Text-Image Relations in Handbook of Comics and Graphic Novels

The Comics Grid: Journal of comics scholarship, 2014

The Balkan Journal of Philosophy 6 (2): 155–162, 2014

The aim of our paper is to present the ways in which cognitive linguistics has contributed to various developments in the domain of comics studies. After providing introductory remarks, the paper describes the main views found within the works of authors considered to be the precursors of contemporary comics studies, Will Eisner and Scott McCloud, with the intention of providing the basics that would facilitate the reader’s understanding of the present issues. The main section of the paper contains the basic tenets of cognitive semantics, including the ideas traced in the works of the authors who have observed various types of comics from the cognitivist viewpoint. This section of the paper presents the research conducted thus far by a number of scientists who have engaged in drawing parallels between cognitivist theories and comics studies, including the work on visual and multimodal metaphor and metonymy and the visual language of comics. This is followed by concluding remarks that end the paper.

While visual aids have largely become accepted as a positive tool for language learning, there has been less follow-up in evaluating what is offered by such “visual context” for text. In particular, while the principle for successful usage of visual aids in the classroom is to have a high correlation between text and image, this is not a rule necessarily followed by authentic texts. Using Japanese comics or manga as an example, this paper offers real data on some of the linguistic characteristics found in a manga corpus to reconsider what the relationship between text and image may be, arguing that the nondescriptive nature of language in comics demands highly developed interpretative skills. Educators may need to rethink what is meant to be achieved in order to use authentic visual-verbal mixed texts effectively, and several possible ways are suggested.

2019

This book explores how comics function to make meanings in the manner of a language. It outlines a framework for describing the resources and practices of comics creation and readership, using an approach that is compatible with similar descriptions of linguistic and multimodal communication. The approach is based largely on the work of Michael Halliday, drawing also on the pragmatics of Paul Grice, the Text World Theory of Paul Werth and Joanna Gavins, and ideas from art theory, psychology and narratology. This brings a broad Hallidayan framework of multimodal analysis to comics scholarship, and plays a part in extending that tradition of multimodal linguistics to graphic narrative.

The comic-book genre has gone through several important changes along the twentieth century in the Anglo-Saxon world. This verbal-iconical genre seems to have been able to overcome the Manichean vision of the comic-book as something childish, and thus find a new space for the maturation of its own devices. As the latest outgrowth of the comic-book expansion, the graphic novel has become the corner stone whereby a link is established between the pure narrative form of the novel and the visual quality of the verbal-iconical genres. The daring and yet successful combination of these different trends has contributed to elevating the graphic novel to the status of proper art form. Hence, the aim of this essay is to offer a modest and serious proposal for the analysis of the four verbal-iconical genres directly related to the comic-book, to wit: the illustrated novel, the comic strip, the comic-book, and, finally, the graphic novel. The latter has given a new breath to the narrative forms of the verbal-iconical genres, especially to the comic-book, allowing for an experimentalism inside this trend, producing a new independent hybrid genre, and making possible a reorientation of narrative techniques concerning the time factor –chronotope– in the comic-book genre towards a more complex and coherent structure.

The structure of comics has long been compared to that of language. This paper reviews the diverse research examining sequential images with methods from linguistics. Throughout, I argue that the notion of "comics" is separate from the "visual language" that they are written in. I then outline how this visual language is analogous to spoken and signed languages, and describe how it can be studied using the same questions that guide the study of those linguistic systems.

Journal of Pragmatics, 2018

Visual Language Theory (VLT) argues that the structure of drawn images is guided by similar cognitive principles as language, foremost a "narrative grammar" that guides the ways in which sequences of images convey meaning. Recent works have critiqued this linguistic orientation, such as Bateman and Wildfeuer's (2014) arguments that a grammar for sequential images is unnecessary. They assert that the notion of a grammar governing sequential images is problematic, and that the same information can be captured in a "discourse" based approach that dynamically updates meaningful information across juxtaposed images. This paper reviews these assertions, addresses their critiques about a grammar of sequential images, and then details the shortcomings of their own claims. Such discussion is directly grounded in the empirical evidence about how people comprehend sequences of images. In doing so, it reviews the assumptions and basic principles of the narrative grammar of the visual language used in comics, and it aims to demonstrate the empirical standards by which theories of comics' structure should adhere to.

