Language and Culture in Visual Narratives

Abstract

Abstract Languages differ in whether their verbs of motion primarily emphasize manner of motion, for example, skip, scurry, or primarily emphasize path of motion, for example, enter, ascend. This difference affects the ways authors narrate stories and how those stories are translated from path to manner languages and vice versa. When authors who speak manner languages describe complex action paths, they get translated into spatial scenes in path languages and vice versa. We asked whether those differences in describing motion are expressed in visual narratives, in this case, comics directed at teen- and pre-teen boys, comics that are likely to have considerable action. Japanese and Americans rated comic frames on a scale from extreme action to extreme scene-setting taken from the beginning, middle and end of comics from two manner languages, Chinese and English, and two path languages, Japanese and Italian. As predicted, depicted action was rated higher in the manner languages. In addition, action was rated higher for comics in the two eastern languages. Thus, the dominant ways of expressing action in descriptions also appeared in depictions. This effect could be an indirect result of habitual ways of observing the world in anticipation of speaking or it could be a direct result of creating depictions from language.