37.2662, Reviews: Speaking in Pictures: Neil Cohn (2026)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2662. Thu Aug 13 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2662, Reviews: Speaking in Pictures: Neil Cohn (2026)

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Date: 13-Aug-2026
From: Yuka Naito [yuka.naito at unimi.it]
Subject: Cognitive Science, General Linguistics, Psycholinguistics: Neil Cohn (2026)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/37-861

Title: Speaking in Pictures
Subtitle: A Vision of Language
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/speaking-in-pictures-9781350402164/

Author(s): Neil Cohn

Reviewer: Yuka Naito

Please write or copy and paste your review of Speaking in Pictures
here.
SUMMARY
Neil Cohn’s book, “Speaking in Pictures: a vision of language”, is an
impressive work that took seven years and 1,000 pages of rough drafts
to produce. The book comprises a prologue, 11 chapters, and notes.
The prologue presents Cohn’s brief self-introduction, in which he
talks about his passion for drawing and about his research on pictures
and languages ever since his encounter with linguistics. It is
important to note from the onset that the text is not only written in
the style of a comic book (discussed in detail later), but also
employs a conversational tone, shown for example in the use of verb
contractions. The prologue concludes with a scene in which Cohn
arrives at his lecture room.
Following the prologue, the book depicts the author giving lectures to
students in a comic book format across 11 chapters.
Chapter 1 introduces “visual language”, the main topic of the book.
Cohn classifies three types of language based on the modality they
use: 1) spoken languages, 2) sign languages, and 3) visual languages
defined as expressing “meaning through a grammar using graphics” (p.
20). Despite this difference in modality, Cohn points out that the
language systems we use “are similar in how they are structured, in
how the brain processes them and in how we learn to produce them” (p.
28). Indeed, the author explains that people who have different
idiolects share a common visual language when these idiolects have a
similar pattern. For example, the Japanese visual language associated
with the patterns and structures used in manga is comprehensible to
all speakers of Japanese idiolects, but differs from the American
visual language associated with superhero comics.
Chapters 2 and 3 address the three parts involved in communications:
1) modality, 2) meaning that the modality expresses, and 3) the
relationship between the modality and the meaning.
Chapter 2 focuses on the modality of visual language and compares it
with that of sign language and especially with that of spoken
language. In visual language, the grapheme is the basic, abstract unit
of graphic representation and it corresponds to phoneme in spoken
language. At the suprasegmental level, the graphemes can form groups
called “regions”, as happens with syllables in speech. In addition,
just as syllables can be signaled by boundaries, regions are signaled
by junctures.
Chapter 3 discusses meaning and its relationship with modality during
communication.
Cohn explains that modalities, such as speech sounds or graphic marks,
all present experiences in different ways, but they all “tap into a
common ‘hub’ of semantic memory in the brain” (p. 64). The meanings
inside our heads can thus be conveyed by means of all of these
modalities. Cohn shows how visual meaning/language could follow a path
of development like that of spoken language, from idiosyncratic
experiences—unique and varied each time—that can eventually lead to
the systematic recognition of the instances as representing the same
thing in different forms. Cohn illustrates three types of connection
of meaning to modality: 1) iconic, 2) indexical, and 3) symbolic
(arbitrary association). While graphics excel in iconicity because
they resemble their meaning, indexicality can be seen when we point to
something, whether with a finger, and arrow or through the use of
words like “this” or “that”. Speech sounds excel in symbolicity
through the use of sound patterns to indicate meaning. However,
pictures are not only iconic; the author argues that too much
attention is given to the arbitrary symbolic association between
signifier and signified in speech, compared to that in bodily and
graphic expressions.
Chapter 4 addresses the classification of writing systems, including
images. Cohn argues that rather than using two dimensions of sound and
meaning, we should use three dimensions: 1) sound-based, 2) iconic,
and 3) symbolic. He explains the utility of the three-dimension
classification by giving several examples from emojis, numbers and
various types of Chinese characters.
Chapter 5 explains visual vocabulary. Just like our spoken
vocabularies that contain letters, morphemes like affixes, words,
compound words, idioms and so on, visual vocabulary items can be
analyzed as consisting of basic lines and shapes and combinations of
these. Visual language simultaneously reflects and transcends
individual styles to the extent that people compose drawings using the
same symbols.
Chapter 6 explains how people's drawing abilities develop with age.
Cohn argues that children's drawing style and skill typically develop
until around the ages of 8 to 11. After this stage, drawing ability
tends to remain relatively stable throughout life unless individuals
