Article published In:
GestureVol. 16:1 (2017) ► pp.100–126
Iconicity is in the eye of the beholder
How language experience affects perceived iconicity
Corrine Occhino | University of New Mexico, Albuquerque | National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology
Benjamin Anible | University of New Mexico, Albuquerque | Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
A renewed interest in understanding the role of iconicity in the structure and processing of signed languages is hampered by the conflation of iconicity and transparency in the definition and operationalization of iconicity as a variable. We hypothesize that iconicity is fundamentally different than transparency since it arises from individuals’ experience with the world and their language, and is subjectively mediated by the signers’ construal of form and meaning. We test this hypothesis by asking American Sign Language (ASL) signers and German Sign Language (DGS) signers to rate iconicity of ASL and DGS signs. Native signers consistently rate signs in their own language as more iconic than foreign language signs. The results demonstrate that the perception of iconicity is intimately related to language-specific experience. Discovering the full ramifications of iconicity for the structure and processing of signed languages requires operationalizing this construct in a manner that is sensitive to language experience.
Keywords: iconicity, construal, ASL, DGS, signed language
Article outline
- Introduction
- Recent investigations of iconicity
- Defining iconicity: Iconicity as a property of language
- Iconicity defined in signed language literature
- Cognitive definitions of iconicity
- Research question
- Method
- Participants
- Materials
- Procedure
- Results
- Controls
- Native vs. foreign iconicity judgments
- High vs. low iconicity subset
- Cross-language visual similarity subset
- Initialization subset
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
This article is currently available as a sample article.
References
Adam, Meike, Wiebke Iversen, Erin Wilkinson, & Jill P. Morford
(2007) Meaning on the one and on the other hand: Iconicity in native vs. foreign signed languages. Insistent Images, 51, 209–225.
Anible, Benjamin
(2016) Iconicity effects in translation direction: Bimodal bilingual language processing. Dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.
Anible, Benjamin, Corrine Occhino-Kehoe, & Jeannine Kammann
(2013) The interface of phonology and semantics in ASL: An online-processing study. Presented at the Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR) Conference 11, London, UK.
Anible, Benjamin, Corrine Occhino-Kehoe, & Teri Jaquez
(2014) The effects of sign language experience on hand shape perception. Presented at the Sign Language and Signed Linguistics Hub Conference (SL2Hub-DC), Washington, D.C.
Battison, Robbin
(1978) Lexical borrowing in American Sign Language. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.
Baus, Cristina, Manuel Carreiras, & Karen Emmorey
(2013) When does iconicity in sign language matter? Language and Cognitive Processes, 28 (3), 261–271. 
Bybee, Joan L.
(1985) Diagrammatic iconicity in stem inflection relations. In John Haiman (Ed.), Iconicity in syntax. Proceedings of a symposium on iconicity in syntax, Stanford, June 24–26, 1983 (pp. 11–48). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
(2001) Phonology and language use. Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press.
(2010) Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge, UK & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cuxac, Christian & Marie-Anne Sallandre
(2007) Iconicity and arbitrariness in French sign language: Highly iconic structures, degenerated iconicity and diagrammatic iconicity. In Elena Pizzuto, Paola Pietrandrea, & Raffaele Simone (Eds.), Verbal and signed languages: Comparing structures, constructs and methodologies. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Fillmore, Charles J.
(1982) Frame semantics. In The Linguistics Society of Korea (Ed.), Linguistics in the morning calm (pp. 111–137). Seoul: Hanshin.
Fischer, Andreas
(1999) What, if anything, is phonological iconicity? In Max Nänny & Olga Fischer (Eds.), Iconicity in language and literature, Vol. 11 (pp. 123–134). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Frishberg, Nancy
(1972) Sharp and soft: Two aspects of movement in sign. Unpublished Manuscript, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA.
(1975) Arbitrariness and iconicity: Historical change in American Sign Language. Language, 51 (3), 696–719.
