This article provides an exploratory study of a new analytical approach to examining visual imagery in relation to the underlying cognitive processes involved The analytical approach combines social semio.
cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 brill.com/cose Analysing Visual Imagery: Connecting Semiotic and Cognitive Perspectives May L-Y Wong School of English, University of Hong Kong wlymay@gmail.com; maylywong@hku.hk Abstract This article provides an exploratory study of a new analytical approach to examining visual imagery in relation to the underlying cognitive processes involved The analytical approach combines social semiotic theory of representation with cognitive-linguistic studies on blending or conceptual integration The author’s thesis is that visual-analytic tools suggested by the social semiotic approach perfectly complements the inward cognition of an image-viewer, a synergy which has rarely been envisaged by scholars from both disciplines From this perspective, visual analysis is seen as both semiotically and cognitively relevant The interdisciplinary approach developed in the article hopes to present new perspectives on the ways images are analysed and interpreted Keywords visual analysis – synergy – cognitive linguistics – social semiotics – blending – conceptual integration – imagery 1 Introduction Ever since the turn of the millennium, visual imagery has been heralded as a major mode of communication on a par with verbal communicative means such as speech and writing It is therefore necessary for us to get to know more about visual communication and, specifically, the cognitive processes required to fully comprehend visual structures Perhaps, the first question that comes to our mind when we go about talking and thinking about what is actually communicated by images and by their visual design is: Do we have to engage © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/23526416-00401006 40 Wong in a completely different set of cognitive processes for perceiving visual images from what we normally with verbal messages? In this paper I propose a unified view of the relations between conceptual and visual structures that would have otherwise been considered quite disparate and dealt with rather separately in different domains as in cognitive linguistics and (social) semiotics I explore how image viewers harness both semiotic resources and conceptual blending to construct meanings Although visual representation provides a wealth of information about the way people make sense of a sign in semiotics, blending theory in cognitive linguistics goes further by accounting for the processes by which people create temporary and dynamic mental spaces and construct meanings within them Although the terms ‘semiotics’ and ‘blending’ refer to different aspects of conceptualisation, they are in fact complementary to each other Coining the term ‘semiotic blends’, Bateman calls for a more integrative account of relationships across visual and verbal modalities since “it is quite possible for there to be … a growth of meaning drawing on both” (2014: 184; original emphasis), hinting at the possibility of transferring meanings and integrating different kinds of information that has been seen in work in the cognitive linguistic tradition that has sought ways of characterising the conceptual integration of information of various kinds in the notion of a blend (Fauconnier 2001) The complementarity between cognitive linguistics and (social) semiotics is not entirely new, though Brandt and Brandt hypothesise a general framework for analysing metaphoric expressions in which all metaphors should be considered as signs – as understood in the Peircean tradition – and metaphorical meanings should “belong to the world of human experience” (2005: 244) and thus are inherently semiotic, i.e anchored in their contexts of communication and engaging the imagination of both the speaker and the addressee While Brandt and Brandt (op cit.) use only linguistic data and focus on just the butcher-surgeon conceptual metaphor, Feng and O’Halloran’s (2013a [2015], 2013b) examine visual realisations of metaphor to suggest that visual images in films and tv commercials are constructed through combinations of semiotic choices to cue different conceptual metaphors with which cognitive linguists have been preoccupied for decades ever since George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s seminal treatise Metaphors we live by (1980) By the same token, Feng (2017) provides a social-semiotic account of conceptual metonymies in static and moving images, mapping out the types of metonymy in visual representation Alonso et al (2013) explore how the social semiotic visual grammar developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) can contribute to the understanding of the global meaning of a narrative by combining social semiotic theory with some notions of mental spaces and Conceptual Integration Theory cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 Analysing Visual Imagery 41 (also known as Blending Theory; see Fauconnier 1994; Fauconnier and Turner op cit.) The body of work on the potential benefits of both research traditions is also reflected in the emergence of a new transdisciplinary field of ‘cognitive semiotics’ dedicated to the multifaceted study of meaning through combining a range of research areas such as cognitive semantics, gesture studies, semiotics and the embodied mind “with the ultimate aim of providing new insights into the realm of human signification and its manifestations in cultural practices” (Zlatev 2015: 1043; see Sonesson 2014 and Zlatev 2015 for a useful introduction to visual analysis within this stream of research) Building on the findings proposed by these pioneering studies that most types of metaphorical thinking identified by cognitive linguists can indeed be explained within