Images After Language: Epilinguistic Systems and Their Coupling with Meaning — 4 Ideographic Images: Constructing Relations Between Ideas

With pictographic images, phenomena are reconstructed in simplified, repeatable forms. With ideographic images, a more radical shift occurs:

the image no longer depicts what is seen; it constructs relations between what is thought.

Diagrams, graphs, geometric figures—these do not present objects in the world. They organise:

• relations

• abstractions

• conceptual structures

For this reason, ideographic images are often taken to be the most “meaningful” of visual systems. They appear precise, systematic, even formal. They seem to operate with a clarity that rivals language itself.

This appearance must be handled carefully.

Ideographic images do not encode meaning independently; they configure metaphenomena in ways that depend on linguistic construal for their interpretation.

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1. From Phenomena to Metaphenomena

The defining shift is from:

• phenomena (what can be perceived)
  to

• metaphenomena (what is construed about phenomena)

An ideographic image may represent:

• a mathematical relation

• a logical structure

• a causal process

These are not visible in the world in the way objects are. They are:

• constructed

• abstracted

• organised

The image does not depict them. It instantiates a configuration through which they can be apprehended.

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2. Diagrammatic Construction

Ideographic images operate through diagrammatic construction.

They:

• place elements in relation

• organise spatial configurations to reflect conceptual structure

• stabilise relations that are otherwise distributed across discourse

For example:

• a line may represent continuity

• a node may represent an entity

• a connection may represent a relation

These are not inherent meanings. They are:

conventionalised mappings between visual form and conceptual relation.

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3. Constraint Without Completion

Unlike photographic and pictographic images, ideographic systems can strongly constrain interpretation.

A well-constructed diagram:

• limits possible readings

• specifies relations explicitly

• reduces ambiguity

This creates the impression that meaning is fully contained within the image.

But constraint is not completion.

Even the most precise diagram requires:

• identification of elements

• specification of relations

• interpretation of conventions

These are not given by the image alone.

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4. The Role of Labelling

The dependence on language becomes most visible in labelling.

• axes in a graph

• variables in an equation

• components in a diagram

Without labels:

• the structure may be visible

• but its interpretation is indeterminate

With labels:

• elements are named

• relations are specified

• the diagram becomes interpretable

Language does not merely accompany the diagram. It:

activates its semiotic function.

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5. Spatialisation of Relation

Ideographic images achieve something distinctive:

they spatialise relations that are not spatial in themselves.

• time may be represented along an axis

• causality may be represented as direction

• hierarchy may be represented as vertical arrangement

This spatialisation:

• makes abstract relations visible

• enables inspection and manipulation

• supports reasoning

But it does not eliminate the need for construal.

The mapping between:

• spatial form
  and

• conceptual relation

must be learned, maintained, and interpreted.

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6. Apparent Autonomy

Because ideographic systems can be highly constrained and internally coherent, they often appear autonomous.

In domains such as:

• mathematics

• logic

• technical design

diagrams may seem to function independently of language.

This is an illusion.

Even in these domains:

• definitions are linguistic

• conventions are specified linguistically

• interpretations are stabilised through discourse

The diagram operates within a linguistically structured system.

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7. Ideographic Precision

What ideographic images provide is not meaning itself, but precision in the organisation of potential meaning.

They:

• reduce ambiguity

• stabilise relations

• enable complex configurations to be handled

This precision:

• constrains interpretation more tightly than pictographic systems

• supports specialised forms of reasoning

But it does not remove dependence.

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8. Coupling at Maximum Intensity

Among epilinguistic systems, ideographic images exhibit the most intensive coupling with language.

• terms define elements

• lexicogrammar defines relations

• semantics stabilises interpretation

The image:

• organises relations spatially

Language:

• specifies what those relations are

The two operate together in a tightly integrated system.

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9. The Risk of Reification

Because ideographic images stabilise abstract relations, they can produce a powerful effect:

the reification of conceptual structures as visual objects.

A diagram may appear to show:

• “the system itself”

• “the structure of reality”

• “the logic of the process”

But what it shows is:

• a constructed representation

• dependent on specific conventions

• grounded in linguistic definitions

To mistake the diagram for the structure is to:

confuse construal with ground.

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10. A Third Specification

The progression can now be completed:

an ideographic image does not mean;

it constructs a spatial configuration of metaphenomena that becomes meaningful through linguistic construal.

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Ideographic images extend the trajectory of epilinguistic systems:

• from capture (photographic)

• to reconstruction (pictographic)

• to construction (ideographic)

At each stage:

• control increases

• constraint tightens

• the field of interpretation narrows

But at no point does the system become autonomous.

