The ability to interpret, negotiate and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image is based upon the idea that pictures can be read.
Therefore, all that is necessary for a language to exist is an agreement amongst a group of people that one thing will stand for another.
E.g. below there is no doubt that this set of symbols show male and female toilets, yet the actual content of the images are very abstract, but because we understand the semantics of the image, we realise that this stands for the more traditional toilet symbols we are used to.
Being visually literate requires an awareness of the relationship between visual syntax and visual semanticsSyntax: Visual structure and organisation of an image, which effects the way we read it.Semantics: The way an image fits into a cultural process of communication- we have no control on it (social ideals, religious beliefs, cultural references)Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent: it is the job of the visual communicator and the audience to work out what it stands for.Semiotics: Study of signs and sign processes- closely linked to the field of linguisticsVisual synecdoche: A part used to represent a whole, or vice versa.Visual metonym: Symbolic image used to make reference to something with a more literal meaning. -Unlike visual synecdoche, the two images are closely related but not the same.Visual metaphor: Used to transfer the meaning from one image to another. - may not have close relationship, it conveys an impression about something unfamiliar and comparing or associating it with something familiar.For example the way this vey simple symbol can be slightly altered in order to represent many different things, from Christianity to the english flag.
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