# Defining Depiction Ben Blumson **Opening (not a real abstract):** It’s a platitude that whereas words are connected to what they represent merely by arbitrary conventions, pictures are connected to what they represent because they resemble what they represent. My portrait and my name, for example, are importantly different because whereas my portrait and I are connected by my portrait’s resemblance to me, my name and I are only arbitrarily connected. In this essay, I argue for an analysis of depiction which supports this platitude by combining it with Paul Grice’s (1989) analysis of speaker meaning in terms of communicative intentions. **Authors:** [[Defining Depiction]]