Pragmatics of Visual Image : a New Angle of Communication Act Theory

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This research aims at an examination of the function and structure of visual image as a medium for visual communication, using an approach that can best be termed a "pictorial acts theory", a theoretical framework in which depicting an image is viewed as performing a specific act of visual communication, just as uttering words counts as a performance of specific speech acts. Six points as follows were clarified.First, in spite of the semiotic differences between pictures and language, image and words, "icon" and "symbol", they have the same communicational functions in common.Second, the act of visual communication consists of the seven elements : a commissioner, an artist, a mediator, a viewer, a context, a work, and a code.Third, these seven elements can be reduced to five, each of the five determines a different function of the work: referential, emotive, directive, aesthetic, or meta-pictorial.Forth, although these five basic aspects of an image can be distinguished, it is impossible to find any image which fulfills only one of these functions. The diversity lies not in a monopoly of one of these five functions, but rather in a different hierarchical order of functions.Fifth, a visual image has the semantic, in other words, deep structure which can be analyzed into two parts : the in-depictionary act and the proposition. For a certain image to be performed successfully, it must follow four kinds of rules : the Propositional Content rule, the Preparatory rule, the Sincerity rule, and the Essential rule.Sixth, the in-depictionary acts must be differentiated from the per-depictionary acts that are the consequences or effects such acts have on the actions, thoughts, or beliefs, etc. of viewers.