The Visual Language of Comics
eBook - PDF

The Visual Language of Comics

Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images.

  1. 256 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Visual Language of Comics

Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images.

About this book

Drawings and sequential images are an integral part of human expression dating back at least as far as cave paintings, and in contemporary society appear most prominently in comics. Despite this fundamental part of human identity, little work has explored the comprehension and cognitive underpinnings of visual narratives-until now. This work presents a provocative theory: that drawings and sequential images are structured the same as language. Building on contemporary theories from linguistics and cognitive psychology, it argues that comics are written in a visual language of sequential images that combines with text. Like spoken and signed languages, visual narratives use a lexicon of systematic patterns stored in memory, strategies for combining these patterns into meaningful units, and a hierarchic grammar governing the combination of sequential images into coherent expressions. Filled with examples and illustrations, this book details each of these levels of structure, explains how cross-cultural differences arise in diverse visual languages of the world, and describes what the newest neuroscience research reveals about the brain's comprehension of visual narratives. From this emerges the foundation for a new line of research within the linguistic and cognitive sciences, raising intriguing questions about the connections between language and the diversity of humans' expressive behaviours in the mind and brain.

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Yes, you can access The Visual Language of Comics by Neil Cohn in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Linguistic Semantics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
INTRODUCING 
VISUAL 
LANGUAGE 
9
only 
to 
face 
embarrassment 
in 
front 
of 
the 
other 
dogs, 
and 
slinks 
away 
with 
his 
owner. 
Let’s 
examine 
all 
the 
different 
structures 
that 
factor 
into 
understanding 
this 
sequence.
First, 
a 
reader 
must 
be 
able 
to 
comprehend 
that 
these 
drawings 
mean 
something. 
How 
do 
we 
know 
that 
the 
lines 
and 
shapes 
depicted 
in 
panels 
create 
objects 
that 
have 
meaning? 
Physical 
light 
waves 
hit 
our 
retinas, 
and 
our 
brains 
decode 
them 
as 
meaningful, 
not 
just 
nonsense 
lines, 
curves, 
FIGURE 
1.2 
Component 
parts 
of 
Figure 
1.1 
with 
regard 
to 
meaning 
and 
graphics.

Table of contents

  1. FC
  2. Half Title
  3. ADVANCES IN SEMIOTICS
  4. Title
  5. Copyright
  6. Dedication
  7. Contents
  8. List of Figures
  9. Introduction
  10. 1 Introducing Visual Language
  11. SECTION 1 Structur e of visual language
  12. 2 The Visual Lexicon, Part 1: Visual Morphology
  13. 3 The Visual Lexicon, Part 2: Panels and Constructions
  14. 4 Visual Language Grammar: Narrative Structure
  15. Discourse and Film
  16. Conclusion
  17. 5 Navigation of External Compositional Structure
  18. 6 Cognition of Visual Language
  19. Narrative grammar
  20. Fluency
  21. SECTION 2 Visual language across the world
  22. Morphology
  23. Narrative grammar
  24. Languages versus dialects
  25. 8 Japanese Visual Language
  26. Influence in Japan and abroad
  27. 9 Central Australian Visual Language
  28. Cultural role
  29. Graphic structure
  30. Lexicon and morphology
  31. Narrative grammar
  32. Culture meets structure
  33. 10 The Principle of Equivalence
  34. Graphic references
  35. References
  36. Index