Visual pragmatic effects of distance representation in bilingual museum catalogue entries of Chinese landscape paintings

In view of the fact that the purely cognitive semantic approach adopted in previous studies on the representation of distance is not adequate, the present paper argues, from a perspective of visual perception theory, that the verbalisation of language-independent distance-related information (e.g. visual Distance Cues) also contributes to distance representation. Then, a cognitive-functional model is proposed to explore the visual pragmatic effects of the distance representation in bilingual museum catalogue entries of Chinese landscape paintings, through investigating the presentation and focalisation of distance expressions. Unlike previous research, the expressions under investigation cover both the spatial expressions that can induce a sense of distance and the verbalised non-linguistic Distance Cues. Based upon the results, the visual pragmatic effects of distance representation are analysed with the focus on how verbal methods of representing distance are applied to facilitate the viewer's appreciation of ‘Three Distances’ (i.e. high distance, level distance or deep distance) emphasised in Chinese landscape paintings.

► I observe the verbalisation of language-independent distance-related information.
► I examine how verbal Distance Cues are organised and focalised to represent distance.
► I illustrate how the possible visual pragmatic effects of verbal DCs may be possibly perceived.
► I explain the difference between Chinese and English catalogue entries.