Lucrări Ştiinţifice – vol. 58 (2) 2015, seria Agronomie

SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON VISUAL COMMUNICATION AND PRODUCTION OF MEANING IN PLANT KINGDOM

Olga PÂNZARU1

e-mail: opanzaru @yahoo.com

Abstract

Using a semiotic approach, our research has focused on two directions: primarily, on visual communication and how meaning is produced and conveyed in visually complex messages or images coming from plants, and secondly, how do viewers construct their own meanings from this visual communication. We took photos of several vegetal scenes and then investigated the production of meanings and the significance of some visual messages/signs coming from the plants under study. Our analysis aimed to highlight the relationships between the components of the visual image, the relationships between the producers of the visual image, as well as the relationships between the components of the image and those who are viewing it. The researches in the field of have demonstrated that all living organisms are systems producing “meaning” with the help of signs, signs which acquire the ability to transfer information, in other words they are communicative systems which communicate by signs, and communication can be defined as an interaction based on sign relations. The notion of image within plant kingdom is related to indexicality, as essential means of visual representation, and the global significance of the visual message, that is, the meaningful communication is constituted by interaction of indexical and plastic signs. Thus, has facilitated a better understanding not only of the complexity of the living world, but also of the communicative force of the image, based on sign relations, within plant kingdom.

Key words: non-verbal communication, biosemiotics, sign, visual message, meaning

Signs, symbols and patterns of signification MATERIAL AND METHOD are used in human language and discourse, communication, philosophy, science, religion and Our study aims to investigate the production of other human activities, and the comprehension of meanings and how they are conveyed in messages in their nature has a decisive importance for the some visual images (or visual texts) representing a hallow- bearing walnut tree. The subject of our development of these fields. Studies of meaning investigation – the walnut tree, similarly to all living have evolved from semiotics, a philosophical organisms, communicates by signs, signs which approach that seeks to interpret messages in terms transfer information, producing different “meanings”. of signs and patterns of symbolism. Semiotics is In this context, we consider that it is worth reminding concerned about the nature of signs, what they are some important aspects concerning the theories of and how they signify. It is both a science, with its signs, signs relations and their significance in the semiotic realm, where biology has been also own corpus and findings and its theories, and a included. Sign theories have a long history. Even technique for studying anything that produces from ancient times, many philosophers and scholars signs. In the 20th century, Semiotics has been were conscious of the importance of signs and their significantly influenced by structuralism in significance. Plato (428-348 BC) and Aristotle (384- linguistics, and this has been related to a similar 322 BC) explored the relationship between signs and “structuralist movement” in theoretical biology. the world; Augustine (354-430) and Thomas Aquinas Semiotic biology or Biosemiotics provides the (1225-1274) established the nature of signs and symbols and significations, their definition, elements basis for linking general biology with general and types. According to these classic sources, linguistics, pointing out that living creatures, in significance is a relationship between two sorts of order to live and sometimes make a more complex things: signs and the kinds of things they signify living, are not just passively subjected to universal (intend, express or mean), where one term laws of nature, but also active systems of sign necessarily causes something else to come to the production, sign mediation and sign interpretation. mind. Originating in literary and linguistic contexts, the study of semiotics has been expanding in a number of directions since the early turn of the 20th

