Analyzing comics from a discursive approach — On the visual representation of semantic processes

This entry is part of a series of revised translated notes on a topic originally covered in my undergraduate thesis, which was originally written and published in Spanish, and can be found here.

Up to this point, it has been possible to observe a series of phenomena related to the visual representation of different kinds of semantic content in comics, through these observations it also becomes possible to ask oneself how is this semantic content organized to convey structured meaning? To answer this question, we’ll once again introduce the grammatical notion of transitivity, only this time we’ll see it from another theoretical point of view. According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), transitivity can be defined as the system that allows language users to construe their world and experiences in said world into “a manageable set of processes types”, with each of these types providing representation models for construing particular domains of experience as different kinds of structures, which can be broadly categorized as happening, doing, sensing, saying, being or having.

In strictly verbal language, transitivity is traditionally understood as a global property of clauses, and it allows speakers to express the way how an activity is ‘carried-over’ or ‘transferred’ from an agent to a patient. These activities can be categorized into six different types of processes, all of them involving certain conditions and participants, as we will see in the following section:

• Material processes: these processes represent physical actions or external experiences, in other words, they require actions or events to take place in a physical plane.
• Mental processes: in contrast to material processes, mental ones are related to cognitive perception, and they include not only said perception but reactions, assessments, and reflections on phenomena external to the entity that’s perceiving them.
• Relational processes: used to encompass processes that allow generalization, classification, and the establishment of different kind of relationships between entities.
• Verbal processes: as their name implies, these processes are used to express the different ways through which entities can employ discourse to express concepts and experiences.
• Behavioral processes: standing in a middle point between material and mental processes, this category includes all the unwilling, ofter material, realizations that reflect the way an external process can affect an entity.
• Existential processes: related to the representation of semantic concepts (either real or fictional) through language, existential processes refer to the way entities or phenomena are or exist.

Regarding participants, the following table includes the six process types previously described, along with the different kind of participants each requires:

A simplified table illustrating the category meaning of the six types of semantic processes, as well as the participants (either directly or obliquely involved) required by each type. Adapted from An Introduction to Functional Grammar by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 260).

As we have previously seen, panels are the minimal unit of communication in comics, which makes it possible to assume that it will be through them that different kinds of processes will be expressed and organized. For this to happen, it is necessary for panels to establish relationships between the entities and conventionalized elements represented within them, so that readers can recognize the activities that will be considered analogous to semantic processes (see the visual representation of verbs in the previous entry for more information on this). Due to the nature of comic panels, it is possible to identify more than one process within a single one of these units. Conversely, it is also possible for the same process to be expressed across different panels, with each of these units relating to other by establishing cohesion and coherence relationships (this is: by repeating elements that allow readers to recognize the fact that a group of panels is presenting them with a related sequence of events).

At this point, it is also important to remember that this research operates on the assumption that comics do not have a visual unit that explicitly express activities the same way verbs do, with activities, and thus processes, being something readers must infer by establishing semantic relationships between entities that will work as the participants of a particular process. As such, a material process like batting would be identified within a comic panel thanks to the existence of 1) an entity batting something (commonly an object) 2) the instrument used to bat (usually held by the previous entity) and 3) the batted object.

Peanuts By Charles Schulz (1953). Despite there not being any kind of linguistic indication, the presence of two characters drawn in a particular pose with trajectory lines surrounding them (and more importantly, the fact that they are re both holding a bat) makes it evident that the process represented in these two panels is the material process of batting, even if the batted object (which is safe to assume is probably a ball) is not visually represented

Regarding material processes, they differ from most of the other types of semantic processes in the way these can be almost completely inferred without having to rely on any kind of linguistic disambiguation. With this in mind, this research will consider as material processes all those that, through the previously described inference process, emphasize the expressing of a physical action executed by an agent entity. The emphasis on the executed action makes it possible to propose a key difference between material and behavioral processes, which will we be explained by contrasting the following examples:

Milena Manzana by Milena Tilli (2014). These two panels present a visual contrast between behavioral and material processes.

Though it is possible to recognize a physical action (which could be described as holding something, specifically a brush) in the panel included at the left of the previous figure, the visual emphasis in this panel seems to be put in the character’s face, particularly in their expression. This visual emphasis makes it possible to argue that the process here represented is closed to a reaction or a realization, thus making it akin to a behavioral one. In contrast, by implementing not only trajectory lines but by also representing the way an object crashes and breaks, the panel to the right places emphasis in this action, making it — according to what has been presented throughout this research — a panel that contains a material process.

Besides material processes — and their apparent relation to behavioral ones — there are some two types of processes that can be briefly described, these are existential and verbal processes. Since the representation of entities in comic panels is essentially equivalent to saying they exist within the limits of said unit, it becomes possible to affirm that the representation of entities partaking in any kind of activity implies their existence, which makes possible to affirm that, within comics, existential processes occur simultaneously to other kinds of processes. As for verbal processes, the representation of these is partially tied to the usage of speech bubbles (through which the activity of saying or verbiages can be made explicit within panels), even if it’s possible to affirm that some visual aspects (be it the way characters, either the sayer or the receiver, are represented or the usage of stylized bubbles to represent whispering or screaming, for instance) can be used to alter the way in which the act of speaking is being represented in comics.

Catboy by Benji Nate (2016). A panel simultaneously representing verbal and existential processes. Despite their more evident representation, there are several grammatical aspects of the two previously described (such as negative enunciation modes, or grammatical aspect, to name a few), that can still be studied in depth.

From the information presented throughout this series, it is possible to conclude that comics as communicative texts work by establishing logical and sequential relations between the different kinds of information they can contain, and that the establishment of these relations take places within the limits of panels, which in turn makes it possible to affirm that — in a way similar to linguistic clauses — comic panels are units capable of presenting, not only different kinds of semantic information (be it that through pictures, discourse or by making both systems collaborate), but also of construing different types of grammatical relations that affect the organization and interpretation of these texts. Regarding the representation of semantic processes, the analysis presented in this article is mostly related to the visual representation of events that require both entities existing and said entities participating in physical actions (being either by executing them or by being affected by them), meaning the possibility of continuing this research by taking a further look into the representation of mental processes (as well as the grammatical phenomena related to them) remains open.

As a closing note, it is pertinent to keep in mind that, while the methods and theoretical resources used along this work were originally conceived to study inherently verbal languages, the intention of this series is not to subordinate comics to linguistic discourse, but rather to show the way these kinds of texts can convey meaning by establishing systematically organized relationships between the different kinds of content presented in them. In other words, the analysis of comics here presented has the intention of showing readers how comics, with their own characteristics, are as complex and articulate as any other language.