Barthes meets Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis -Roslyn
----ROSLYN KAGY----
Oh Barthes! At first I found the Photographic Message to be rather TEDIOUS!! but as I kept reading, rereading, and simplifying, I found it briliant. I am very interested in how photography is related to linguistics. Barthes believed that a photograph carried both image and language. As he began to decipher different methods used in photography i.e. tricks, pose, objects, photogenia, aestheticism, and syntax they all seemed to boil down to the same thing that there each device is a vessel for a greater idea signifying, denoting, or conoting cultural, and linguistic notions.
A description or the titling of an image or series seems to detract or overshadow an image, they are, in fact, completely separate arenas. He discusses the impossibility of understanding both pieces without first fulling exhausting the meaning of each as separate entities. It is "impossible for words to duplicate and image" he states in the Text and Image section. I agree with this because neither aspect can convey the same message. One is visual and the other linguistic, and both have separate triggers.
Barthes states that signification resolves contradiction of cultural and natural man (28) He goes on to cite Bruner's and Piaget's work surrounding the concept that there is no perception without immediate categorizatio. This instantly reminded me of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Edward Sapir is one of the most famous American linguists. He, along with his student Benjamin Whorf did significant studies on Linguistic determinism which basically states that the nature and characteristics of a language determine the habitual thought of a distinct community. Thought and Action are linguistically and socially linked.
Their research included, famously, intensive research on linguistic relations of the English language with the Hopi language. They found that whereas time is understood numerically in english (i.e. 5 minutes/5 apples) in many Native American languages time is understood as a process and thus there is not a way to quantify the process. Likewise, English speakers cannot comprehend time and do not have the same connotations as Hopi speakers.
In essence I feel that barthes longwindedly expressed the multiplicity of possibly minute reasons for interpreting an image and accompanying text in various forms, all of which boil down to the fact that there is no way to view images without linguistic derivations and also no way to comprehend language without the same cultural connotations!
----ROSLYN KAGY----
""""We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way - an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees.""""" -Whorf
