Thursday, 4 June 2026

Visual Grammar VI: Conditions of a Systemic-Functional Visual Theory

The sixth discussion began with no paper on the table.

Mr Blottisham looked mildly unsettled by this.

"Have I forgotten something?"

Professor Quillibrace shook his head.

"No. We are past the stage of remembering things."

Miss Elowen Stray smiled faintly.

"That sounds ominous."

"It is structural," said Quillibrace.

Blottisham sat down carefully.

"So this is the conclusion."

"No," said Quillibrace immediately.

"It is the threshold."

Blottisham frowned.

"A threshold to what?"

"To adequacy," said Miss Stray.

Quillibrace nodded once.

A pause.

Blottisham tried again.

"So what would a genuinely systemic-functional account of visual semiosis require?"

Quillibrace leaned back slightly.

"Conditions," he said.

"Not extensions."

"Not adaptations."

"Conditions."

Blottisham exhaled.

"I suspect this will involve rules."

"It involves constraints," said Quillibrace.

"A more dignified form of rules," Blottisham muttered.

"More precise," Quillibrace corrected.

Miss Stray opened her notebook, but did not write.

"I think we should take them one at a time."

"Agreed," said Quillibrace.

Blottisham nodded.

"I am ready."

"That is your first mistake," said Quillibrace.

1. Explicit Stratification

Quillibrace spoke first.

"If stratification is claimed, it must be maintained."

Blottisham nodded cautiously.

"So we cannot treat colour as meaning itself."

"No," said Quillibrace.

"It is expression."

"Which realises meaning."

"Correct."

Blottisham hesitated.

"But in many analyses—"

"I know," said Quillibrace.

"They collapse it."

"Yes."

"And call the result ‘visual meaning’."

"Yes."

Quillibrace shook his head slightly.

"That is not stratification. That is dissolution."

Miss Stray added quietly:

"So either maintain the distinction, or abandon it."

"Exactly," said Quillibrace.

"No selective collapse."

2. System and Structure

Blottisham spoke more carefully now.

"So systems are not descriptions of patterns."

"No," said Quillibrace.

"They are organised differences."

"Meaning potentials structured by opposition," added Miss Stray.

Quillibrace nodded.

"Structures realise them."

Blottisham frowned.

"And catalogues?"

"A temptation," said Quillibrace.

3. Orientation from Above

Blottisham looked up.

"This is the one I am still unsure about."

Quillibrace did not hesitate.

"Then you have not yet understood the series."

Blottisham winced.

"I suspected as much."

Quillibrace continued.

"Explanation does not begin with the image."

"Where does it begin?"

"With the organisation the image is taken to realise."

Miss Stray added:

"And proceeds downward."

"From system to structure," said Blottisham slowly.

"From function to form," said Quillibrace.

"From meaning potential to instance," said Miss Stray.

Blottisham sighed.

"So we are reversing ordinary intuition."

"We are correcting it," said Quillibrace.

"A dangerous phrase," Blottisham murmured.

"An accurate one," Quillibrace replied.

4. Content and Expression

Blottisham looked at the empty table.

"This is the hardest one."

"It is the most frequently violated," said Quillibrace.

Blottisham continued carefully.

"So expressive features are not meaning."

"They realise meaning," said Quillibrace.

"And must not be treated as directly semantic."

"Correct."

"Unless explicitly justified."

"Or you abandon stratification entirely," said Miss Stray.

Blottisham leaned back.

"So the instability we saw earlier..."

"is caused by switching between these positions," said Miss Stray.

"Without acknowledging it," said Quillibrace.

A silence settled.

Blottisham spoke quietly.

"So what we have been calling ‘visual grammar’..."

Quillibrace interrupted gently.

"May or may not be systemic-functional."

Blottisham nodded.

"Depending on these conditions."

"Yes," said Quillibrace.

"Not depending on vocabulary."

"Not depending on sophistication," said Miss Stray.

"Only on architecture."

Blottisham looked up.

"And if those conditions are not met?"

Quillibrace answered simply.

"Then it is not what it claims to be."

A pause.

"It is something else."

Miss Stray closed her notebook.

"And what is that something else?"

Quillibrace considered this.

