The claim that images “communicate” is as pervasive—and as imprecise—as the claim that music expresses or dance signifies. Photographs are said to tell stories. Diagrams are said to convey ideas. Visuals are treated as if they were languages in their own right: systems that encode and transmit meaning independently of words.
This claim is mistaken.
Images do not operate as autonomous semiotic systems in the way language does. They do not, in themselves, constitute fully specified systems of meaning. What they are—and what they do—must be located elsewhere.
Images are epilinguistic systems: semiotic systems whose interpretability depends on language.
To understand them, we must begin not from the assumption of visual meaning, but from the conditions under which meaning becomes possible.
1. Against Visual Autonomy
Much of what passes for “visual semiotics” rests on an unexamined premise:
that images function like language
that they possess their own grammar
that they can encode and transmit meaning independently
This premise collapses crucial distinctions.
Language:
organises meaning through a stratified system
construes experience, enacts social relations, and organises discourse
operates with a high degree of specificity and combinatorial power
Images, by contrast:
present configurations
select and frame aspects of experience
but do not, in themselves, determine how those configurations are to be interpreted
An image can be apprehended. It cannot, on its own, specify its meaning.
2. The Condition of Interpretability
To say that images are epilinguistic is to make a stronger claim than that they are “supported by” language.
It is to say:
without language, images do not function as stable systems of meaning.
Consider:
a photograph without caption
a diagram without labels
an icon without convention
Each may be seen. None is fully interpretable.
Meaning requires:
categorisation
relational specification
contextual framing
These are not provided by the image alone. They are supplied through linguistic construal.
3. Three Domains of Organisation
With this, the broader field can be clarified.
Across the analyses developed so far, three distinct types of system can be identified:
Value systems
music, dance
organised coordination without meaning
Primary semiotic system
language
autonomous system of meaning
Epilinguistic systems
images, diagrams, visual configurations
semiotic systems dependent on language
This is not a hierarchy of complexity or importance. It is a distinction of mode of organisation.
To treat all three as equivalent “modes” of meaning is to erase the structure of the field.
4. From Seeing to Construal
The difference between images and language can be located in a single shift:
images are seen
meaning is construed
Seeing provides:
form
relation
configuration
But it does not provide:
classification
function
interpretation
These require construal.
Language does not merely accompany images. It:
names what is seen
specifies relations
situates the image within a field of meaning
Without this, the image remains underdetermined.
5. The Myth of “Reading” Images
It is common to speak of “reading” images. This metaphor is misleading.
Reading presupposes:
a system of signs
a set of combinatorial rules
a capacity to derive specific meanings
Images do not provide these conditions.
What is called “reading an image” is in fact:
the application of linguistic categories
the projection of narrative structures
the imposition of interpretive frameworks
In other words:
images are not read; they are construed through language.
6. Epilinguistic Does Not Mean Secondary
To describe images as epilinguistic is not to diminish their importance.
Images:
shape perception
guide attention
organise spatial relations
enable forms of reasoning (especially in diagrams)
They are indispensable.
But their semiotic status is distinct:
they do not independently generate fully specified meaning
they operate within a field structured by language
Their power lies not in autonomy, but in coupling.
7. Types of Epilinguistic Systems
Not all images function in the same way. Even at this stage, a broad distinction can be anticipated:
Photographic: capturing configurations of phenomena
Pictographic: reconstructing and selecting aspects of phenomena
Ideographic: configuring relations between ideas (metaphenomena)
Each involves a different degree and type of construal. Each will require separate analysis.
What unites them is not their form, but their dependence on linguistic systems for interpretability.
8. The Problem of Multimodality
The concept of “multimodality” treats language, image, sound, and movement as parallel modes of meaning.
This framework:
recognises co-occurrence
but fails to distinguish types of system
By treating all modes as semiotic in the same sense, it:
collapses value into meaning
treats images as autonomous
obscures the role of language
What is needed is not a catalogue of modes, but an analysis of:
how different systems couple, and on what terms.
9. The Ground for Coupling
Once images are understood as epilinguistic, a new question emerges:
how do images and language operate together in the production of meaning?
This is not a matter of:
redundancy
illustration
decoration
It is a matter of:
constraint
specification
mutual organisation
But in all cases:
the coupling must be analysed, not assumed.
10. A First Position
The argument of this opening chapter can be stated directly:
images do not mean in the way language means;their meaning is made possible through their coupling with language.
This is not a denial of visual meaning. It is a re-specification of its conditions.
Images are not languages of the eye. They are systems that operate alongside language, dependent on it for their interpretability, and powerful in their capacity to organise perception and relation.
To understand them is not to decode them, but to locate them:
within a broader field of systems
within specific forms of coupling
within the conditions under which meaning is construed
Everything that follows will depend on this positioning.
It is to that specification that the series now turns.
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