the social-semiotic framework, the present study sets out to expand their scope of analysis by considering visual representations in general – with or without instantiating any Lakoffian conceptual metaphor – and by extending the analytical framework for application in a broader spectrum of genres other than advertisements and storytelling, applying it as well to the study of paintings and web pages The reminder of the paper is structured as follows Section 2 provides an overview of both the social-semiotic theory of representation and the conceptual blending theory, addressing their common objective in creating meanings at the moment of perception Section 3 briefly outlines the analytical approach and empirical examples under scrutiny Section 4 presents the central analysis of combining both semiotic and cognitive perspectives to examine visual images Section 5 discusses the major ideas underpinning the synergy and its implications for visual analysis Social Semiotics Theory and Conceptual Blending: An Overview In this section, social semiotics and its theoretical assumptions will first be discussed A ‘gap’ within the social semiotic theory that can be perfectly ‘filled’ by conceptual blending will then be considered Following on from this, blending theory will be presented 2.1 Social Semiotics Theory Social semiotics is a theoretical framework that develops out of Halliday’s theories of language as social semiotic and Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday 1978, Halliday and Matthiessen 2004) Language, as Halliday (op cit.: 21pp) argues, realises three types of social meaning/metafunctions (i.e the ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions) By extending Halliday’s cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 42 Wong conceptualisation of language to the visual arena, Kress and van Leeuwen demonstrate how these meaning functions can be realised visually through the semiotic resources of images (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001, 2006) More specifically, they describe semiotic resources as having meaning potentials and can be used to communicate ideologies and discourses There are four interconnected theoretical assumptions that underpin the social semiotic theory The first assumption is that meaning-making is always multimodal, drawing on a multiplicity of modes such as image, gesture, posture, gaze, action, music, colour, 3D objects, alongside speech and writing, all of which have the potential to contribute equally to the meaning being expressed (Jewitt 2009a: 14) The role that multimodality plays in meaning-making, as Kress (2015: 62) puts it, lies precisely in the process of exploring “the different potentials for providing means of expressing views, positions, attitudes, facts; and to enable the production of what is best suited to a specific task or need”, which is inextricably related to the second assumption central to the theory of social semiotics, i.e., that semiotic resources are used by people in a given social context The social context shapes the resources available for meaningmaking and how these resources are selected and configured In social semiotics, therefore, sign-making is conceived of as a social process (Hodge and Kress 1988: 1); “[s]igns, modes and meaning-making are treated as relatively fluid, dynamic and open systems intimately connected to the social context of use” (Jewitt 2009b: 30) Closely related to the notion of context is that of the motivated sign, which forms the basis of the third assumption When making signs, people bring together the available form that is most apt to express the meaning they wish to represent at a given moment in a specific social context The connection between form (i.e signifier) and meaning (i.e signified) within the social semiotic multimodal analysis is, therefore, not arbitrary but motivated and transparent Finally, social semiotics is built on the assumption that it is the sign-maker’s interest that guides his or her selection of semiotic resources Kress (1993: 174) defines interest as “the articulation and realisation of an individual’s relation to an object or event, acting out of that social complex at a particular moment, in the context of an interaction with other constitutive factors of the situation which are considered as relevant by the individual” Essentially, the sign-maker’s interest is an awareness of the social environment (and the configurations of power therein) for which sign production takes place; it refers to the sign-maker’s subjectivity which is “the momentary condensation of all the (relevant) social experiences […] produced by the need for a response to a prompt in and by the social environment in which a new sign is made” (Jewitt et al 2016: 68) cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 Analysing Visual Imagery 43 Recently, Kress (2010: 26–27) has postulated a rhetorical approach to representation and communication in the spirit of the social semiotic theory In the rhetorical approach, the social world is still regarded as a dominant feature Thus, there is a great deal of emphasis on the social environment and the social relations which are enacted in it and the resources available for shaping the communicative event, in keeping with the social semiotic tradition What appears to be a ‘new’ feature in the model, however, is the primary focus on the rhetor and the interpreter The rhetor is the maker of a message Prior to sign-making, Kress believes that the rhetor has to make an assessment of all aspects of the communicational situation, i.e (i) his or her interest; (ii) the characteristics of the audience; (iii) the requirements of the communicative issue at stake; (iv) the resources available for making an apt representation; (v) the best means for dissemination Kress goes on to suggest that these aspects can fall into two broad categories, namely