"A descriptive practice."

"Sometimes excellent."

"Often insightful."

"But not systemic-functional in its explanatory architecture."

Blottisham exhaled slowly.

"So the distinction is not about correctness."

"No," said Quillibrace.

"It is about what kind of explanation is being performed."

A long silence followed.

Then Blottisham spoke.

"So the final claim is simple."

Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.

"Careful."

Blottisham continued anyway.

"System over structure."

"Function over form."

"And explanation from above."

Quillibrace nodded once.

"Yes."

Miss Stray added quietly:

"But only if you can sustain what those phrases require."

The room did not respond immediately.

Outside, the rain continued in the same patient register it had adopted at the beginning of the series.

Blottisham looked at the empty table.

"So that is the threshold."

Quillibrace stood.

"Yes."

"And we are either on one side of it," Blottisham said, "or we are not."

Quillibrace picked up his coat.

"And analysis reveals which."

Miss Stray closed her notebook.

"Not what it says it is."

"What it is doing."

No one spoke for a moment.

Then Blottisham said, very quietly:

"I think I will need to rewrite everything I have ever written."

Quillibrace paused at the door.

"Probably."

Miss Stray smiled.

"Or at least reorient it."

And the door closed, as if on a methodological decision rather than a room.

By at No comments:

Visual Grammar V: The Loss of Orientation

The fifth discussion began without any visible disagreement.

This, in the Senior Common Room at St Anselm’s, was usually a warning sign.

Mr Blottisham placed a single sheet of paper on the table.

"I think I can now summarise the pattern."

Professor Quillibrace did not look up immediately.

"That sentence has historically preceded difficulty."

Miss Elowen Stray smiled faintly.

"It depends whether the pattern is real or merely satisfying."

Blottisham continued.

"The issues we have been discussing—explanation from below, the slide from system to catalogue, and the breakdown of stratification—are not separate."

Quillibrace looked up at that.

"Go on."

"They are the same tendency expressed in different places."

Miss Stray nodded slowly.

"A displacement?"

"Yes," said Blottisham. "In explanatory orientation."

Quillibrace set his pen down.

"That is a better formulation than I expected."

Blottisham looked mildly surprised.

"I was expecting resistance."

"You will still receive it," said Quillibrace. "But continue."

Blottisham hesitated.

"What is missing," he said, "is not vocabulary."

Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.

"Nor analytical sensitivity."

"Nor analytical sensitivity," Blottisham agreed.

"It is something prior."

Miss Stray leaned forward slightly.

"A commitment?"

Blottisham nodded.

"Yes. A methodological one."

Quillibrace spoke quietly.

"The view from above."

Blottisham exhaled.

"So it has a name."

"It has always had a name."

"It just hasn’t been in use?"

"Not consistently," said Quillibrace.

A silence settled.

Blottisham looked at the table as if it might contain clarification.

"So what does it mean, exactly, in practice?"

Miss Stray answered before Quillibrace could.

"It means explanation does not begin where analysis usually begins."

Blottisham frowned.

"Which is?"

"With the fully formed object," said Quillibrace.

Blottisham considered this.

"So instead of starting with the image..."

"You start with the organisation of meaning it is taken to realise," said Quillibrace.

Blottisham nodded slowly.

"And everything we observe in the image..."

"is explained in relation to that organisation," said Miss Stray.

Blottisham frowned.

"That sounds like a reversal."

"It is," said Quillibrace. "A controlled one."

"A controlled reversal?"

"Yes. Of explanatory direction."

Blottisham tapped the paper.

"But most analyses begin the other way."

"Naturally," said Miss Stray.

"You begin with what is visible."

"And then infer meaning from it," said Blottisham.

"Yes."

Quillibrace nodded once.

"And that is precisely the shift."

Blottisham looked up.

"So the problem is not detail."

"No," said Quillibrace.

"Nor interpretation."

"No."

"Nor classification."

"Certainly not."

Blottisham paused.

"Then what is it?"

Quillibrace replied:

"Orientation."

A silence followed this.

Miss Stray wrote something in her notebook without looking down.

Blottisham spoke more carefully.

"So even when systemic-functional terms are used..."

"Yes," said Quillibrace.

