Cover not available
Part of
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. 103–134

Chiastic iconicity

Refiguring symmetry

ORCID logo | University of Waterloo
Chiastic structure (ABBA) leverages the iconicity principles of identity, sequential order, and quantity for consolidated iconicities of harmonious balance and cyclicity, effecting an aesthetic response that is very often but somewhat incongruously associated with mirror-image symmetry. The ABBA pattern does not effect this response alone, however. Chiastic figures collocate preferentially with other figures to achieve these effects, especially including figures of parallelism. These figural convergences, collocating additionally with certain grammatical features, raise the iconicity stakes somewhat further to enact a quite specific suite of meanings: comprehensiveness, irrelevance of order, reciprocal specification, and reciprocal energy. These claims are developed with particular attention to lexical chiasmus, the rhetorical scheme known as ‘antimetabole’.
Keywords: antimetabole, chiasmus, construction grammar, figural collocation, image schemes, rhetorical schemes, symmetry
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Chiastic diagrammatization
  • 3.Chiastic ‘symmetry’
  • 4.‘Chiastic’ symmetry
  • 5.‘Chiastic’ meaning
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Glossary of rhetorical figures mentioned in the chapter
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.18.06har
References (72)
References
Aarnio, J. 2008. Rhetoric and representation : Exploring the cultural meaning of the natural sciences in contemporary popular science writing and literature. PhD Dissertation, Department of English, University of Helsinki.
Anderson, D. 1984. Peirce on metaphor. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 20(4): 453–468.Google Scholar
Austin, J. 1957. A plea for excuses. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 57: 1–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brinton, Laurel. 1988. The iconicity of rhetorical figures: ‘Schemes’ as devices for textual cohesion. Language and Style 21(2):162–90.Google Scholar
Burke, K. (1941 [1938]). Literature as equipment for living. Philosophy of Literary Form. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, pp. 293–304.Google Scholar
Bush, G. W. and [Gerson, M.] 2001. Address before a joint session of the Congress on the United States response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. (20 September). GovInfo. [URL]
Chomsky, A. N. 1986. Knowledge of Language. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
2013. Beyond fascism: Noam Chomsky interviewed by John Holder and Doug Morris. ZNet, 24 May. [URL]
[Pseudo-]Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 1954 [c95 BCE]. Ad C. Herennium de ratione dicendi (Rhetorica ad Herennium). Harry Caplan (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
CP. See Peirce (1931 [1877–1904]).Google Scholar
Dickens, C. 1884. Great Expectations. London: R. Worthington.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 2007. Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Dubremetz, M. 2017. Marie’s corpus. [URL]
Dubremetz, M., and Nivre, J. 2018. Rhetorical figure detection: Chiasmus, epanaphora, epiphora. Frontiers in Digital Humanities, 17 May. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dumas, A. 1849. Les trois mousquetaires. Paris: Dufour & Mulat.Google Scholar
Fahnestock, J. 1999. Rhetorical Figures in Science. New York: Oxford.Google Scholar
Farnsworth, W. 2010. Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric. Boston: David R. Godine.Google Scholar
Filkuková, P., and Klempe, S. H. 2013. Rhyme as reason in commercial and social advertising. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 54(5); 423–431. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, T. 1984. Syntax – A Functional-Typological Introduction, vol. 2. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greer, Germaine. 1988, June 3. The proper study of womankind. Times Literary Supplement.Google Scholar
Harris, R. A., and Di Marco, C. 2017. Rhetorical figures, arguments, computation. Argument & Computation 8(3): 211–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haiman, J. 2003. Iconicity. In International Encyclopedia of Linguistics Volume 1. Second edition. W. Frawley (ed.), 57–61. New York: Oxford.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hiraga, M. K. 2005. Metaphor and Iconicity: A Cognitive Approach to Analysing Texts. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kara-Yakoubian, M., Walker, A. C. , Sharpinskyi, K. , Assadourian, G. , Fugelsang, J. A. , and Harris, R. A. 2022. Chiasmus and the Keats heuristic. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale. Advance online publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Style in Language, ed. by Thomas Sebeok, 350–377. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kumar, N., and Juneja, J. K. 2006. Comprehensive Objective Physics. New Delhi: Laxmi Publications.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Concept, Image, and Symbol: The Cognitive Basis of Grammar. Berlin: DeGruyter.Google Scholar
