Pictures with words

This paper addresses the relationship of pictures and words in illustrated books and newspapers. The author introduces and discusses Roland Barthes' distinction between anchor and relay relationships, and a further development of this distinction by Alain-Marie Bassy. In an anchor relationship, the interpretation of an illustration is anchored to one of its possible meanings by a caption or other linguistic explanation. In a relay relationship, words and pictures are mutually reliant, as in a comic strip. The author suggests that 'defining the relationships between picture and text in this way, has implications for layout.'