Film, thought and language

The purpose of this paper is to identify and clarify some of the ways pictorial images in the form of still photography, illustrated magazines, film, television and computer graphics are changing the way we read, write and think. The single most easily observed and far‐reaching change is the way pictorial images are altering the content of our concepts. Pictorial images have become the illustrating exemplars of many base‐level concepts—kinds of things, people, places and situations with consequences for Reading : readers, instead of drawing on first‐hand experience or imagination, are filling out mental pictures from their vast experience with pictorial images; Writing : contemporary writers of fiction or non‐fiction tend to eschew lavish description and key up mental images by a single term or referring phrase; Thinking : although it appears that the heavy influx of photographic images is dulling or inhibiting certain creative activities associated with reading and writing, in fact, pictorial images are stimulating other creative activities of mind that render the thought of a particular time coherent. Further, English as an international language of communication is becoming more universal as photographic or television images go everywhere, but English as a literary language is becoming more parochial as writers, in response to the accelerating number of pictorial images, are turning away from traditional narrative description to explore the possibilities of language itself.