Assignment 2 of the second semester saw us looking at the term “Polysemy” and Roland Barthes “The Rhetoric Of The Image”.
“Polysemy” refers to a word with two or more similar meanings. For example,
The man stood is at the foot of the mountain.
He bent over to tie his shoe on his left foot.
In the first sentence, “foot” refers to the area around the bottom of a mountain. In the second sentence the same word refers to the body.
By the same token, in the context of an image or photograph, “polysemy” simply means to derive meaning from.
When presented with exactly the same image, two people could get two very different meanings.
Take a look at the three images below. What story do they tell you?
When I first looked at the three pictures I decided that they suggested a broken relationship, which was beyond repair (the dry, cracked ground). I thought perhaps one party had left (the car facing away from the viewer) and that over time the other party had become depressed and turned to alcoholism (the bottles sitting next to the clock).
An example of how different people relate to different images in very different ways is shown here when I asked a 21 year old female from Edinburgh, studying Psychology to look at the images.
“Two people were stuck in a desert because they ran out of petrol. They had no food or water for days and began to loose hope. When eventually someone came to their rescue they celebrated by going to the pub.”
After repeating the experiment on multiple people, it became apparent that something was changing the outcome each time. If the images were not the variable, could it be that each person’s individual background, knowledge and experiences influenced how they interpreted these images? This idea posed many questions. What other factors could colour people’s perception? Mood? Social group?
“The Rhetoric of the Image” by Roland Barthes supports this idea. Barthes suggests that messages people take from images can be grouped into three different types.
1. The non-encoded iconic or Clear meaning – Common understanding that is apparent to everyone.
2. The coded iconic or Symbolic meaning – Understanding from relating an image with personal cultural knowledge.
3. The linguistic or Textual meaning. – Understanding of image after reading included text.
It’s number two, The Coded Iconic, which shows how each person interoperates each image in a unique way. For example, you may relate the images to a subject you studied at university. Someone studying Interior and Environmental Design may look at these images and focus on the colours used and incorporate this in their story.
The Linguistic, number three, suggests that text can be used to change the meaning people derive from any given image.
To show this I added the word “love” to one of my images and repeated the experiment again asking a different group of people.
This time, 19 year old Chris from Fife who works at Debenhams said…
“A lone wanderer travels the rustic roads of the south, dreaming of his college sweetheart when distracted he crashes deep within the forest. For days he was alone and stranded. Isolation made him crazy and when he eventually returns home he turns to alcoholism to numb his pane.”
The addition of the word love has evidently encouraged the theme of romance, in this case it provided a reason for the man to crash and suggests his loneliness.
A simple word can completely change the meaning of an image and could be used to lead views down a specific path. Barthes example given in his paper shows how this relationship between text and image can be a powerful tool in advertising. Perhaps we are under a greater influence into what we buy or where we eat than we realise!
As we worked in groups to collect evidence we accumulated a few stories. Here’s a look at some of the other responses:
Kirsty
20 years of age
works at call center
Shown: car, bottles, mud with the word Love.
“These pictures symbolic the idea of loving the earth, for example, to banish pollutants from cars and stop littering.”
George
(Student) chemical engineer
Shown: Cracked mud, Car, Bottles
“The scenario is a person who drink drives and as a result, dies.”
Laura
Student (studying English)
18 years old
Shown - cracked ground, car, bottles.
“There was a drought. 2 people travel by car to help by taking water to the people affected.”
Sandra
40+
Manager
Shown - bottles, cracked ground, car.
“There is conflict between a couple. The cracks in the foundation of their relationship are too deep and one of them leaves.”
Images:
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