2016

However we define comics, it is safe to claim that in general they consist of two main components: images and language. With some exceptions, the vast majority of comics include linguistic elements: speech balloons, thought balloons, narrative boxes, sound effects, and ambient language (language used in the background, as on store fronts, t-shirts, restaurant menus, and the like). Comics scholarship examines the language used in comics to say something about narrative, character development, even the nature of comics themselves. And while fitful linguistic analysis of comics began in the early 20 th century, only recently has the academic discipline of linguistics been brought to bear on comics studies, resulting in a rapidly growing expanse of research. This essay will discuss the concept of "language of comics," explore several approaches to language and linguistics, and then attempt to address linguistic scholarship as it intersects with the study of comics. Exploring the "language of comics" Since at least the 1980s, many scholars who write about comics have relied on the notion that comics are a language. Both Will Eisner and Scott McCloud write about "the language of comics," and this metaphor "gives scholars and artists alike some common ground for discussing their research and art" (Bramlett 2012:1). For example, the idea of "the language of comics" is appealing because sequencing in language (e.g., order of words in a sentence) aligns very well with the notion of sequencing in comics (e.g., the order of panels in a comic strip). As a metaphor, the phrase "language of comics" has a powerful, almost poetic attraction, but Eisner and McCloud "may have interfered with the study of language in comics because they called for a language of comics" (Bramlett 2012a:1). However, from a linguistic point of view, comics are not and cannot be a language. Despite the difficulties with "the language of comics" as a scholarly principle, some research has endorsed the view that when comics artists create their work, they are employing a system called "visual language" (Cohn 2012: 93). This is not exactly the same as saying there is a "language of comics," but it is consonant with an approach called mentalist/cognitive linguistics (explained at length below).

2017

This thesis proposes that, viewed at the appropriate level of abstraction, pictures can do the work that language does; and a framework that describes the functions served by both will usefully enable discussion of graphic narrative. In the thesis, I outline such a framework, based largely on the work of Michael Halliday, drawing also on the pragmatics of Paul Grice, the Text World Theory of Paul Werth and Joanna Gavins, and ideas from art theory, psychology and narratology. This brings a complete Hallidayan framework of multimodality to comics scholarship for the first time, and extends that tradition of multimodal linguistics to graphic narrative. I owe a debt of gratitude to many who have helped and supported me through the development of this thesis. First and foremost, I must thank Professors M.A.K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan for the inspiration that gave shape to the thesis. Dr J.D. Rhodes helped to shape the initial ideas and gave invaluable feedback on the early stages of exploration and writing. Dr Roberta Piazza's close commentary and advice has been crucial, especially as regards the linguistic theory, and Dr Doug Haynes has supported the project from beginning to end. The University of Sussex Doctoral School and the School of English have provided sources of funding and support throughout. Sussex Downs College staff have been gracious about time needed for academic work, and my students have provided inspiration for, and sometimes testing of, the ideas presented here. The Transitions Symposium team have provided an annual venue for inspiration, development of and feedback about comics theory, as have the editors of Studies in Comics, in particular Dr Julia Round, and of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. I am indebted to reviewers at these journals for feedback on articles that share material with Chapters 2 and 3, and to Benoît Crucifix for comments on material shared with Chapter 5. Another constant through the process of exploring theory has been the membership of what became the British Consortium of Comics Scholars, including John Miers, Louisa Buck, Nicola Streeten, Dr Paddy Johnston and Dr Thierry Chessum, among many who have joined us. For their help, friendship and lively debate I am deeply grateful. The wider comics scholarship community, in particular at the International Graphic Novels and Comics Conferences, have likewise provided invigorating support and stimulus. On a more personal level, Marina supported me through the start of the process, and Claudia has supported me through to the end, and does so still. This thesis is dedicated to my family and to the memory of my father.

Facta Universitatis, Series Linguistics and Literature, 2014

The Visual Language of Comics (Cohn 2013) makes a perfect candidate for a primary textbook on any course which aims at approaching the study of comics from a cognitive perspective. Neil Cohn, the author of a number of influential papers in the field of visual language (e.g. Cohn 2005, 2010, 2012a), has managed to come up with a format which seems to be equally useful to both a layman and a comic scholar. The book walks along Cohn's beaten path of treating structured sequential images as visual language – according to the author's theoretical proposal, drawn structures have the ability to constitute a visual language in a similar way in which structured sequential sounds can become a spoken language, and in which structured hand and body motions can constitute a sign language. Whereas they function within a different modality, visual languages have both meanings and grammars, and share many features with their verbal and sign counterparts. The elements a visual language is composed of include a graphic structure, morphology, and sequences which are to be decoded, organized by means of a navigational structure which directs us in regard to the beginning of a sequence and its progression. These graphic elements lead us to a conceptual structure, with further possibilities for studying event and narrative structures.