Post 4: Pictographs & Writing

I chose to discuss the National Park Service pictographs which depicts different areas and activities associated with the outdoors. These images are not limited to one language but rather are universally understood, which is one of the benefits pictographs have over written text. As Ignace Gelb states, the writing system is capable of transcribing linguistic statements while other types of graphic notation allow people to communicate through a widely recognized set of marks or signs. No matter what cultural background a person may have, they will still see the restroom sign and be able to distinguish which one is for men and which one is for women. However, without a pictograph to display this information, the language barrier may prevent someone from understanding which gender is being discussed.

A true pictograph is an image that conveys meaning by displaying the action, place or object mind. Though it does not use text, pictographs can be considered a form of writing because they create such meaning in the way the images are presented and combined with one another. For example, if someone was at a beach and saw two signs next two each other, one that showed a person swimming with a red line through it and another with a shark fin, that person would know not to swim in this area because of the risk of being attacked by a shark. These two pictographs replace the need for "Don't swim here or sharks will eat you" to be written on a sign in several different languages.

Drucker and McGann, authors of "Images as the Text", begin their argument by addressing the concept of pictographic logic, which is made up of elements such as organization as well as the medium through which the images are displayed. They state that it is founded on two principles: "the  description of an entity and the articulation of relations among entities." Furthermore, these principles can be used to transform written texts into their visual, pictographic state. The authors believe that pictographic logic is a way of understanding the abstract ordering of texts and images.

The example of the Sumer tablets displays an instance when image and quantity worked together to create meaning. The first sign, being a true pictograph, served to depict the actual item while the second sign operated as part of an abstract code which tells the viewer how much of the item there was. This combination of pictographs and a form of writing is an example of how the two mediums aid in each other's overall meaning.

Noegel's article on the relationship between ancient forms of writing and our current cyber-culture makes a few interesting connections. One in specific is the Mesopotamians who drove clay cones with prayers inscribed on them into buildings, believing the words would hold it up. Similar concepts such as building a web site to set the foundation for a career exist in our culture today, which shows how many of our associations with writing have not changed over time.