1 University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Iaşi

267 Universitatea de Ştiinţe Agricole şi Medicină Veterinară Iaşi century with the works of Charles Sanders Peirce signifier and the signified. The signified, according to (1839-1914) in the U.S. and Claude Lévi-Strauss Barthes, has two level of meaning: the denotational (1829-1902) and Ferdinand Saussure (1857-1913) in and the connotational. The denotation is the France. Many of modern-day founders of the theory dictionary meaning of the sign/word and it detonates of signs have worked under the frameworks something in the real world. The connotation is the developed by them. In his work, Cours de linguistique interpretative association that comes with the sign générale, published in 1916, Saussure divided a sign and is something which is culturally and context into two components: the signifier, which is the dependant. For Barthes connotation is a higher level sound, image, or word, and the signified, which is the of interpretation, and he assumes that being a part of concept or meaning the signifier represents. The the same culture involves having similar connotations problem of meaning arises from the fact that the to certain signs. Barthes deconstructed an image and relation between the signifier and the signified is extracted the types of messages contained within it arbitrary and conventional. In other words, signs can in order to illustrate the “rhetoric” of the image. A key mean anything we agree that they mean.The semiotic step forward in the development of visual semiotics theory developed by C. S. Peirce, defines the sign as was made by the Belgian Mu Group (Groupe µ) a triadic relation as “something that stands for founded in 1967.They developed a structural version something, to someone in some capacity". According of visual semiotics, on a cognitive basis, as well as a to Peirce signs can be either icons, indices or visual rhetoric (Trait of sign visual, 1992), and sought symbols. Icons are those signs that signify by means to elaborate a general grammar of the image, of similarity between sign vehicle and sign object, independently of the type of corpus being considered. indices are those that signify by means of a direct This semiotic of the visual contributed, in its turn, to relation of contiguity or causality between sign vehicle semiotics in general. and sign object (e.g. a symptom), and symbols are those that signify through a law or arbitrary social RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS convention. Peirce introduced the term semiosis to describe a process that interprets signs as refering to their objects. (Peirce's Theory of Signs, 2007). Briefly, One of the targets of our research was to semiosis is any form of activity or process that highlight the existence of semiosic phenomena in involves signs, including the production of meaning. the vegetal kingdom, emphasising the In 1984, a group of six leading semioticians: Myrdene interconnectedness between visual signs and plant Anderson, John Deely, , Joseph semiosic activities.By decoding and interpreting Ransdell, Thomas A. Sebeok, Thure von Uexküll the meaning of the visual signs coming from our examined areas belonging to the life sciences - such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt subject - the hallow-bearing walnut tree, we to their semiotic niche in the world They published a intended to point out how the “meaningful collective work - A semiotic perspective on the signaling” or communication is produced in plants. sciences: Steps toward a new paradigm. (1984), in We have taken linguistics as a model and applied which they argued for the placement of the semiotic linguistic concepts to the images/photos of the threshold at the boundary of life. (Anderson Myrdene vegetal scenes, having in view that they are et al., 1984, A semiotic perspective on the sciences: visually intensive areas of communication.The Steps toward a new paradigm). Accordingly, the whole of biology was included into the semiotic realm; reading or interpretation of images is subjective the action of signs extends well beyond the realm of and to understand the depth of meaning, or culture to include the whole realm of living things, a multiple meanings, communicated in an image view summarized today in the term Biosemiotics. requires analysis. Paul Martin Lester considers that The American semiotician and linguist, Thomas A. images can be analyzed through personal, Sebeok (1920-2001) argued for introducing semiotics historical, technical, ethical, cultural, and critical into all areas of biology. In his papers he tried to demonstrate the existence of semiosic phenomena in perspectives. (Lester Paul Martin, 2006, Visual non-human organisms and to analyse the biological Communication: Images with Messages). In our basis of various sign processes. As we have already study, the opinions about the images were based on mentioned, one of the purposes of our study was to our personal thoughts and knowledge, while the investigate the production of meanings and the view of images in the cultural perspective has significance of some visual signs or messages involved identity of symbols. The photos of the coming from a hallow - bearing walnut tree. Visual semiotics, a sub-domain of semiotics analyses the hallow-bearing walnut tree were taken in the way visual images communicate a message. One of Botanical Garden from Iaşi, at the end of August. the first people who studied the semiotics of images These photos have been already presented in one was Ronald Barthes (1915-1980). In his essay, The of our previous works. (Pânzaru Olga, 2006, Rhetoric of the Image, Roland Barthes examines the Abordarea semiotică a unei scene vizuale). One semiotic nature of images, and the ways images photo represented the entire walnut tree, while the function to communicate specific messages. (Barthes Roland, 1977, "The Rhetoric of the Image." Image, other pictures were taken on segments: trunk, Music, Text.) Barthes worked along the lines of two hallow, branches, in order to ease our endeavour to theoretical distinctions: connotation and denotation, discover and differentiate iconic signs from plastic and the internal relations of the sign between the signs - represented by colours, shapes, texture.