deliberately engage in sustained practice to become proficient in a
particular visual language.
Chapter 7 presents the morphology of visual languages. Like the
morphology of other modalities, visual morphology uses a few crucial
strategies to combine elements. These are affixation, suppletion (one
morpheme replaces all or part of a stem), reduplication (a morpheme is
repeated), and blending (two whole forms are merged).
Chapter 8 discusses visual language’s conceptual creativity; providing
a variety of examples, Cohn explains the techniques used in visual
languages: metonymy, metaphor, conceptual blending (e.g., an image
that combines animals with people), optimal innovations (e.g.,
manipulation of a base image with substitution to create new
meanings), and multimodal blend (e.g., combining graphics with text).
Chapter 9 deals with grammatical patterns in visual language: simple
short sequences (such as one image or two images), ordered or
unordered (listed) simple linear sequences, and phrase structures.
Cohn illustrates the visual grammatical structure of complex image
sequences by using tree diagrams branching from a narrative arc and
showing the grouping of units into chunks. He compares this tree
structure to syntax trees. As examples of how visual grammar works at
a more detailed syntactic level, he explains visual recursion: in this
case, an image panel that represents a “head” or climax event (which
he calls “peak”) is embedded inside another peak panel, just as a noun
phrase can be embedded in another noun phrase.
Chapter 10 addresses image sequences. Cohn explains that writing
systems have a default order of presentation (e.g., left-to-right and
top to bottom: the z-path of many alphabets). The author provides
numerous examples of how the order and structure of image panel
layouts can vary and how the variations can influence meaning (just as
the rhythm and stress of spoken languages influence meaning).
Chapter 11 retraces the steps establishing the visual grammar that
Cohn contends underlies graphic signs and compositions. The author
points out that drawing is an ability unique to humans, and that it
anchors to a central cognitive “hub” from which all human
communication emanates. While in modern culture drawing has been seen
as a means of personal expression with an aesthetic value that depends
on the drawer’s individual talent or practice, Cohn argues that this
central cognitive ability is instinctive to all humans, as are the
structures that underlie our communicative ability, and that our use
of drawing is at least as old as our use of language.
Lastly, the notes provide references and anecdotes for the research
conducted by the authors and other researchers mentioned in the main
text.
EVALUATION
“Speaking in Pictures: a vision of language”, is a truly extraordinary
introductory but comprehensive investigation of visual language. A
linguistic textbook in cartoon format, this book is written from a
generativist viewpoint. Regardless of readers’ ideas about
generativism, its content is genuinely enjoyable and intriguing not
only for linguists and students of linguistics but also for those who
have not studied linguistics or had any interest in it so far. In
order to explain visual language to readers, Cohn draws parallels
between the forms and structures of spoken and other language
modalities, and visual language.
One of the reasons for its pleasantness of reading is that the book is
well structured and clearly written (and drawn). Another reason lies
in the ingenious narrative strategy the author has incorporated
throughout the text: it is written in the form of a lecture given by
the protagonist— the author himself—to his students. The teacher
frequently asks the students questions to encourage them to think for
themselves and sometimes asks them (and thus the readers) to draw
pictures. Thus, rather than being a one-way lecture where the teacher
simply explains things to the students, his lecture is an interactive
lesson in which the students also ask the teacher many questions. By
identifying with the students, readers would be able to enjoy his
lecture.
A number of studies have already investigated the relationship between
speech and gesture (e.g., Rohrer et al., 2022 for L1 acquisition
context) and the relationship between speech and images (e.g.,
Hardison, 2003 for L2 perception context). However, I do not know of
any other linguistic textbooks at the undergraduate level that draw
for comparison not only on speech sounds but also on bodily gestures
and graphics. Its comprehensive explanation, not only of visual
language but also of the links between the visual modality and other
language modalities, makes this a very valuable resource as a
linguistic textbook.
Although the book is an introductory book on visual language, it also
mentions several experimental studies carried out by the author and
his research group, presenting them in an accessible manner. This
makes it suitable not only for undergraduate students in linguistics
and other disciplines that deal with languages but also for graduate
or PhD students and linguists who would like to examine some aspects
of visual language in more depth.
If forced to choose the most distinctive and interesting feature of
this book, almost any reader would point to the fact that it is
written in a comic book format. It might be argued that since the book
concerns “visual language”, it would be natural to use the comic book