Even here—at the point of maximum precision—meaning depends on:

• naming

• definition

• discourse

The image organises relation. Language organises meaning.

The next step is to examine how these systems operate together in practice.

Not in isolation, but in coupling:

• image and text

• configuration and construal

• relation and specification

It is there that the full structure of epilinguistic systems becomes visible.

Images After Language: Epilinguistic Systems and Their Coupling with Meaning — 3 Pictographic Images: Reconstructed Construal

If photographic images present a captured construal of phenomena, pictographic images go further. They do not capture what is there; they reconstruct it.

Drawings, illustrations, icons—these are not traces of the world. They are:

• selections

• simplifications

• reconfigurations

And because of this, they are often assumed to be more directly meaningful than photographs. After all, if something is drawn, it must have been drawn as something.

This assumption is mistaken.

Pictographic images do not encode meaning; they reconstruct phenomena in ways that remain dependent on linguistic construal.

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1. From Capture to Reconstruction

The shift from photography to pictography is a shift in the mode of construal.

• Photography: selection within what is given

• Pictography: construction of what is to be shown

The pictographic image:

• omits detail

• emphasises certain features

• regularises form

It produces:

• a simplified configuration

• a more controlled field of visibility

But this control does not yield semantic completeness.

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2. Selectivity Made Visible

In photography, selectivity is often concealed by the richness of detail. In pictography, it becomes explicit.

A drawn figure may include:

• outline

• basic features

• minimal internal detail

What is left out is as significant as what is included.

This selectivity:

• highlights certain aspects of the phenomenon

• suppresses others

• creates a more legible configuration

But legibility is not meaning.

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3. The Emergence of Type

Pictographic images tend toward typification.

Rather than depicting:

• a specific individual
  they depict:

• a type of entity

For example:

• not this particular person, but “a person”

• not this tree, but “a tree”

This generalisation:

• reduces variability

• stabilises recognition

• supports reuse across contexts

But it does not specify:

• which person

• which tree

• in what situation

Type is not meaning. It is a resource for construal.

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4. Conventionalisation Begins

Because pictographic forms are simplified and repeatable, they become:

• conventionalised

• standardised

• widely recognisable

Icons such as:

• a stick figure

• a simplified house

• a stylised arrow

can be recognised across contexts.

This recognition is often mistaken for semantic autonomy.

But what is recognised is:

• a conventional form
  not

• a fully specified meaning

The same icon may function differently depending on:

• context

• accompanying text

• situational framing

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5. Ambiguity Persists

Despite their simplification, pictographic images remain underdetermined.

A simple image of a figure running may be construed as:

• exercise

• escape

• urgency

• play

Nothing in the image itself resolves this.

Even where conventions are strong, interpretation depends on:

• context

• expectation

• linguistic framing

The image provides:

• a structured possibility
  not

• a determined interpretation

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6. The Illusion of Universality

Pictographic images are often treated as universal:

• “anyone can understand them”

• “they transcend language”

This claim rests on:

• the stability of forms

• the recognisability of types

But universality is overstated.

Understanding depends on:

• learned conventions

• shared practices

• linguistic categories

A pictogram does not bypass language. It:

relies on it, even when it appears not to.

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7. Reconstruction Without Specification

The core operation of pictography can now be specified:

• phenomena are reconstructed

• features are selected and stabilised

• configurations are made repeatable

But:

• relations are not fully specified

• functions are not determined

• significance is not fixed

This produces:

a more controlled but still open field of construal.

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8. Coupling with Language

As with photography, meaning emerges through coupling with language.

Language:

• names the type

• specifies the situation

• constrains interpretation

A pictographic image of a knife, for example, may be construed as:

• a tool

• a weapon

• a prohibition

The image does not decide. Language does the work of:

• disambiguation

• specification

• framing

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9. Toward Systematisation

Pictographic systems can become highly organised:

• sets of icons

• standardised symbol systems

• visual vocabularies

At this point, they begin to resemble writing systems.

But the resemblance is limited.

Unlike language:

• combinatorial possibilities are restricted

• relations between elements are not systematically encoded

• interpretation remains context-dependent

Even highly developed pictographic systems:

do not achieve the autonomy of language.

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10. A Second Specification

The position can now be extended:

a pictographic image does not mean;

it reconstructs phenomena in a stabilised form that requires linguistic construal to become meaningful.

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Pictographic images refine what photography begins:

• they increase control

• enhance recognisability

• support repetition

But they do not cross the threshold into autonomous meaning.

They remain epilinguistic:

• dependent

• underdetermined

• coupled

The next step moves further still.

From the reconstruction of phenomena, we turn to the construction of relations between ideas.