design and production Design gives shape to the interests of the rhetor, takes into account the audience and what the matter to be communicated demands as well as accessing the potentialities and constraints of the semiotic resources which are available for the most transparent representation tailored towards the goal of the communicative event On the other hand, production is the implementation of design with the material resources available in the world in which the communication takes place In production, Kress (2010: 27) notes, “meaning is made material and becomes subject to review, comment, engagement and transformation”, which paves the way for the role of the interpreter As Kress puts it, “the interpreter’s interest produces attention; attention shapes the form of the engagement; this leads to selections being made; the selections are framed; there is the subsequent transformation and transductions of the elements in the frame; and, in that, the (‘inwardly made’) sign is produced” (Kress 2010: 42; original emphasis) This model of communication rests on two central assumptions: “that communication is the response to a prompt; that communication happens only when there is ‘interpretation’” (Kress 2010: 35; original emphasis) Communicational environments are always complex and multimodal Any aspects of the communicational situation can, potentially, act as prompts; whether they are or not depends on the interest of the interpreter As can be seen from the ‘communicative sequence’ proposed by Kress, the interpreter’s interest directs his or her attention to a prompt in the communicative event; the interpreter then engages with features of the prompt and forms his or her interpretation While the meanings of the semiotic processes of ‘selection’ (i.e the highlighting of the characteristics and the ‘shape’ of the prompt which constitute the ground on which the interpretation cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 44 Wong proceeds), and of ‘transformation’ (i.e meaning change through re-ordering of the elements in a text in the same mode within the same culture or across cultures) and ‘transduction’ (i.e meaning change resulting from a change in modes) can be understood with ease, the notion of framing needs further elaboration Elsewhere, in Kress’s other publications on the social semiotic theory, framing is invariably referred to as the disconnection of elements of a visual composition by frame lines, pictorial framing devices (boundaries formed by the edge of a building, a tree, etc.), empty space, discontinuities of colour, and so on (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001: 2, 2006: 203–204; see also van Leeuwen 2005: 6–14) In the newly formulated social semiotic theory of communication sketched here, the term ‘framing’ is imbued with a different meaning Framing is considered as a trace of a “punctuation of semiosis” (Kress 2010: 122); it entails “a momentary interruption of the ceaseless flow of semiosis, provoked by some event, action, process, brought about by a message taken as a prompt for a response or by some inner equivalent of that externally produced prompt” (Kress 2010: 145) In my view, this new sense of framing is of paramount importance in the shaping of a response (i.e the visible, tangible, audible, material form given to an interpretation) as it serves as a bridge between the messageprompt and the response As mentioned above, a prompt can be taken as any aspect of the communicational environment – be it a spoken comment, a gaze, a touch, a gesture or a change in position – which is of interest to the interpreter who then pays attention to and engages with it The interpreter undergoes some kind of ‘inner’ semiosis, mulling over the characteristics and the shape of the prompt – it looks as if the ceaseless, ongoing meaning-making was ‘punctuated’ in some way, in response to the prompt and for the purposes of making an interpretation The ‘inner’, unmaterialised meaning is subsequently given ‘outer’ material form; it is fixed modally – as speech, as image, as gesture, as gaze – either in the same mode as the initial message-prompt as in transformation, or in another mode as in transduction The result of this framing and fixing is a new semiotic entity or a new sign, ready to be used as the basis for further semiotic work Figure 1 offers a sketch of the social-semiotic theory of representation and communication proposed in Kress (2010) 2.2 Proposed Link We have learned from the preceding subsection that signs are made in outward production – as in the process of making a text where a rhetor shapes a message, and also in inward production – as in the activity loosely called ‘interpreting’ Both, together, are fundamental Yet, I am particularly interested in the latter because without the production of any ‘inner’, inwardly-made cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 45 Analysing Visual Imagery Kress’s (2010) social semiotic theory of representation and communication Rhetor Design: (i) Interest (ii) Characteristics of audience (iii) Demands of communicative event (iv) Semiotic resources available Interprete Interpreterr Given a message-prompt: Recipient’s interest Attention Engagement Selection of elements from the message Framing of these elements Transformation and Production: the transduction implementation of design New (‘inner’) sign Representation Figure 1 Communication The model of representation and communication in the social semiotic theory sign, there is no point in considering any synergy between this social semiotic theory of communication and a cognitive approach to meaning making As noted above, communication has happened when attention by one or more of the participants in a communicative event has focussed on a prompt of some kind and that prompt has been interpreted by that participant On that basis, the interpreter pauses momentarily to