"It is impossible for us to give a verbal key or storyline to this sequence of photographs. To do so would be to impose a single verbal meaning upon appearances and thus to inhibit or deny their own language. In themselves appearances are ambiguous, with multiple meanings " (Berger 133).
I was drawn to this quote because of the claim that photos have their own language. I would think that photos escape language and transpire meaning on a different cognitive level. An image's meaning, on some basic levels, can be understood without language. If I say cat to someone who does not understand English, he or she will not understand the meaning of cat from the word, cat. However, if a photo of a cat is shown, meaning will be understood. We see before we learn how to speak. Sight is instinctive; language is learned. Basic images are universally recognized, whereas language inhibits universal understanding. I became more confused by the idea of photos having their own language because earlier Berger stated that photography has no language. We can see this in the quote Bruce brought up in his blog, "It is because photography has no language of its own, because it quotes rather than translates, that it is said that the camera cannot lie" (Berger 96). So does Berger believe that photography has a language or doesn't he? Or is photography's system of quoting a language form?
I can relate this idea of images and language to my experience living and teaching abroad in Japan. Whenever I could not find the Japanese word to convey my English thoughts, I could find an image or gesture to represent it and convey my meaning. Trying to find the meaning of a word by giving an example of similar words is ineffective when those words are given in an unknown language. Likewise, when teaching children, I spoke entirely in English to two and three year olds who could barely speak Japanese, let alone English. Yet through big gestures and images, we could communicate basic ideas. Lastly, one of the three Japanese alphabets, Kanji, is pictorial. I could often understand the meaning of a word by looking at the symbols that made up the written word. However, if I were to hear that spoken word, I would not understand the meaning. For example, if I know the symbol for tree is 木, I could guess that 森 means many trees, or forest. However, if I heard the pronunciation for forest, "mori," I would not make the verbal connection in meaning between tree, pronounced "ki" and forest (mori). I spoke to many Japanese students who said that although they could not speak Chinese, they could get a basic understanding of written Chinese words because the symbols in the Kanji alphabet are derived from the Chinese alphabet. Although they cannot understand Chinese words when pronounced, the written Chinese symbols translate meanings that are similar to the meanings of Japanese symbols.
It seems that an image holds meaning, and language is used to decode or translate the meaning. So if photos have their own language, what is it?
Aimee,
ReplyDeleteI like this quote a lot: "It seems that an image holds meaning, and language is used to decode or translate the meaning[,]" and I think it's similar to Hill's quote that I selected for my blog post: "When we look at an object, no matter how mundane, our perception of the object is filtered through, and transformed by, our assumptions about it and attitudes toward it..."
I don't know how to answer your question, but I'm wondering if maybe you're kind of saying the same thing as Berger? To me it seems like he's saying that we can't force an image to be interpreted a certain way by defining it with our own language, we have to leave it open to the interpretation of another person's language. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I'm doing a good job explaining...