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Dimensions of Iconicity
Edited by Angelika Zirker, Matthias Bauer, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 15] 2017
► pp. 3–14

The effect of iconicity flash blindness

An empirical study

| Charles University, Prague

In our experiment, the Saussurean postulate of arbitrariness has been empirically tested in order to see whether it can be applied to all words to the same extent. Three hundred participants were asked to match Czech words with their Hindi translations. One set of words was randomly chosen from a Hindi corpus (set A); the second set consisted of both randomly chosen words and words categorized as ideophones (set B). The participants were successful in matching both sets (the lower level of the confidence interval is about 7% above random guessing), and their performance showed unexpected patterns: For one, not only iconic properties (the sound qualities) but also iconic structures such as reduplication are an important distinctive features, and recipients are able to exploit this. Moreover, even words considered to be non-iconic (set A) apparently contain a degree of iconicity, which participants are able to draw upon. However, participants appear to lose this ability when non-iconic words are presented in the context of words with evidently abundant iconicity (set B). The effect resembles the accommodation process which is known for other senses; therefore, we call the effect “Iconicity flash blindness”.

Article outline
  • 1.Background
  • 2.Data
  • 3.Participants
  • 4.Experiment
  • 5.Hypotheses
    • 5.1Hypothesis 1
    • 5.2Hypothesis 2
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Results 1: Our hypotheses
    • 6.2Results 2: Unexpected patterns
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.15.01dia
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Cited by 2 other publications

Krivochen, Diego Gabriel & Ľudmila Lacková
2020. Iconicity in syntax and the architecture of linguistic theory. Studies in Language 44:1 ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo
Lacková, Ľudmila
2023. Structural semiology, Peirce, and biolinguistics. Semiotica 2023:253 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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