engage with the prompt in an attempt to shape a response, apt for the communicative event This is what Kress (2010: 42, 122) refers to as ‘framing’ which is used metaphorically to mean any ‘punctuation of semiosis’, an essential step before any orchestration of modes can be settled and shaped to ‘materialise’ the interpretation Yet we still know very little about what goes on in our head at the moment when our ceaseless flow of semiosis is ‘punctuated’ and a new ‘inner’ sign is produced as a desirable outcome, even if this ‘inner’ semiosis is addressed very explicitly (albeit not very clearly) in Kress’s model of communication This evidently cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 46 Wong recognises the need for some cognitive insights into the inward production of signs Communication, which is a constant process of interpreting and evaluating the world, does not only rest on attending to the visual resources and their meaning potential, but also on cognitive construal and sometimes creative ad hoc conceptualisations operating at the moment of perception To explain these, Fauconnier and Turner (op cit.) propose the theory of blending Originally, it was tailored to explain metaphors in a more flexible manner than Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) approach Gradually, however, the focus shifted to non-linguistic phenomena Conceptual blending theory promises insights into “the general mental capacity of blending” and the human ability “to invent new concepts and to assemble new and dynamic mental patterns” (Fauconnier and Turner op cit.: v) It is a general theory of online conceptual combination, applicable to a wide range of areas including “art, science, religion, c ulture, sophisticated tools, and language” (Fauconnier and Turner op cit.: v) In its present state conceptual blending theory is sufficiently detailed to allow us to catch a glimpse of otherwise hidden mechanisms of human thinking, particularly how we conceptualise and construe experiences and perceptions in our minds In effect, the aim of this paper is to argue for a cognitive approach to complement and assist current social semiotic approaches to the description of meaning construction, representation and communication I believe that it can serve as a new angle from which to approach meaning-making, in combination with the social semiotic theory The present study therefore seeks to demonstrate that the descriptive tools provided by the blending model are capable of contributing some useful answers to problems of meaning-making and understanding that are not satisfactorily solved in the social semiotic theory of communication alone 2.3 Blending Theory Fauconnier and Turner (op cit.) describe conceptual blending (also known as conceptual integration) as a dynamic process that occurs at the moment of perception to create new meanings from existing ways of thinking Blending is a common cognitive activity, closely related to analogy and metaphor (Fauconnier 2001) Lakoff and Johnson (1999) describe metaphor as constituting systematic mappings from a source to a target domain For example, in I spent some time in France this year, money and time are the two domains that systematically map on to each other The assumption of directionality from source to target is problematic, however As Grady et al (1999) point out, metaphor comprehension involves more than a set of directional mappings, and there is often an active combination and blending of information from target cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 Analysing Visual Imagery 47 and source concepts Despite the fact that conceptual blending also taps into the principle of mappings, it does so through the creation of input spaces and especially through the creation of a generic (third) space to engender a blend (a fourth space) Fauconnier and Turner (op cit.: 5) describes mental spaces as “small packets constructed as we think and talk, for purposes of local understanding and action They are partial assemblies of elements, structures by frames and cognitive models” In other words, mental spaces are based on more general and stable knowledge structures associated with a particular d omain; they are temporary spaces used in the construction of meaning (Coulson and Oakley 2000) Fauconnier and Turner’s (op cit.) theoretical framework is rich with details on the governing principles and mechanisms of blending Perhaps the most important theoretical construct established in blending that sets it apart from metaphor and analogy is that of emergent structure “The blend develops emergent structure that is not in the inputs” (Fauconnier and Turner op cit.: 42) There are three mechanisms for the development of emergent structure: composition, completion and elaboration • Composition: “Blending can compose elements from the input spaces to provide relations that not exist in the separate inputs.” • Completion: “We rarely realise the extent of background knowledge that we bring into a blend unconsciously Blends recruit great ranges of such background meaning.” • Elaboration: “We elaborate blends by treating them as simulations and running them imaginatively according to the principles that have been established for the blend.” (Fauconnier and Turner op cit.: 48) It is worth noting that metaphor and blending are not restricted to language nor the field of linguistics To mention just one example which is particularly relevant to our discussion on visual imagery, consumer researchers have begun to pay attention to the cognitive mechanisms employed by consumers to ‘make sense’ of advertisements For instance, McQuarrie and Mick (1996, 1999) and Scott (1994) investigate figurative communication by drawing on analogy and metaphor Nonetheless, these studies contain no description of blending activities, restricting their arguments to meanings constructed through the typical