"The orientation can remain unchanged."

Blottisham frowned.

"So the vocabulary is intact."

"Often."

"But the explanation is not."

"Exactly."

Miss Stray looked up.

"So ‘system’ becomes something we infer from patterns."

"And not something that explains them," said Quillibrace.

"Yes."

"And stratification becomes something we describe after the fact."

"And not the condition of the analysis," said Blottisham slowly.

"Yes."

Blottisham leaned back.

"This is harder to detect than I expected."

"That is why it persists," said Quillibrace.

A pause.

Blottisham spoke again.

"So we end up moving from form to meaning."

"Yes," said Miss Stray.

"Instead of from meaning to form."

Quillibrace corrected gently:

"From higher-order organisation to lower-order realisation."

Blottisham nodded.

"Yes. That."

Silence again.

Then Blottisham said:

"So the issue is not what we see."

"No," said Quillibrace.

"But how we begin."

"Yes."

"And what we take as primary."

"Exactly."

Miss Stray closed her notebook.

"It sounds like a shift in starting conditions."

"That is a good way of putting it," said Quillibrace.

Blottisham looked relieved.

"So the same analysis can look identical..."

"...and still be doing something entirely different," said Miss Stray.

"Yes," said Quillibrace.

"Because the orientation has changed."

Blottisham frowned.

"And this is what the earlier problems were pointing toward?"

"Yes," said Quillibrace.

"Each one a symptom."

"Of the same absence," said Miss Stray.

Blottisham looked down.

"And what is absent?"

Quillibrace answered without hesitation.

"The view from above."

A long silence followed.

Blottisham spoke quietly.

"So visual analysis can be detailed..."

"Yes."

"And still miss this?"

"Yes," said Quillibrace.

"If it begins in the wrong place."

Miss Stray closed her notebook.

"So the question is not whether visual grammar is sophisticated."

"No," said Quillibrace.

"But whether it is oriented correctly."

Blottisham exhaled.

"And if it is not?"

Quillibrace looked at him for a moment.

"Then it becomes something else."

"Such as?"

"A very elaborate way of describing what one has already decided one sees."

No one responded immediately.

Outside, the rain continued in the same patient manner it had adopted throughout the series.

Blottisham finally spoke.

"So the final question is what a properly oriented visual theory would look like."

Quillibrace nodded once.

"Exactly."

Miss Stray added quietly:

"And whether anyone is prepared to begin there."

The room, for once, had no immediate answer.

By at No comments:

Visual Grammar IV: When Stratification Breaks

The fourth discussion began with a coloured rectangle.

Mr Blottisham had pinned it to a noticeboard in the Senior Common Room.

It was bright red.

He stood before it with the expression of a man expecting applause.

Professor Quillibrace looked at it.

Miss Elowen Stray looked at it.

The rectangle remained red.

"Well?" said Blottisham.

"What about it?" asked Quillibrace.

"It means danger."

"Does it?"

"Obviously."

"Why?"

"Because it is red."

Quillibrace sighed.

Miss Stray smiled faintly.

"We appear to have arrived at today's problem rather quickly."

Blottisham folded his arms.

"I fail to see the difficulty."

"That is because you have compressed three questions into one answer."

"Have I?"

"Almost certainly."

"Which questions?"

Quillibrace pointed at the rectangle.

"First: what is it?"

"A red rectangle."

"Good."

"Second?"

"What does it mean?"

"Perhaps."

"And third?"

Quillibrace paused.

"How are those two things related?"

Blottisham looked at the rectangle.

"It means danger because it is red."

"There you go again."

"What?"

"You have merged the answers."

Miss Stray nodded.

"The colour and the meaning have become the same thing."

"Because they are the same thing."

"No," said Quillibrace.

"They are not."

A silence followed.

Blottisham looked from one to the other.

"Very well."

He pointed at the rectangle.

"What is red, if not meaning?"

"The rectangle."

"Exactly."

"No."

Quillibrace removed his spectacles.

Whenever this happened, everyone became slightly nervous.

"The difficulty," he said carefully, "is that analysis often begins by distinguishing expression from meaning."

Blottisham nodded.

"Reasonable."

"Entirely."