Givón, Talmy
(1985) Iconicity, isomorphism, and non-arbitrary coding in syntax. In John Haiman (Ed.), Iconicity in syntax. Proceedings of a symposium on iconicity in syntax, Stanford, June 24–26, 1983 (pp. 187–220). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Grote, Klaudia & Erika Linz
(2003) The influence of sign language iconicity on semantic conceptualization. In Wolfgang G. Müller & Olga Fischer (Eds.), From sign to signing: Iconicity in language and literature, Vol. 31 (pp. 23–40). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Grote, Klaudia & Klaus Willmes
(2003) Do organizational principles in the mental lexicon influence the internal architecture of visual semantic categories? In Anne Baker, Beppie van den Bogaerde, & Onno Crasborn (Eds.), Cross-linguistic perspectives in sign language research. Selected papers from TISLR 2000 (pp. 283–306). Hamburg: Signum Verlag.
Haiman, John
(1980) The iconicity of grammar: Isomorphism and motivation. Language, 56 (3), 515–540.
(2003) Iconicity. In Lynn Nadel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of cognitive science, Vol. 21. London: Nature Publishing Group.
Kaiser, Lizanne
(1999) Representing the structure-discourse iconicity of the Japanese post-verbal construction. In Michael Darnell, Edith A. Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frederic J. Newmeyer, & Kathleen Wheatley (Eds.), Functionalism and formalism in linguistics, Vol. 21: Case studies (pp. 107–129). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Klima, Edward & Ursula Bellugi
(1979) The signs of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kohonen, Teuvo
(2001) Self-organizing maps (3rd ed). Berlin & New York: Springer.
Langacker, Ronald W.
(1987) Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical Prerequisites, Vol. 11. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
(2008) Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Lepic, Ryan
(2015) Motivation in morphology: Lexical patterns in ASL and English. Dissertation, University of California, San Diego, CA.
Lund, Kevin & Curt Burgess
(1996) Producing high-dimensional semantic spaces from lexical co-occurrence. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 28 (2), 203–208.
McClelland, John L. & Jeffrey L. Elman
(1986) The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive Psychology, 181, 1–86.
Meier, Richard P.
(1987) Elicited imitation of verb agreement in American Sign Language: Iconically or morphologically determined? Journal of Memory and Language, 26 (3), 362–376.
Meir, Irit
(2010) Iconicity and metaphor: Constraints on metaphorical extension of iconic forms. Language, 86 (4), 865–896.
Morford, Jill P., Jenny L. Singleton, & Susan Goldin-Meadow
(1993) The role of iconicity in manual communication. In Katharine Beals, Gina Cook, David Kathman, Sotaro Kita, Karl-Erik McCullough, David Testen (Eds.), Papers from the Chicago Linguistic Society: The parasession, 29 (2), 243–253.
Occhino, Corrine
2016). A cognitive approach to phonology: Evidence from signed languages. Dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.
Orlansky, Michael & John Bonvillian
(1984) The role of iconicity in early sign language acquisition. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 49 (3), 287–292.
Ormel, Ellen, Harry Knoors, Daan Hermans, & Ludo Verhoeven
(2009) The role of sign phonology and iconicity during sign processing: The case of deaf children. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 14 (4), 485–502.
Ortega, Gerardo & Gary Morgan
(2014) The effect of iconicity in the mental lexicon of hearing non-signers and proficient signers: evidence of cross-modal priming. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 30 (5), 574–585.
Perniss, Pamela, Robin L. Thompson, & Gabriella Vigliocco
(2010) Iconicity as a general property of language: Evidence from spoken and signed languages. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 227.
Perniss, Pamela & Gabriella Vigliocco
(2014) The bridge of iconicity: from a world of experience to the experience of language. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 369 (1651).
Petitto, Laura-Ann
(1987) On the autonomy of language and gesture: Evidence from the acquisition of personal pronouns in American Sign Language. Cognition, 27 (1), 1–52.
Pietrandrea, Paola
(2002) Iconicity and arbitrariness in Italian Sign Language. Sign Language Studies, 2 (3), 296–321.
Pizzuto, Elena, Paola Pietrandrea, & Raffaele Simone
(Eds.) (2007) Verbal and signed languages: Comparing structures, constructs and methodologies. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Plato
(1926) Cratylus, Parmenides, Greater Hippias, Lesser Hippias (with translation by Harold North Fowler). London: Heinemann.
