Chapter published in:
Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems
Edited by Sara Lenninger, Olga Fischer, Christina Ljungberg and Elżbieta Tabakowska
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 18] 2022
► pp. 11–26

The intricate dialectics of iconization and structuration

| Lund University

The distinction between primary and secondary iconic signs, which I first made with regard to pictures, has been applied by other scholars to language, gesture, and music. Taking stock of this process, it has become necessary to clarify the distinction, insisting on the fact that secondary iconicity is not conventionality, but a kind of iconicity which is in itself not sufficient to define a meaning, but needs to be supplemented by other means, such as a label or a system of oppositions. We have shown this to be the case earlier, when considering what Arnheim termed ‘droodles’, but we will see that it also applies to language and music.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.The “great iconicity debate”
  • 2.Primary and secondary iconic signs
  • 3.Peirceanism from the ground up
  • 4.Experimental approaches
  • 5.A process approach to meaning
  • 6.The interplay of iconization and structuration
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.18.01son
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