"And red belongs to expression."

"Indeed."

"And danger belongs to meaning."

"Quite."

"So far so good."

"Yes."

Blottisham smiled.

"Then red means danger."

Quillibrace closed his eyes.

Miss Stray intervened.

"I think the issue concerns what lies between those statements."

"Exactly."

"The distinction is not merely between colour and meaning."

"No."

"It concerns the relation between them."

"Precisely."

The rain drifted softly against the windows.

Quillibrace rose and walked toward the noticeboard.

"In a stratified model, meaning and expression occupy different strata."

"Yes."

"They are not identical."

"Correct."

"They are related through realisation."

"Exactly."

Blottisham frowned.

"Which relation?"

Quillibrace looked mildly surprised.

"You have been paying attention."

Miss Stray laughed.

"A dangerous habit."

Quillibrace continued.

"The point is not that colour lacks meaning."

"Good."

"The point is that colour is not itself the meaning."

Blottisham looked doubtful.

"This sounds suspiciously metaphysical."

"It is architectural."

"Worse."

Quillibrace ignored him.

"Suppose one begins by distinguishing visual meaning from visual form."

"Very sensible."

"Quite."

"But then one analyses colour as meaning."

"Naturally."

"And framing as meaning."

"Of course."

"And spatial arrangement as meaning."

"Certainly."

"And composition as meaning."

"Obviously."

Quillibrace nodded.

"You have now abolished your distinction."

The room became quiet.

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"One begins with separate strata."

"Yes."

"But gradually interprets expressive resources as though they already were semantic content."

"Precisely."

"And eventually the distinction ceases to do any work."

"Exactly."

Blottisham frowned.

"But the interpretation remains useful."

"No one disputes that."

"It helps us understand images."

"Indeed."

"So what has been lost?"

Quillibrace smiled.

"The explanation."

This seemed unreasonable.

"Surely interpretation is explanation."

"No."

"It explains what the image means."

"It explains what you think the image means."

Miss Stray nodded.

"Those are not quite the same thing."

Blottisham sat down heavily.

"I dislike conversations in which every sentence turns out to contain two conversations."

Quillibrace looked pleased.

"That is because you are beginning to notice architecture."

Miss Stray opened her notebook.

"In a stratified account, the question is not merely what a feature signifies."

"No."

"But how expression realises meaning."

"Exactly."

"So explanation proceeds through the relation."

"Yes."

"Not by collapsing the relation."

"Precisely."

For several moments they sat in silence.

Then Blottisham looked at the rectangle again.

"I think I see the temptation."

"What temptation?" asked Miss Stray.

"The visible thing is right there."

"Indeed."

"The meaning is less visible."

"Generally."

"So one keeps attributing meaning directly to the feature."

Quillibrace nodded.

"A very common habit."

"And eventually every feature becomes a meaning."

"Exactly."

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"At which point the distinction between meaning and expression begins to flatten."

"Yes."

"The architecture remains in the terminology."

"Quite."

"But not in the analysis."

"Precisely."

Blottisham stared at the rectangle.

"So when someone says that colour, framing, composition and spatial organisation all carry meaning..."

"They may be correct."

"But?"

"They may also be quietly eroding the distinctions that would explain how meaning is organised."

The rain tapped softly against the windows.

Miss Stray closed her notebook.

"And because the erosion occurs gradually, it rarely appears as a theoretical argument."

"No."

"It appears as a habit of analysis."

"Exactly."

The fire crackled gently.

At length Blottisham spoke.

"I think I finally understand."

The others waited.

"The danger is not that interpretation occurs."

"No."

"The danger is that interpretation silently replaces architecture."

Quillibrace smiled.

"A remarkably competent observation."

Blottisham looked pleased.

"Thank you."

"You should write it down immediately."

"Why?"

"Before you interpret it into something else."

And for several seconds, even Miss Stray found herself unable to disagree.

By at No comments:

Visual Grammar III: System or Catalogue

The third discussion began with a stack of index cards.

This immediately alarmed Professor Quillibrace.

Mr Blottisham, however, appeared delighted.

"I have been making progress."

"That is seldom reassuring."

"On visual grammar."

"Worse."

Miss Elowen Stray looked up.