Poizner, Howard, Ursula Bellugi, & Ryan D. Tweney
(1981) Processing of formational, semantic, and iconic information in American Sign Language. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 71, 1146–1159.
Reilly, Jamie & Jacob Kean
(2007) Formal distinctiveness of high- and low-imageability nouns: Analyses and theoretical implications. Cognitive Science, 31 (1), 157–168.
Russo, Tommaso
(2004) Iconicity and productivity in sign language discourse: an analysis of three LIS discourse registers. Sign Language Studies, 4 (2), 164–197.
Saussure, Ferdinand de
(1986) Course in general linguistics. LaSalle, Ill: Open Court.
Shook, Anthony & Viorica Marian
(2013) The Bilingual Language Interaction Network for Comprehension of Speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16 (2), 304–324.
Taub, Sarah
(2001) Language from the body. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Thompson, Robin L., David P. Vinson, & Gabriella Vigliocco
(2009) The link between form and meaning in American Sign Language: Lexical processing effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 351, 550–557.
Thompson, Robin, David Vinson, & Gabriella Vigliocco
(2010) The link between form and meaning in British Sign Language: Effects of iconicity for phonological decisions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36 (4), 1017–1027.
Vinson, David P., Kearsy Cormier, Tanya Denmark, Adam Schembri, & Gabriella Vigliocco
(2008) The British Sign Language (BSL) norms for age of acquisition, familiarity, and iconicity. Behavior Research Methods, 40 (4), 1079–1087.
Wilbur, Ronnie B.
(1979) American Sign Language and sign systems. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.
Wilcox, Phyllis
(2000) Metaphor in American Sign Language. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
Wilcox, Sherman
(2004) Conceptual spaces and embodied actions: Cognitive iconicity and signed languages. Cognitive Linguistics, 15 (2), 119–147.
Wilkinson, Erin
(2009) Typology of signed languages: Differentiation through kinship terminology. Dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.
Cited by
Cited by 55 other publications
Abner, Natasha, Grégoire Clarté, Carlo Geraci, Robin J. Ryder, Justine Mertz, Anah Salgat & Shi Yu
2024. Computational phylogenetics reveal histories of sign languages. Science 383:6682 ► pp. 519 ff. 
Akers, Emily M., Katherine J. Midgley, Phillip J. Holcomb, Gabriela Meade & Karen Emmorey
2023. Neural effects differ for learning highly iconic versus non-iconic signs in hearing adults. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition ► pp. 1 ff.
ANIBLE, BENJAMIN
2020. Iconicity in American Sign Language–English translation recognition. Language and Cognition 12:1 ► pp. 138 ff.
Bonvillian, John D., Nicole Kissane Lee, Tracy T. Dooley & Filip T. Loncke
2020. Simplified Signs,
Bradley, Chuck, Evie A. Malaia, Jeffrey Mark Siskind, Ronnie B. Wilbur & Marcus Perlman
2022. Visual form of ASL verb signs predicts non-signer judgment of transitivity. PLOS ONE 17:2 ► pp. e0262098 ff.
Brentari, Diane
2019. Sign Language Phonology,
Bross, Fabian
Börstell, Carl
2023. Lexical comprehension within and across sign languages of Belgium, China and the Netherlands. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 8:1
Börstell, Carl
2024. Better letter: iconicity in the manual alphabets of American Sign Language and Swedish Sign Language. Language and Cognition ► pp. 1 ff.
Dingemanse, Mark
2018. Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from research on ideophones. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3:1
Emmorey, Karen
2021. New Perspectives on the Neurobiology of Sign Languages. Frontiers in Communication 6
Fuks, Orit
2021. The distribution of handshapes in the established lexicon of Israeli Sign Language (ISL). Semiotica 2021:242 ► pp. 101 ff.
Hinojosa, J. A., J. Haro, S. Magallares, J. A. Duñabeitia & P. Ferré
2021. Iconicity ratings for 10,995 Spanish words and their relationship with psycholinguistic variables. Behavior Research Methods 53:3 ► pp. 1262 ff.
