Nascent and mature uses of a semiotic system: the case of image–text relations

This article first develops the system of image–text relations introduced in Martinec and Salway’s (2005) article – ‘A system for image–text relations in new (and old) media’) – mainly by focusing on the motivated quality of the relationship between the system’s meanings and realizations. This motivatedness points to the system’s being mature rather than nascent. The article then focuses on nascent uses of the image–text relations system, i.e. uses that have not yet stabilized and that could benefit from a semiotician’s intervention. The nascent uses in question regard the amount of inferencing that is required to identify equal-status image–text relations. Inferencing of equal-status image–text relations is first analyzed in old media and the effort invested in it is found to be quite adequate, which suggests a mature use of the relations. Examples of equal-status image–text relations from new media are then analyzed and it is argued that at times they require too much and at other times too little inferencing.Their use has thus not achieved an optimal state and has not yet stabilized. It is demonstrated that a semiotician’s intervention can lead to a more optimal amount of inferencing and thus drive the use of equal-status image–text relations in new media in the direction of mature uses.