"What sort of progress?"

Blottisham spread the cards across a table.

"I have identified categories."

Quillibrace closed his eyes.

"How many?"

"At present?"

"Yes."

"One hundred and thirty-seven."

The Professor's eyes reopened.

"Good heavens."

"I expect several more by the weekend."

The cards covered most of the table.

Each contained a neatly written label.

Salience.

Centrality.

Framing.

Vector.

Narrative process.

Information value.

Modality marker.

Interactional orientation.

And many others besides.

Miss Stray examined them with interest.

"This is quite an extensive inventory."

"Thank you."

"It took months."

"I can imagine."

Blottisham smiled proudly.

"I believe I may now possess a visual grammar."

Quillibrace stared at him.

"You possess a stationery cupboard."

A brief silence followed.

Blottisham looked wounded.

"These are analytical categories."

"I can see that."

"They distinguish different visual phenomena."

"Undoubtedly."

"They allow systematic description."

"Certainly."

"Then why are you looking at them as though they have committed a crime?"

Quillibrace folded his hands.

"Because you have not yet told me whether they constitute a system."

Blottisham frowned.

"What else would they constitute?"

"A catalogue."

The word hung in the air.

Miss Stray tilted her head.

"Those are not the same thing."

"No."

"They often look similar."

"Precisely."

Blottisham picked up a card labelled Framing.

"It seems straightforward enough."

"Does it?"

"Of course."

He gestured toward the table.

"I have identified recurring features."

"Yes."

"I have organised them into categories."

"Indeed."

"I have refined those categories."

"Quite."

"And expanded them where necessary."

"I had noticed."

Blottisham spread his arms triumphantly.

"What more could a system possibly require?"

Quillibrace regarded him with quiet pity.

"Relations."

The rain tapped gently against the windows.

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"Perhaps that is the crucial distinction."

"Very much so."

She picked up several cards.

"A catalogue contains categories."

"Yes."

"A system contains relations among categories."

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked unconvinced.

"They are all related."

"How?"

"They are all visual."

Quillibrace sighed.

"That is not a relation. That is a filing decision."

Miss Stray continued.

"In a systemic-functional system, categories gain value through their relations to alternatives."

"Precisely."

"They exist as contrasts."

"Yes."

"The significance of one option depends upon the other options that could have been selected."

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked down at the cards.

"So merely having categories is insufficient."

"Far from sufficient."

"Even having many categories?"

"Especially having many categories."

This seemed unfair.

Blottisham shuffled the cards defensively.

"But these distinctions are useful."

"Useful and systematic are not synonyms."

"They reveal patterns."

"Excellent."

"They support analysis."

"Very good."

"They help explain images."

Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.

"Do they?"

A silence settled over the room.

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"Perhaps they help describe images."

Quillibrace nodded.

"An important distinction."

Blottisham groaned.

"There is always a distinction."

"There is a university attached to the building. One hopes so."

Miss Stray turned one of the cards over thoughtfully.

"A catalogue tells us what kinds of things have been observed."

"Yes."

"A system tells us how possibilities are organised."

"Precisely."

"Those are rather different achievements."

"Entirely."

Blottisham looked at the table.

"So a catalogue is organised by resemblance."

"Usually."

"And a system?"

"By contrast."

The fire crackled softly.

Quillibrace reached for a card labelled Information Value.

"Consider this."

He placed it on the table.

"How is its existence necessitated by the other categories?"

Blottisham blinked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"What network of alternatives defines it?"

"I don't know."

"Why this category rather than another?"

"Because it proved useful."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Exactly."

Miss Stray smiled.

"The category emerged from repeated observations."

"Indeed."

"And then acquired analytical utility."

"Quite."

"But that is different from deriving it from a structured organisation of possibilities."

"Precisely."

Blottisham stared at the cards.

"They do seem rather independent."

"Most catalogues do."

For a while nobody spoke.

Finally Miss Stray broke the silence.

"I think this connects to our previous discussion."

"How so?" asked Blottisham.

"If explanation begins from observed structures, categories naturally accumulate."

Quillibrace nodded.

"One observes variation."

"Then introduces distinctions."

"Yes."

"Then more distinctions."

