Chapter published in:
Operationalizing IconicityEdited by Pamela Perniss, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 17] 2020
► pp. 154–165
Levels of iconicity in classical and modern English-language haiku
An attempt at operationalization
Elżbieta Tabakowska | Jagiellonian University of
Kraków
This chapter analyzes haiku poems
written in English, focusing on iconicity as a property of the
genre, based on its formal and semantic restrictions. Iconic miming
is argued to be an inherent aspect of poetics and Langacker’s
theoretical concept of dimensions of imagery in his cognitive theory
of language and grammar is presented as an instrument of analysis
for the selected poems. The fundamental assumption which underlies
the cognitive model of grammar is that language offers to its users
alternate ways of construing conceived situations for purposes of
linguistic expression, with individual parameters of meaning
construal making up a set of dimensions of imagery. Apart from
phonemic iconicity, iconic graphic representation and synesthesia,
the author illustrates the poets’ use, and the readers’ potential
interpretations, of cases of iconicity stemming from such aspects of
imagery as the grammatical distinction between things and relations,
as well as the oppositions between definiteness and indefiniteness,
figure and ground, and temporal and atemporal relations. In
conclusion, the author states that though the cognitive theory of
construal was formulated as part of a theory of language, the model
clearly finds direct application to the analysis of literary texts,
with the genre of haiku providing a salient
instance.
Published online: 13 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.17.09tab
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.17.09tab
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