身体·文字·图像：唯物史观视域下记忆媒介演进及其当代启示

Body, Script, and Image: The Evolution of Memory Media from the Perspective of Historical Materialism and Its Contemporary Implications

摘要: 身体、文字和图像可被看作人类“语言”的三种主要形态，三者在记忆传承与历史书写中相互交叠和转化，并在叙事功能、认知效果和记忆构建上呈现出本质差异。身体语言是人类历史记忆传递的起点，具有即时性、在场性和整体性的特征，但其叙事作用因身体和语境依赖性而十分有限；文字语言开启了历史记忆大众化、世俗化的传播时代，具有固定化、抽象化和线性化的特征，也导向记忆力的萎缩和记忆的垄断；图像语言是人类记忆的一次更为彻底的解放，具有具体性、直观性和意象性的叙事特征，既延续了身体语言对在场性的持有，又具备文字语言的物质化存档优势。以图像语言为基础的影像叙事的崛起，为历史唯物主义应对语言媒介的转变提供了重要的指引，也为当今数字媒介时代的历史记忆构建提供了批判反思的新场域。

Abstract: Bodily, script, and image-based language can be regarded as three primary modalities of human “language.” In the processes of memory transmission and historical inscription, they intertwine and mutually transform, yet they manifest essential divergences in narrative capacity, cognitive impact, and mnemonic construction. Bodily language, which initiates the transmission of human historical memory, bears the traits of immediacy, presence, and integrality; nevertheless, its narrative efficacy remains severely circumscribed by its corporeal and contextual dependence. Script ushered in an era of popularized and secularized dissemination of historical memory, featuring fixity, abstraction, and linearity, yet it simultaneously led to the atrophy of mnemonic faculties and the monopolization of memory. Image-based language represents a more thoroughgoing emancipation of human memory, distinguished by concreteness, intuitiveness, and imagistic narration. It not only preserves the quality of presence inherent in bodily language but also enjoys the material archival advantages of script. The rise of image-based visual narratives has offered important theoretical guidance for historical materialism to respond to the shift in linguistic media, while simultaneously furnishing a new arena for critical reflection on the formation of historical memory in the present digital age.