"Quite."

"And eventually further distinctions to manage the distinctions."

"A familiar academic trajectory."

Blottisham looked suspicious.

"Are you suggesting there is something wrong with refinement?"

"No."

"Classification?"

"No."

"Detailed description?"

"Certainly not."

"Then what is the problem?"

Quillibrace smiled.

"The problem arises when classification mistakes itself for explanation."

The room became quiet.

Miss Stray looked again at the sea of index cards.

"A catalogue can become extraordinarily sophisticated."

"Indeed."

"It can grow indefinitely."

"Often does."

"It can describe more and more phenomena with increasing precision."

"Quite."

"But none of that alone demonstrates the existence of a system."

"Exactly."

Blottisham slowly gathered the cards into a pile.

"I think I begin to understand."

The others waited.

"A catalogue expands by accumulation."

"Yes."

"A system is organised by necessity."

Quillibrace nodded approvingly.

"Very good."

"The categories of a system are constrained by their relations to one another."

"Precisely."

"And without those relations..."

He looked down at his impressive collection.

"...one may simply possess a larger catalogue."

"One hundred and thirty-seven cards' worth," said Quillibrace.

The fire flickered.

Miss Stray smiled.

"And perhaps several more by the weekend."

For the first time that afternoon, Mr Blottisham did not look entirely certain that this was progress.

By at No comments:

Visual Grammar II: Explanation from Below

The afternoon's dispute began when Mr Blottisham entered the Senior Common Room carrying several colour reproductions and the unmistakable expression of a man preparing to explain pictures to academics.

Professor Quillibrace immediately looked concerned.

"Not another visual grammar discussion."

"Not at all," said Blottisham. "This one concerns method."

"That is even worse."

Miss Elowen Stray glanced up from her notebook.

"What aspect of method?"

"The obvious aspect."

Quillibrace sighed.

"There is rarely anything more dangerous than an obvious aspect."

Mr Blottisham spread the images across a nearby table.

"Observe."

Nobody did.

He continued regardless.

"This image places a bright object in the centre."

"Mm."

"The surrounding colours direct attention toward it."

"Indeed."

"The framing isolates it from the background."

"Quite."

"And from these features we may infer importance."

Quillibrace looked at him.

"May we?"

"Certainly."

"Why?"

"Because the structure suggests it."

"I see."

Blottisham brightened.

"Excellent. Then we agree."

"Not remotely."

Miss Stray smiled.

"I suspect Professor Quillibrace is asking where the explanation begins."

"With the image, obviously."

"Obviously?"

"One looks at the image. One identifies its features. One determines what those features mean."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Exactly."

Blottisham frowned.

"That was not agreement."

"No."

"What was it?"

"A diagnosis."

The rain drifted softly against the windows.

Quillibrace folded his hands.

"What you have described is an extraordinarily common procedure."

"Because it works."

"That remains to be established."

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"The analyst begins with observable form."

"Yes."

"Then infers meanings from those forms."

"Exactly."

"And then perhaps constructs broader categories from repeated observations."

"Now you're getting it."

Quillibrace looked at her.

"You have described the process perfectly."

"Thank you."

"It is also precisely the issue."

Mr Blottisham looked offended.

"I fail to see the problem."

"Of course you do."

"The image is visible."

"Yes."

"The features are visible."

"Indeed."

"The meanings are inferred."

"Quite."

"So where else could one begin?"

Quillibrace smiled.

"That is an excellent question."

"Thank you."

"It has merely led you into the difficulty."

Miss Stray considered the matter.

"In this approach, the image itself functions as the starting point."

"Precisely," said Quillibrace.

"The analyst begins with structure."

"Yes."

"And explanation proceeds upward."

"Correct."

"From visible form to inferred meaning."

Quillibrace nodded.

"What we might call explanation from below."

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"Below what?"

"The system."

A silence settled over the room.

Blottisham stared.

"The system is below the image?"

"No."

"Above it?"

"Yes."

"How can a thing one cannot see be above a thing one can?"

Quillibrace closed his eyes briefly.

"The language is metaphorical."

"Ah."

"Unfortunately the problem is not."

Miss Stray intervened.

