Semiotic interdependence between text and visual image

Abstract

Studies of communication and meaning evolve from Semiotics, a multidisciplinary science which adopts a philosophical approach that seeks to interpret messages in terms of their signs and patterns of symbolism. We live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and codes into which they are organized. A sign can be a word, a sound, a visual image etc. In other words, signs can mean anything we agree that they mean, and they can mean different things to different living organisms. At the same time, non-verbal signs can produce many complex symbols and hold multiple meanings. The study of Semiotics originated in a literary or linguistic context and has been expanding in a number of directions since the beginning of the 20th century. The essential breakthrough of Semiotics is to take linguistics as a model and apply linguistic concepts to other non-linguistic fields or "phenomena-texts" (for example a visual image) and not to language itself. The broadening concept of text and discourse encourages additional research into how visual communication operates to create meaning. The aim of our paper is to emphasize the semiotic interdependence between text and visual image, the analysis being focused on textual versus visual communication. Though visual images are quite different from linguistic texts, they are not wholly different, and many semioticians have sought parallels between the two media. Like texts, most visual images are composed of parts arranged in a certain way to signify and communicate. Usually, a visual image addresses us directly with its emotions and meaningfulness, while a word (text) works via intellect. Without visual images, an idea may be lost in a sea of words, while without words, an image may be lost to ambiguity. So, we may conclude that the combination of text and visual image has a higher communicative power that neither textual or visual communication singularly possesses.