format. However, in Italy where I currently live, there are virtually
no educational textbooks written in comic book format, and I certainly
have never come across a specialized linguistics book written in comic
format.
In my country, Japan, on the other hand, a considerable number of
educational textbooks have been published in a comic book format, both
for children and adults. The subjects covered in educational manga
textbooks include mathematics, music, science, history and literature:
in other words, comic books are utilized in every field of education.
To take an example, even one of the masterpieces of world literature,
“Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevskij, was published in manga format
in 2007. In Japan, manga can be bought in regular bookstores in Japan,
with educational manga generally placed in the educational book
section. By contrast, in Italy, bookstores generally do not sell
manga, whereas manga stores sell only manga, but not books. This
suggests that outside Japan there are few options regarding the format
of textbooks.
Themelis and Sime (2020) claim that comics can be attractive to
readers with learning difficulties such as dyslexia. Indeed, while
Rasamimanana et al.s’ (2026) eye-tracking experiment showed no
difference in reading comprehension of comics between dyslexic and
non-dyslexic participants, participants with dyslexia showed a larger
difference in the time required to read stories in text format vs
comic format than their non-dyslexic counterparts. The researchers
also found that, compared to participant without dyslexia, dyslexic
participants relied more on picture processing to comprehend the
comics’ content. They spent more time on pictures, revisited previous
seen pictures more frequently, and made more saccades between balloons
and their corresponding pictures. These findings imply that people
with dyslexia may support their reading and comprehension processing
by relying on the semantic information provided by different reading
formats.
>From the perspective of inclusivity—ensuring that people with specific
learning difficulties associated with reading are not left
behind—Cohn’s book is a successful attempt to fill a major gap. This
educational linguistic textbook is an excellent resource for inclusive
learning and teaching.
“Speaking in Pictures: a vision of language” should also be of great
interest to manga-ka and others interested in comics, because Cohn
explains various comic book techniques from the viewpoint of
linguistics, providing many examples. These techniques were familiar
to me, because I have seen them many times while reading manga, but I
had not noticed them. I am sure that Cohn’s ideas can easily be
understood and enjoyed even by manga/comic lovers who have not studied
linguistics or been interested in linguistics so far.
In conclusion, Cohn’s book makes an important contribution to
linguistics, including to the field of phonetics: somewhat
surprisingly, many of his examples draw on speech sounds to establish
parallels with the graphic structures of visual language. The book
would serve as an excellent undergraduate textbook, demonstrating the
remarkable breadth of topics encompassed by linguistics. It is a
valuable resource, not only because it sheds light on visual language,
an important aspect of human communication that has received
relatively little attention within linguistics as a subject of
teaching, but also because it promotes a more inclusive approach to
learning and teaching.
REFERENCES
Dostoevskij, F. M. (with Variety Art Works). (2007). 罪と罰 [Crime and
Punishment]. イースト・プレス.
Hardison, D. M. (2003). Acquisition of second-language speech: Effects
of visual cues, context, and talker variability. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 24(4), 495–522.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716403000250
Rasamimanana, M., Mizzi, R., Melmi, J.-B., Saffi, S., & Colé, P.
(2026). Can pictures in comics improve reading accessibility in
university students with dyslexia? An eye-tracking study. Annals of
Dyslexia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-025-00359-6
Rohrer, P. L., Florit-Pons, J., Vilà-Giménez, I., & Prieto, P. (2022).
Children Use Non-referential Gestures in Narrative Speech to Mark
Discourse Elements Which Update Common Ground. Frontiers in
Psychology, 12, 661339. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.661339
Themelis, C., & Sime, J.-A. (2020). Comics for inclusive,
technology-enhanced language learning. In S. Mavridi & V. Saumell
(Eds), Digital innovations and research in language learning (pp.
93–114). IATEFL.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Yuka Naito received her PhD in Language Sciences from the University
of Pavia in Italy and has been a postdoctoral fellow at the University
of Milan. She is a member of the AKiD (Acoustic and Kinematic
Characteristics of Speech in Dementia) project team formed to
investigate the phonetic profile of patients with dementia. Her
primary academic interests are second language acquisition and speech
perception, focus particularly on suprasegmental phonetics.
In addition to clinical phonetics, her research interests include
acoustic and articulatory phonetics, language revitalization (of the
Ladin language spoken in Italy) and the language and conceptual issues
arising in translation.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1819-6972



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