Hodge, Gabrielle & Lindsay Ferrara
2022. Iconicity as Multimodal, Polysemiotic, and Plurifunctional. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Imai, Mutsumi & Kimi Akita
2023. The Iconicity Ring Hypothesis Bridges the Gap Between Symbol Grounding and Linguistic Relativity. Topics in Cognitive Science 15:4 ► pp. 676 ff.
Keränen, Jarkko
2021. Iconic strategies in lexical sensory signs in Finnish Sign Language. Cognitive Semiotics 14:2 ► pp. 163 ff.
Kovács, László, Renáta Németh & Hilke Elsen
2023. Often Overlooked Aspects of Sound Symbolism: The Influence of Participants’ Characteristics on Size Ratings. Language and Speech
Lepic, Ryan
2020. Review of Shaw (2019): Gesture in multiparty interaction. Sign Language & Linguistics 23:1-2 ► pp. 272 ff.
Loos, Cornelia, Jens-Michael Cramer & Donna Jo Napoli
2020. The linguistic sources of offense of taboo terms in German Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 31:1 ► pp. 73 ff.
Lutzenberger, Hannah, Connie de Vos, Onno Crasborn & Paula Fikkert
2021. Formal variation in the Kata Kolok lexicon. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 6:1
McLean, Bonnie, Michael Dunn & Mark Dingemanse
2023. Two measures are better than one: combining iconicity ratings and guessing experiments for a more nuanced picture of iconicity in the lexicon. Language and Cognition 15:4 ► pp. 716 ff.
Moita, Mara, Ana Maria Abreu & Ana Mineiro
2023. Iconicity in the emergence of a phonological system?. Journal of Language Evolution 8:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
MOTAMEDI, YASAMIN, HANNAH LITTLE, ALAN NIELSEN & JUSTIN SULIK
2019. The iconicity toolbox: empirical approaches to measuring iconicity. Language and Cognition 11:2 ► pp. 188 ff.
Mudd, Katie, Connie de Vos & Bart de Boer
2022. Shared Context Facilitates Lexical Variation in Sign Language Emergence. Languages 7:1 ► pp. 31 ff.
Napoli, Donna Jo & Casey Ferrara
2021. Correlations Between Handshape and Movement in Sign Languages. Cognitive Science 45:5
Napoli, Donna Jo & Lorraine Leeson
2020. Visuo-spatial construals that aid in understanding activity in visual-centred narrative. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 35:4 ► pp. 440 ff.
Napoli, Donna Jo & Rachel Sutton-Spence
Novogrodsky, Rama & Natalia Meir
2020. Age, frequency, and iconicity in early sign language acquisition: Evidence from the Israeli Sign Language MacArthur–Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory. Applied Psycholinguistics 41:4 ► pp. 817 ff.
OCCHINO, CORRINE, BENJAMIN ANIBLE & JILL P. MORFORD
2020. The role of iconicity, construal, and proficiency in the online processing of handshape. Language and Cognition 12:1 ► pp. 114 ff.
Odiegwu, Nancy Chiagolum & Jesús Romero-Trillo
Ortega, Gerardo, Annika Schiefner & Aslı Özyürek
2019. Hearing non-signers use their gestures to predict iconic form-meaning mappings at first exposure to signs. Cognition 191 ► pp. 103996 ff.
Perlman, Marcus, Hannah Little, Bill Thompson & Robin L. Thompson
2018. Iconicity in Signed and Spoken Vocabulary: A Comparison Between American Sign Language, British Sign Language, English, and Spanish. Frontiers in Psychology 9
Pichler, Deborah Chen & Elena Koulidobrova
2023. The Role of Modality in L2 Learning: The Importance of Learners Acquiring a Second Sign Language (M2L2 and M1L2 Learners). Language Learning 73:S1 ► pp. 197 ff.