"In Halliday's model, explanation begins from meaning potential."

"Exactly."

"And structures are understood as realisations of that potential."

"Yes."

"So one does not start with forms and ask what they mean."

"One starts with systems of meaning and asks how those meanings are actualised."

Blottisham looked at the images.

"That seems backwards."

"Only if visibility determines explanatory priority."

The room grew thoughtful.

Quillibrace continued.

"Consider the difference carefully."

He pointed to one of the reproductions.

"In one approach, we observe a framing device and infer significance."

Blottisham nodded.

"In the other?"

"We begin with the meaning potential available within the semiotic system and explain the framing as a realisation of that potential."

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"So the same structure may appear in both analyses."

"Certainly."

"The difference lies in what explains what."

"Precisely."

Blottisham rubbed his chin.

"So when analysts discuss salience, framing, gaze, composition and similar features..."

"They are often constructing interpretations from observed forms."

"Which sounds perfectly reasonable."

"It may be."

"Then why object?"

"Because a plausible interpretation is not necessarily a systemic explanation."

Miss Stray nodded slowly.

"The goal differs."

"Entirely."

"In the first case, success means producing a convincing account of what the image signifies."

"Yes."

"In the second, success means showing how the image functions as the actualisation of a system of meaning."

"Exactly."

Blottisham stared into the middle distance.

"I begin to suspect that two analyses may look remarkably similar while doing entirely different things."

Quillibrace smiled.

"Now we are making progress."

"The same vocabulary might appear in both."

"Certainly."

"Realisation."

"Yes."

"Resource."

"Indeed."

"Choice."

"Quite."

"Metafunction."

"Mm."

"And yet the explanatory movement may still run from form toward meaning."

"Precisely."

Miss Stray closed her notebook.

"So one may borrow systemic-functional terminology while retaining a fundamentally different explanatory orientation."

Quillibrace raised his teacup.

"An observation of uncommon accuracy."

For a while they sat in silence.

At length Blottisham spoke.

"I think I finally understand the distinction."

The others waited.

"The question is not whether structure matters."

"No."

"Nor whether we should describe it."

"Certainly not."

"Nor even whether structural patterns can reveal meaning."

"Go on."

Blottisham gestured toward the images.

"The question is whether these structures are the starting point of explanation or the thing being explained."

Miss Stray smiled.

"Exactly."

Quillibrace nodded approvingly.

"A rare achievement."

"What is?"

"You have managed to distinguish an object of analysis from an explanation of that object."

Blottisham looked pleased.

"That sounds important."

"It is the difference," said Quillibrace, "between cataloguing the visible and explaining why the visible takes the form it does."

The rain continued beyond the windows.

And somewhere in the distance, another inventory of framing devices quietly mistook itself for a theory.

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Visual Grammar I: The Ambiguity of “Visual Grammar”

The Senior Common Room at St Anselm’s possessed many traditions, but among the most enduring was the tendency for apparently harmless phrases to become the site of extended intellectual bloodshed.

On this occasion the phrase was visual grammar.

Mr Blottisham had arrived carrying a recently published volume of multimodal studies and was radiating the confidence of a man who had encountered a term he believed to be entirely self-explanatory.

"Perfectly sensible expression," he declared. "Language has grammar. Pictures have grammar. One arranges things in sentences and the other arranges things in images. Same principle."

Professor Quillibrace glanced up from his tea.

"No."

Mr Blottisham sighed.

"You haven't even heard the argument."

"I have," said Quillibrace. "You completed it."

Miss Elowen Stray looked up from her notebook.

"I suspect the difficulty lies in what we mean by grammar."

"Structure," said Blottisham immediately. "Organisation. Patterning. The way things fit together."

Quillibrace regarded him with mild concern.

"That is rather like defining a cathedral as 'a collection of stones.'"

"It is a collection of stones."

"And a symphony is a collection of noises."

"Exactly."

"The fact that one can produce a description so broad as to be useless does not make it correct."

Miss Stray smiled into her tea.

Quillibrace continued.

"In Systemic Functional Linguistics, grammar is not a synonym for structure. It is a very specific theoretical object. Lexicogrammar occupies a particular stratum within a stratified semiotic architecture."

