprehended. Pathemization is obtained by means of various strategies, manifested in verbal-visual symbiosis of the mentioned illustrated books.
Considering the specificities of each language, its access codes to meanings and its strategies for programming effects, the production of meaning occurs in the text-and-reader interaction, in which the reader's language competence is as indispensable as the correct programming of effects in textualization. The investigation of verbal-visuality has shown that, more than the "hierarchical rivalry" regarding the significant capacity attributed to verbality or to visuality, it is possible to observe some common principles between these semiotic types. Furthermore, the mnemonic and imaginary repertoires, the categorizations done by a group, the knowledge of beliefs, the socially diffused mental schemes, in short, the socio-cognitive devices are triggered both by the verbality and by the visuality of texts; the latency of meanings and effects lies in the success of a well-adjusted textual conformation to the context, in the convergence of the specificities of each semiosis.
REFERENCES
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- FIORIN, J. L. Da necessidade de distinção entre texto e discurso. In: BRAIT, B.; SOUZA-e-SILVA, M. C. (orgs.). Texto ou discurso? São Paulo: Contexto, 2012.
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Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
17 Dec 2013 -
Date of issue
Dec 2013
History
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Received
10 Mar 2013 -
Accepted
18 Oct 2013