unidirectional, two-space model – from source to target domains – used in analogy and metaphor Almost a decade later, Joy et al (2009) present the first study of consumer research from the perspective of blending theory One of the theoretical contributions they make is to highlight the interconnectedness of semantic memory that allows consumers to integrate different cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 48 Wong semantic concepts they perceive in an advertisement with a vast array of different lived experiences through the use of blending processes They argue that conceptual integration of this sort advances the field of advertising rhetoric “by means of the activation, interconnection, and manipulation of mental spaces Through composition, completion, and elaboration one can illustrate how complex processes of understanding occur” (Joy et al op cit.: 48) Evidently, their research has shown how blending theory finds its way into non-linguistic research avenues What is particularly relevant to the present study is the fact that their research also heralds an integrated approach of semiotics and blending in decoding advertisements, although this is not taken up seriously in the article In one of their examples, Joy et al (op cit.: 46–47) carefully analyse participant responses to the Hummer ad in which a yellow Hummer sits on top of a mountain, with a deep blue sky in the background and the two-word caption in small print in the top right hand corner that reads ‘Truck Shui’ Virtually all of the participants who were not well-versed in Chinese culture did not recognise the Feng Shui reference.1 Yet, most of the other participants who arrived at the message were able to see the American and Chinese orientations of the Hummer ad, coupling the two seemingly incompatibles mental spaces of ‘a truck from America’ (Input Space 1) and ‘Feng Shui from China’ (Input Space 2) The generic space projects the abstract structure that guides the blending process to convey the idea that correct alignment of objects within an environment produces harmony The blend has an emergent structure that fuses the incompatibilities in the input spaces into a meaningful outcome, implying that when you drive a Hummer, you enter the stress-free mental space of Feng Shui as well as the physical space of a powerful truck that can navigate any terrain As Joy et al (op cit.: 47) rightly point out, “participants who were sufficiently acculturated to the Chinese rhetoric and semiotic systems could decode the text with ease” They also remark that only by paying close attention to layout and colours can one grasp the full import of how such an understanding can be achieved The idea of harmony is evident in the placement of the truck against the plain background (lack of obstruction) The yellow colour of the truck is clearly associated with ancient Chinese emperors, who in turn are linked to the dragon, a symbol of wealth, whereas the blue colour of the background is reportedly the favourite colour in Western countries Despite mentioning it in passing, Joy and her co-authors have stressed the need for reconceptualising visual images and verbal messages in advertising Feng Shui (literally meaning wind and water) is an ancient Chinese ethnoscience used in modern times in positioning buildings, rooms, entrances and furniture to ensure health, wealth, family harmony and prosperity (Fretwell 2002) cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 Analysing Visual Imagery 61 whereas the key features of the product being advertised are given in the lower section In this ad, the most salient element is undoubtedly the image of human evolution which occupies half of the advertising space It aims to illustrate the meaning of the verbal text that is placed directly above it, i.e the evolution of RevitaLens disinfecting solution However, it begs the question of how we can work out the metaphorical connotation of the image so as to arrive at the correct reading of the advertisement One obvious way to this is by drawing an analogy between two input spaces, i.e the human evolution input and the product improvement input, which are unpacked by the disintegration of the event (genetic evolution) and the objects involved (the doctor’s outfit and the white bottle) in the scene described in the image itself (the unpacking principle) In this case where an ape is evolved into a human being who in turn turns into a robot, not only we have scaling of time and change, but we also have syncopation: only a few key moments in that continuous evolution are picked out and conjoined in the blend (the compression principle) Furthermore, the typologies of the input spaces are well aligned and projected to the blend, including the vital relations of analogy, disanalogy, change, identity and uniqueness (the typology principle) Both the web principle and relevance principles are also satisfied as the representation in the blend now maintains all its mappings to the inputs and that prompts for the correct network connections In the blend, the inner-space relations between the stages of the RevitaLens evolution are both intensified and further compressed To improve the contact lens solution, the cause-effect relation of biological evolution has to be intensified to the extent that a completely new species – a robot – can be generated, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence technology (the intensification of vital relations principle) In addition, the blend compresses analogical relations at various levels into uniqueness The various individual incarnations of the disinfecting solution over the time are analogues (one earlier version of the solution is analogous to another) in many respects and disanalogues (generation-to-generation differences in the formula of the solution) in others The disanalogy vital relation is then compressed into a relationship of identity + change: we say that the primitive form of the solution ‘changed’ into the new-improved one Finally, the vital relation of change is compressed into uniqueness: in the final blended space, there is only a single version of the disinfecting solution To put it in a nutshell, the blend gives us an efficient compression of change into uniqueness at human scale, which allows us to manage the network of transformation from a primitive product to an advanced product, a ‘breakthrough’ in the industry The integration principle is therefore successfully invoked: we work not just with the blend but with the cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 62 Wong entire integration network; the connections between the blend and the inputs never disappear The interpretation of the blended space is also aided by our common-sense knowledge in that improvements come in modest increments of progress in much the same way as genetic evolution (the pattern completion principle) Example is a double-spread advertisement for OpenRice, a web site for restaurant reviews Ideationally, there are two represented participants in the advert (see Figure 7) One participant is a conveyor belt which marks the ‘ideal-real’ divide The other participant is a young woman holding a pair of chopsticks, with her head turning round and gazing at the food on the conveyor belt The direction of her gaze forms a strong vector, urging the viewer of the ad to pore over the various kinds of food displayed on the conveyor belt She reacts to the gastronomic delight with a smile of admiration Symbolically, the conveyor belt is a sign of Japanese culture Ever since it was invented in Japan in the 1970s, the ‘conveyor belt sushi’ has sprouted up all over the globe (Traphagan and Keith 2002) It enjoys a very privileged status in Hong Kong, especially among the younger generation who have long been dazzled by Japanese comics (manga) and clothing It is also a sign of variety, diversity and freedom of choice; sushi belts typically offer a rich assortment of sushi and let people pick and choose Now, the main idea of the ad becomes much clearer: like sushi restaurant conveyor belts, the online dining guide OpenRice delivers useful information about restaurants to people so that Figure 7 The OpenRice ad (MetroPop 24 Feb 2011 p28–29) cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 Analysing Visual Imagery 63 they can easily pick what they want to read about different types of cuisine, prices, photos, reviews, etc This symbolic attributive process in visual analysis can be better understood by building a single-scope conceptual integration network The frame that is exploited in the blend for purposes of understanding is the frame of the conveyor belt sushi and the point of the blend is to cast light on the other input, the OpenRice restaurant guide The blend comprises into a single scenario the various stages of the ‘story of dining’: decide where to eat (glance over the conveyor belt); go to the restaurant and eat there (pick up a piece of sushi and eat it); revisit the restaurant to your liking (have several helpings of your favourite sushi) The highlights in the overarching story are compressed into simultaneous highlights in the blend: the OpenRice blend has a criteria-based search page (e.g by keyword, cuisine, distance, type of restaurants, price range, etc.) for deciding where to eat; comprehensive reviews complete with snapshots of food and restaurant décor; the latest restaurant rankings for revisiting the restaurant to your (and others’) liking We are now in a position to see the time compression in the blend What seems like an essential structure of the overarching story, the order of events through time, is absent from the blended space As Fauconnier and Turner (op cit.: 320) put it, “the highlights compression transforms the temporal and causal chain into a part-whole structure where everything is simultaneous”, implying that the OpenRice dining guide brings all the essential information about any dining option to the fingertips of its users By running the blend in this way, we can then arrive at a much more thorough understanding of the advert than carrying out only a visual analysis can afford 4.3 Double-scope Networks Example is a magazine advertisement for Carat, a luxury fashion jewellery brand, and its new collection called ‘Rocktails’ that consists of dramatic earrings and eye-catching rings The theme of the entire collection is to mix cocktailparty marvel with rock and roll The advert has two central figures, a scantily clad lady and an electric guitar (see Figure 8) The image realises what Kress and van Leeuwen (2006: 105) call a Symbolic Attribute relation The two figures are made salient by being placed in the foreground, through exaggerated size and through their conspicuous colour More importantly, they are conventionally associated with symbolic values While the female figure’s rouge lipstick, black tube dress and luxurious accessories establish her identity as a partygoer, the electric guitar – looking somewhat out of place – clearly symbolises rock and roll The creative combination of cocktail party and rock music, the mix of classic and modern style, and the convergence of traditional and cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 ... social semiotic theory that can be perfectly ‘filled’ by conceptual blending will then be considered Following on from this, blending theory will be presented 2.1 Social Semiotics Theory Social semiotics... theoretical framework that develops out of Halliday’s theories of language as social semiotic and Systemic Functional Grammar (Halliday 1978, Halliday and Matthiessen 2004) Language, as Halliday (op... social inequality exists and thus people belong to different cognitive semantics (2018) 39-75 Analysing Visual Imagery 53 social classes, albeit unwillingly In fact, the painting is ‘anchored’ by