Blottisham waved a hand.

"Details."

"No," said Quillibrace. "The details are the entire issue."

A brief silence followed.

Blottisham opened his book.

"Very well. These scholars speak of visual grammar. They analyse composition, framing, salience, spatial organisation and so forth. What is the problem?"

"The problem," said Quillibrace, "is that the phrase can mean two entirely different things."

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"One possibility would be that images possess something analogous to the grammatical stratum of language."

"Precisely."

"And the other?"

"That grammar is being used metaphorically to mean organised visual patterning."

Blottisham frowned.

"I still fail to see the difficulty."

"You fail to see many things."

"I mean theoretically."

Quillibrace folded his hands.

"If images possess a grammar in the systemic-functional sense, then one is making a rather substantial claim. One is importing Halliday's stratification model into visual semiosis."

Blottisham nodded uncertainly.

"Which means?"

"It means that visual meaning would be organised through strata related by realisation. One would need something functionally analogous to semantics and lexicogrammar. One would be committed to explaining visual structures as realisations of higher-order systems of meaning."

"That sounds reasonable."

"It may or may not be reasonable. The point is that it is a theoretical commitment."

Miss Stray nodded.

"And a fairly large one."

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked down at his book again.

"But many analyses simply discuss patterns in images."

"Indeed."

"Composition. Layout. Salience."

"Yes."

"Framing."

"Quite."

"Colour distribution."

"Mm."

"And these are what they call visual grammar."

"Then grammar is no longer naming a stratum."

Blottisham paused.

"What is it naming?"

"A convenient collection of observable regularities."

Miss Stray set down her cup.

"So the same phrase may either refer to a stratified system of meaning or merely to recurring structural patterns."

"Precisely."

Blottisham looked unconvinced.

"Perhaps it refers to both."

Quillibrace gave him a look usually reserved for experimental bridge designs.

"That is the problem."

The rain tapped gently against the windows.

Miss Stray considered the matter.

"So the ambiguity is not merely terminological."

"No."

"It concerns explanatory architecture."

"Entirely."

Blottisham sighed.

"I suppose you're going to tell me that explanation proceeds in different directions."

"How perceptive of you."

"Years of practice."

Quillibrace ignored him.

"If grammar is understood in the systemic-functional sense, explanation proceeds from above."

"From systems?"

"To structures."

"From meaning?"

"To form."

"From function?"

"To its realisation."

Miss Stray nodded.

"Exactly."

Blottisham rubbed his chin.

"But if one begins with visual features themselves..."

"Then explanation moves in the opposite direction."

"From form to meaning."

"Yes."

"From observable patterns to inferred functions."

"Indeed."

Blottisham sat back.

"So the same phrase can conceal two completely different methodologies."

"Now you are beginning to see the difficulty."

For several moments nobody spoke.

Finally Miss Stray broke the silence.

"It seems the phrase acquires much of its authority from its association with systemic-functional theory."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Yet in many cases the actual explanatory procedure may be operating quite differently."

"Using the vocabulary without necessarily importing the architecture."

"Just so."

Blottisham looked faintly troubled.

"Then when someone speaks of visual grammar, the important question is not whether images are structured."

"Images are obviously structured."

"Nor whether patterns can be identified."

"Certainly not."

"But what kind of explanation those patterns are supposed to support."

Quillibrace smiled.

"A rare moment of accuracy."

Miss Stray closed her notebook.

"So the phrase marks a theoretical crossroads."

"A fault line," said Quillibrace.

"Between two views of explanation."

"Yes."

"One beginning from systems of meaning and moving towards formal structure."

"And the other beginning from form and moving towards meaning."

Quillibrace reached for the teapot.

"Which is why the term is never quite as innocent as it appears."

Blottisham stared thoughtfully into the fire.

"Curious."

"What is?"

"I arrived believing visual grammar simply meant that pictures have structure."

"And now?"

"I appear to have accidentally committed myself to an entire theory of semiosis."

Quillibrace poured the tea.

"That, Mr Blottisham, is what happens when one borrows terminology without checking what machinery is attached to it."

The fire crackled softly.

Miss Stray smiled.

"And the machinery, as usual, turns out to be the interesting part."

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