Research On W.J.T.Mitchell’s Viewpoints On Image-Text

With the development of mass media and the prevalence of pop culture,images and pictures begin to flood into people’s lives,and at the same time,they are also widely concerned by scholars.W.J.T.Mitchell as an important scholar in the field of image and visual culture of the 20th century,has realized the scholars have lost interest and enthusiasm studying in picture theory by traditional research methods of iconology and semiotics.In that case,he is trying to build a new type of iconology to complete the independent studying in picture,image and visual icon.In Mitchell’s process of constructing image science,conceptual key words which are theoretical usually become the core of his views.The author selects three representative keywords in Mitchell’s image research and puts them into the context of the relationship between text and image,so as to get a glimpse of his viewpoints on the relationship between text and image contained in Mitchell’ image research.By using the research method of literature analyzing and textual close reading,the author excavates,analyzes and explains Mitchell’s thoughts on the relationship between text and image,and starts with three key words to classify and integrate Mitchell’s viewpoints on image-text,and finally produces theoretical and rational reflection in the field of research on image-text relations.The author brings Mitchell’s image theory into the research field of image-text,and makes a comprehensive arrangement and summary of his viewpoints on image-text.At the same time,from the perspective of keywords,the study of Mitchell’s thoughts on image-text can be more clearly and accurately to grasp to a certain extent,and explore the specific context of the emergence and development of Mitchell’s viewpoints on image-text,so as to conduct a more reasonable theoretical analysis.This paper is divided into four chapters.The first chapter takes "verbal image" as the entry point to discuss the innovative significance of establishing the family tree of images under the efforts of reconstructing iconology."Verbal image",as an important branch of image,shows the symbiotic relationship between language and image on the surface,but its essence is to capture and correspond to image through language and text carrier,presenting the related meaning of text and image that image is independent of language and language is pictorial.The second chapter takes "meta-picture" as the entry point to discuss Mitchell’s opinion that picturing theory should be used to construct the subject status of image science after putting forward the viewpoint on pictorial turn.As the imagic presentation of the method for picturing theory,"meta-picture" shows the multi-structure and self-reflexivity to eliminate the conclusion of pictures interpreted by text and language,thus getting rid of the destiny of second-level reproduction of first-level language to some extent.The third chapter takes "imagetext" as the entry point to discuss Mitchell’s general viewpoint on the image-text relationship.The theory of imagetext emphasizes the heterogeneous and hybrid state of the combination of text and image.By contrasting the pictorial texts and textual pictures,Mitchell’s highlights the compositing pattern between images and texts.In the last part,the above three key words are put into the field of text and image for viewing,and the characteristics of Mitchell’s viewpoints on the relationship between text and image are summarized.Mitchell’s thought of image and text still has strong vitality and applicability in the 21st century.However,since there is no spontaneous formation of the image-text theory with integrity,there are still limitations in exploration and reflection in the field of text and image.