Polysemy & Anchors

With out the text bellow the image explaining what it is this picture could be anything. The picture could be a group of students watching their home burn down or a group of pagans giving their fallen comrade a religious send off. This means the image is Polysemic (this means the signifier could be interpreted in a number of possible ways).
To make sure the viewer knows what the image is meant to show we use Anchorage to anchor the image to its meaning. This leads to the viewer what the image is supposed to be signifying.