There, images do not depict the world. They organise thought.

It is there—in ideographic systems—that the relation between image and meaning becomes most intricate.

Images After Language: Epilinguistic Systems and Their Coupling with Meaning — 2 Photographic Images: Captured Construal

If images are epilinguistic systems—dependent on language for their interpretability—then photography presents a limit case. It is often treated as the most “natural” form of visual representation: a direct capture of reality, a neutral record of what is there.

This apparent immediacy has encouraged a persistent assumption:

that the photograph speaks for itself.

It does not.

What photography provides is not meaning, but a captured construal of phenomena—a configuration that appears given, but is in fact structured, selective, and underdetermined.

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1. Against Transparency

The idea that photographs are transparent—that they simply show what is there—rests on a conflation:

• between presence and meaning

A photograph presents:

• objects

• relations

• spatial configurations

But presentation is not interpretation.

What is visible in a photograph does not, in itself, specify:

• what is relevant

• what is significant

• what is occurring

These require construal.

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2. Selection and Framing

Every photograph involves acts of selection:

• what is included

• what is excluded

• where the frame is drawn

These selections are not neutral. They:

• define the field of visibility

• establish relations between elements

• foreground certain configurations over others

In addition, the photograph is shaped by:

• perspective

• focus

• timing

What appears as a “capture” is already a structured configuration.

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3. The Moment as Construction

Photography is often associated with the “decisive moment”—the idea that a meaningful instant is captured.

But the moment itself is:

• selected from a continuous flow

• isolated from its temporal context

• presented as a complete unit

This produces an effect of completeness:

as if the photograph contained its own explanation.

It does not.

The moment is:

• constructed through selection

• and detached from the conditions that would specify its meaning

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4. Underdetermination

A photograph, even when richly detailed, is radically underdetermined.

Consider an image showing:

• a group of people

• gathered in a space

• engaged in some activity

Without linguistic specification, it is not possible to determine:

• who they are

• what they are doing

• why the moment matters

Multiple construals are possible:

• celebration

• protest

• routine activity

The image does not decide between them.

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5. The Role of Language

It is here that the epilinguistic nature of photography becomes clear.

Language:

• names participants

• specifies actions

• situates the event

• frames its significance

A caption can transform the same image:

• from celebration to protest

• from routine to crisis

• from trivial to consequential

The photograph does not change. Its interpretability does.

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6. Indexicality Without Meaning

Photography is often distinguished by its indexical relation to the world:

• light from objects produces the image

• the photograph bears a physical trace of what was present

This relation is real. But it does not produce meaning.

Indexicality ensures:

• that something was there

It does not specify:

• what that something is

• how it is to be understood

The photograph is thus:

a trace without interpretation.

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7. Captured Construal

The term “captured construal” can now be specified.

A photograph:

• construes a scene through framing, perspective, and selection

• captures that construal as a fixed configuration

This construal is:

• partial

• selective

• structured

But it is not self-interpreting.

It provides:

• a field of potential meaning

• not a determined one

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8. Stability and Variability

Photographs are stable:

• the image does not change

• the configuration remains fixed

But their interpretation is variable:

• different viewers construe different meanings

• different contexts produce different readings

• different captions reconfigure the same image

This variability is not a failure of the image. It is a consequence of its epilinguistic status.

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9. The Illusion of Self-Evidence

Because photographs present detailed configurations, they create an illusion of self-evidence:

• “it’s obvious what is happening”

• “the image speaks for itself”

This illusion is sustained by:

• familiarity with contexts

• shared cultural knowledge

• habitual linguistic framing

Remove these, and the image becomes indeterminate.

What appears self-evident is:

linguistically supported construal.

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10. A First Specification

The analysis can now be stated succinctly:

a photograph does not mean;

it provides a structured configuration that is made meaningful through linguistic construal.

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Photography is powerful not because it encodes meaning, but because it:

• captures complex configurations

• stabilises them for inspection

• invites construal

It organises what can be seen. Language organises what can be meant.

The next step is to consider systems that go further—images that do not merely capture, but reconstruct phenomena.

There, selection becomes more explicit, and the relation to meaning shifts accordingly.

Images After Language: Epilinguistic Systems and Their Coupling with Meaning — 1 Epilinguistic Systems: What Comes After Language

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

In some cases, language anchors the image.

In others, the image extends or reorganises linguistic meaning.

In still others, the relation becomes tightly integrated.

But in all cases:

the coupling must be analysed, not assumed.

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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.

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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.

If images are treated as autonomous, the analysis will collapse into metaphor.

If their dependence is recognised, their operation can be specified.

It is to that specification that the series now turns.