Analyzing the semiotic nature of GIFs: visual nominalization and visual telicity

Abstract

Abstract GIFs, short audio-free loops of moving sequences, are active members of social semiotic resources in the era of Internet 2.0 that could generate humor, mediate power and signal identity. This paper proposes the perspective of visual nominalization and visual telicity as GIF properties that, in the environment of social media technologies, become capable of expressing polyphonic evaluation, transcontexualized polysemy, and dual deixis. Visual nominalization expresses the freeing of movement from integration into a time-dependent narrative and the abstraction resulting in deemphasized participants and emphasized processes. These traits are activated and realized by visual telicity, which is looping movement that can be conceptualized as an atelic visual container which packages and expresses both telic and atelic processes. This paper argues that visual nominalization and visual telicity are what establishes GIFs’ semiotic differences from still images and film videos, and facilitates their integration with written language in online and computer-mediated discourse.