268 Lucrări Ştiinţifice – vol. 58 (2) 2015, seria Agronomie

Applying Roland Barthes’s theory/method we an index or symptom, signalling the biological deconstructed our images and followed several aging process of the tree. Walnut trees belong to steps : picking out the visible items, that is the those plant species which are producing juglone – iconic signs –the signifiers, making hypotheses and a chemical which can cause toxic reactions with a finally finding the meaning of the message(s). As number of other plant species that grow in their Barthes says in his book, The Rhetoric of the vicinity, whose growth can be affected. In our case Image, “We need no other knowledge than what is study, the walnut tree could not produce sufficient involved in our perception”. Once we recognize juglone to inhibit the development of the grasses the iconic sign (the signifier) or object in the from its base, signalling that the tree is getting old. picture, we understand its meaning from its The absence of nuts at the end of August (when similarity to its visual reality – the signified item. our photos were taken) may be considered another The visible items (the signifiers) represent what sign/index because usually in autumn, walnut trees they are signifying in reality. The signifier and are laden with fruit. It is the so called zero sign signified are one and the same, thus providing a which signifies something by its absence, in our non-coded message, and the “realism” of the image case - the aging of the walnut tree.The presence of makes it appear to be a “natural” scene. There is no the hallow may be also regarded as an index or code to decode at this level. Non-coded iconic is symptom of tree aging, because hallows are the recognition of identifiable object in the photo; generally found in old trees with reduced vigour. it has no deeper meaning, the image is exactly The presence of cavities and galleries from the what it shows. We should mention that before hallow is also a sign/index or “trail”, signalling the starting our analysis we have differentiated the real pest existence. Making a synthesis of all visual, (natural ) form of the walnut tree from the non-linguistic signs presented above (absence of biological one. For our study it was important the nuts, presence of the grasses at the base of the tree, real form, that is the form of the walnut tree as it deep and numerous cracks on trunck and branches, appeared in our pictures. Natural or real form of a the hallow with cavities and galleries), we can plant means the changes that plant has undergone conclude that they are indices, acknowledging under the influences of the environment, such as Martin Krampen’s theory that the notion of image wind, rain, heat, etc. or attack from insects, in plant kingdom is related to indexicality, as bacteria or fungi. The walnut tree from our photos essential means of visual representation. has a thick trunk, with a semi-enclosed cavity (a (Krampen Martin, 1981, ). All the hallow with numerous galleries) situated in the indexical signs from our study are homogenous as middle of the trunk, and a large green crown. far as signification or meaning is concerned and There are deep cracks covering the trunk and the communicate or signify that the walnut tree is branches of the tree, showing lichen growth. At the getting old. As we have already mentioned, a given base of the walnut tree we can notice the presence sign may exhibit more than one aspect. One and of some vigorous grasses. The next step in our the same sign may function as iconic or as an index analysis was to decode the coded iconic message, or symbol. So, an indexical sign at origin may get a in other words the interpretation of the iconic signs symbolic value. In our case study, the hallow from recognized in our pictures, to establish what they the walnut tree presents an iconic polisemy: it may signify and communicate in order to derive the have several connotations or secondary meanings. symbolic or connoted message(s). According to It may function as a symbol of death: this “wound” Roland Barthes, the coded iconic message is the or “empty space” on the trunck of the walnut tree story that the image portrays. Non-verbal signs can will never heal, accelerating the death of the tree. produce many complex symbols and hold multiple At the same time, the hallow may be considered a meanings. As it is mentioned in ’s symbol of “opening to unknown, something work, Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics, (2001), mysterious, obscure”. In mythology and universal a natural sign bears a causal relation to its object symbology, the hallow usually represented the and may exhibit more than one aspect. The bark of shelter where the evil spirits lived. In some the walnut tree from our photos presents numerous Romanian legends and folk tales, the devil is “ the deep cracks. This is a natural phenomenon and a One” who lives in hallows. On the other hand, the sign/index as well.With the passing of time, the hallow may also symbolise the happiness and bark, which is the protective layer covering the innocence of childhood, a “secret” place or shelter trunk of trees, becomes rough and corky, with deep where children could hide when playing hide and cracks. This information may be interpreted as a seek. The analysis of plastic signs from our sign/index signifying that walnut tree is aging, or pictures has focused on symbolic language of the getting old. The presence of the grasses at the base colours. Diversity in colour meanings and of the walnut trunk may be also regarded as a sign, symbolism occurs on an individual, cultural and

