Visual Citation in Intermedial Relations

In “La seconde main ou le travail de la citation” (1979, 2016), Antoine Compagnon examines in depth the phenomenon of verbal citations and offers a theoretical framework to understand this concept, which has become referential for linguists. According to the author, verbal citations have the status of “a validity criterion, a means for controlling the enunciation, and a regulatory device” (Compagnon, La seconde main, ou, Le travail de la citation. Points, Paris, 2016: 12). The omnipresence of images and their centrality to the different media created from the late twentieth century onwards have prompted a renewal and enlargement of this concept by means of the notion of visual citation. Clüver (Aletria: Revista De Estudos De Literatura 14:10–41, 2006), Groensteen (Bédé, ciné, pub et art: d’un média à l’autre. Infolio, Gollion, 2007), and Elleström (Adaptation studies: new challenges, new directions. Bloomsbury, London, 2013), among others, adopt this broader notion of citation in their studies on intermedial relations. (Chambat-Houillon, Marie-France, De l’audiovisuel vers le télévisuel: deux modèles de citation pour les émissions de télévision. Revue Ci-Dit, Nice, 2009) further enlarges the concept in her studies on TV programs. Visual citations are recurrent in plurisemiotic environments such as television, photography, film, drama, comics, etc. They function in connection with intermedial process such as intermedial references, intramedial references, ekphrasis, remediation, transmedial remediation, transmediation, and others. This chapter offers a critical overview of the different uses of the term “visual citation” in intermedial studies and examines its working when applied to different media and intermedial processes.