Pictures and interpretations : towards an applied semiotics

[摘要] This is a study about the ways in which pictures can be interpreted and theways in which they are interpreted; the latter, specifically, in a relatively remotepart of Peru.Chapter II reviews an assortment of picture tests which bring to lightdifferences in the ways pictures are perceived. Chapter III examines the specificcultural context in which a fairly informal picture test was administered.Chapter IV presents some results and asks what cultural and situational factorsmay have contributed to the variety in interpretations evident.The drawing of firm conclusions is precluded by the absence of any systematicapproach to the interpretations or to the pictures themselves, and it is this whichthe second half of the study attempts to remedy; by providing a theoreticalframework for the assessment of verbalized responses to pictures.Chapter V offers a definition of "picture" and locates it within a typology ofindices. It also examines the notion of "visual resemblance", eventuallyadopting the view that any picture is infinitely ambiguous. Chapter VIintroduces two methodological necessities consequent on this ambiguity: astipulation as to the identity and the taxonomic specificity of any signifiedobject; and a stipulation as to the spatial extension of its signifier. No othermethodological content is presented. Chapter VII classifies types of verbalizedresponses in terms of their visual motivation, and the degree to which theyinterrelate the stipulated pictorial units. Chapter VIII acknowledges thatsignification may continue beyond the representational level. Further, postrepresentational,types of responses are classified in terms of the nature of thelink maintained with the representational signified.

[发布机构] University:The University of St Andrews;Department:Research Centres and Institutes

[效力级别] Ethnopsychology

[关键词] Socialization--Cross-cultural studies;Ethnopsychology