269 Universitatea de Ştiinţe Agricole şi Medicină Veterinară Iaşi universal basis. (O'Connor, Z., 2015, Colour Meaning depends on the viewer’s knowledge and Symbolism: Individual, cultural and universal). In culture, just as the context in which the sign our case study the predominant colours are green appears. Making a synthesis of all visual, non- (the tree crown and the branches of the tree, linguistic signs presented above - absence of nuts, showing lichen growth) and grey (the hallow). presence of the grasses at the base of the tree, deep Green is the colour most commonly associated and numerous cracks on trunck and branches, the with springtime, freshness and hope. It is often hallow with cavities and galleries, we can notice used to symbolize rebirth, renewal and that they are indexical signs, homogenous as far as immortality. Green represents the faith that things signification or meaning is concerned, and will improve after a period of difficulty, like the communicate or signify that the walnut tree is renewal of flowers and plants after the winter getting old and the death is approaching. Semiotics season. Like other common colours, green has has facilitated a better understanding not only of several completely opposite associations. While it the complexity of the living world, but also of the is the colour most associated with good health, it is communicative force of the image, based on sign also the colour associated with toxicity and poison. relations within plant kingdom, where the notion of The green colour from the branches of the walnut image is related to indexicality, as essential means tree is given by lichen growth. Lichen are usually of visual representation. met on the bark of old trees, with reduced vigor, signalling the diminishing of physiological REFERENCES processes, and together with the indexical signs mentioned above, they anticipate the oncoming Andersen, Myrdene et. al., 1984 - A Semiotic Perspective on the Sciences: Steps toward a death of the walnut tree. Grey - the colour of the New Paradigm, Semiotica 44 : 7- 47. hallow, is an intermediate colour between black Barthes, R., 1977 - The Rhetoric of the Image.Image, and white. Grey is usually associated with Music,Text., Stephen Heath, N.Y., Hill and Wang, uncertainty, old age, solitude and emptiness, 32-51. Enseev, I., 1999 - Enciclopedia semnelor şi simbolurilor secrecy and shadows, and in our case study this culturale, Timişoara, Ed. Amacord. colour increases the mistery of the hallow. The Groupe, M., 1992 - Traite du signe visual. Pour une global significance of the visual message(s), rhetorique de l’image, Paris, Seuil. constructed by the interaction of indexical and Joly, Martine, 1998 - Introducere în analiza imaginii, Bucureşti, Ed. All Educational. plastic signs, points out that the notion of image Krampen, M., 1981 - Phytosemiotics, Semiotica 36 within plant kingdom is related to indexicality, as (3/4). essential means of visual representation. Lester, Paul M., 2006 - Visual Communication: Images with Messages, Belmont, C.A. Thomson CONCLUSIONS Wadsworth. O’Connor, Z., 2015 - Colour Symbolism: Individual, Cultural and Universal, Design Research Visual messages or “visual texts” are an Association, Sydney. important area of analysis for semioticians, Pânzaru, Olga, 2006 - Abordarea semiotică a unei because images are a central part of our scene vegetale, Lucrări ştiinţifice, seria communication sign system. While natural signs Agronomie, vol.49 Supliment, Iaşi, Ed. Ion Ionescu de la Brad. serve as the source of signification, the human Sebeok, Thomas, 2001 - Signs : An Introduction to mind is the agency through which signs signify Semiotics, 2nd Edition, University of Toronto naturally occurring things, such as states, qualities, Press. quantities, events, processes, or relationships. To *** - Peirce’s Theories of Signs, 2007 - Cambridge University Press. read images in “depth” we need to know iconic *** - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/497416 code. A sign isn’t a “sign” unless it expresses ideas /religious-symbolism and if it brings about interpretative reasoning in the *** - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_semiotics mind of a person or of those who perceive it. *** - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics_of_photogra

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