Pleyer, Michael, Ryan Lepic & Stefan Hartmann
2022. Compositionality in Different Modalities: A View from Usage-Based Linguistics. International Journal of Primatology
Pyers, Jennie E. & Karen Emmorey
2022. The iconic motivation for the morphophonological distinction between noun–verb pairs in American Sign Language does not reflect common human construals of objects and actions. Language and Cognition 14:4 ► pp. 622 ff.
Safar, Josefina
2019. Translanguaging in Yucatec Maya signing communities. Applied Linguistics Review 10:1 ► pp. 31 ff.
SATO, ASHA, MARIEKE SCHOUWSTRA, MOLLY FLAHERTY & SIMON KIRBY
2020. Do all aspects of learning benefit from iconicity? Evidence from motion capture. Language and Cognition 12:1 ► pp. 36 ff.
Sehyr, Zed Sevcikova, Naomi Caselli, Ariel M Cohen-Goldberg & Karen Emmorey
2021. The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 26:2 ► pp. 263 ff.
SEVCIKOVA SEHYR, ZED & KAREN EMMOREY
2019. The perceived mapping between form and meaning in American Sign Language depends on linguistic knowledge and task: evidence from iconicity and transparency judgments. Language and Cognition 11:2 ► pp. 208 ff.
Silva-Júnior, Daltro Roque Carvalho & André Nogueira Xavier
2021. A iconicidade como uma característica universal das línguas. Revista da ABRALIN ► pp. 1 ff.
Thompson, Arthur Lewis, Kimi Akita & Youngah Do
2020. Iconicity ratings across the Japanese lexicon: A comparative study with English. Linguistics Vanguard 6:1
Thompson, Arthur Lewis, Thomas Van Hoey & Youngah Do
2021. Articulatory features of phonemes pattern to iconic meanings: evidence from cross-linguistic ideophones. Cognitive Linguistics 32:4 ► pp. 563 ff.
THOMPSON, BILL, MARCUS PERLMAN, GARY LUPYAN, ZED SEVCIKOVA SEHYR & KAREN EMMOREY
2020. A data-driven approach to the semantics of iconicity in American Sign Language and English. Language and Cognition 12:1 ► pp. 182 ff.
Tkachman, Oksana & Carla L. Hudson Kam
2020. Measuring lexical and structural conventionalization in young sign languages. Sign Language & Linguistics 23:1-2 ► pp. 208 ff.
Tkachman, Oksana, Gracellia Purnomo & Bryan Gick
2021. Repetition Preferences in Two-Handed Balanced Signs: Vestigial Locomotor Central Pattern Generators Shape Sign Language Phonetics and Phonology. Frontiers in Communication 5
Vahemäe-Zierold, Martin*a & Maria Kopf
2023. Sprachwandel in Tauben queeren Communities in Deutschland / Language Change in Deaf Queer Communities in Germany. interalia: a journal of queer studies ► pp. 130 ff.
Van Hoey, Thomas, Arthur L. Thompson, Youngah Do & Mark Dingemanse
2023. Iconicity in Ideophones: Guessing, Memorizing, and Reassessing. Cognitive Science 47:4
Verhoef, Tessa, Tyler Marghetis, Esther Walker & Seana Coulson
2024. Brain responses to a lab-evolved artificial language with space-time metaphors. Cognition 246 ► pp. 105763 ff.
Winter, Bodo, Gary Lupyan, Lynn K. Perry, Mark Dingemanse & Marcus Perlman
2023. Iconicity ratings for 14,000+ English words. Behavior Research Methods
Winter, Bodo & Marcus Perlman
2021. Iconicity ratings really do measure iconicity, and they open a new window onto the nature of language. Linguistics Vanguard 7:1
Zwitserlood, Inge, Els van der Kooij & Onno Crasborn
Östling, Robert, Carl Börstell & Servane Courtaux
2018. Visual Iconicity Across Sign Languages: Large-Scale Automated Video Analysis of Iconic Articulators and Locations. Frontiers in Psychology 9
Özyürek, Asli
2021. Considering the Nature of Multimodal Language from a Crosslinguistic Perspective. Journal of Cognition 4:1
Żywiczyński, Przemysław, Sławomir Wacewicz & Casey Lister
2021. Pantomimic fossils in modern human communication. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:1824
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.