Lanham, R. 1991. A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms. Second edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lausberg, H. 1998. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study. D. F. Orton and R. D. Anderson (trans.) Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Leech, G. N., and Short, M. 2007 [1981]. Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. Second edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Le Guin, U. K. 2019 [1969]. The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace.Google Scholar
Lewis, A. 2013. Monsanto sows seeds of protest. Denver Post (28 May).Google Scholar
Ljungberg, C. (2020). Crisscrossing James Joyce’s Ulysses: Chiasmus and cognition. In Operationalizing Iconicity. P. Perniss, O. Fischer and C. Ljungberg (eds.), Iconicity in Language and Literature 17, 199–210. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luhmann, N. 1997. Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
2012. Theory of Society 1. Rhodes Barrett (trans.). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, C. 2017. ‘Strong and stable’ – A lesson in the use of consonance, rhyme-as-reason, and the Keats heuristic. Medium.com (3 May). [URL]
Mandela, Nelson. 1994. The Long Walk to Freedom. New York: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
McCawley, J. D. 1993. Everything that Linguists Have Always Wanted to Know about Logic. Second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McGlone, M. S., and Tofighbakhsh, J. 1999. The Keats heuristic: Rhyme as reason in aphorism interpretation. Poetics. 26 (4): 235–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGlone, M. S. and Tofighbakhsh, J. 2000. Birds of a feather flock conjointly (?): rhyme as reason in aphorisms. Psychological Science. 11 (5): 424–428. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, W. G. 2001. Iconicity and rhetoric. In The Motivated Sign. O. Fischer and M. Nänny (eds.), Iconicity in Language and Literature 2, 305–322. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nänny, M. 1986. Iconicity in Literature. Word & Image 2(3): 199–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nänny, M. 1987. Chiastic structures in literature: Some forms and functions. SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 3: 75–96.Google Scholar
Netanjahu, Binyamin. 2014. Full text of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s UN speech. The Jerusalem Post (29 September).Google Scholar
Newton, I. 1687. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. London: Jussu Societatis Regiae. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1803 [1687]. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Three volumes. Andrew Motte (trans.). London. H.D. Symonds.Google Scholar
Nöth, W. 2001. Semiotic foundations of iconicity in language and literature. In The Motivated Sign. O. Fischer and M. Nänny (eds.) Iconicity in Language and Literature 2, 17–28. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norrman, R. 1986. Samuel Butler and the Meaning of Chiasmus. London: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1999. Creating the world in our image. A new theory of love of symmetry and iconicist desire. In Form Miming Meaning. M. Nänny and O. Fischer (eds.), Iconicity in Language and Literature 1, 59–82. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Donnell, S. (writer), and Moore, S. D. (director). 1998. The joy of sect. The Simpsons, episode 191. J. L. Brooks (producer). Los Angeles, CA: Twentieth Century Fox Television.Google Scholar
O’Reilly, C., and Harris, R. A. 2017. Antimetabole and image schemata: Ontological and vector space models. JOWO (Joint Ontology Workshops) 2017. Free University of Bozen. Bolzano, Italy. 21 September. [URL]
Pasteur, L. 1886 [1883]. La dissymétrie moléculaire. Conférences de Société chimique de France. Paris: Bureaux de la Revue scientifique.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. 1931 [1877–1904]. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (eds). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pelkey, J. 2017. The Semiotics of X: Chiasmus, Cognition, and Extreme Body Memory. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Penrose, R. 1989. The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plett, H. F. 2010. Literary Rhetoric: Concepts – Structures – Analyses. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Puttenham, G. 1869 [1589]. The Arte of English Poesie. E. Arber (ed.) London: Alex Murray.Google Scholar
Quinn, A., and Rathburn, L. 1996. Antimetabole. In Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition. Theresa Enos (ed.). New York: Garland, 12.Google Scholar
Sartwell, C. 2014. The left-right political spectrum is bogus. The Atlantic (June 20). [URL]
Sunday edition. 2014 (24 August). CBC Radio.Google Scholar
Tabakowska, E. 1999. Linguistic expression of perceptual relationships. Iconicity as a principle of text organization (a case study). In Form Miming Meaning. M. Nänny and O. Fischer (eds.), Iconicity in Language and Literature 1, 409–420. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, L. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics: Concept Structuring Systems, vol I. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, R. 2017. Finding reason in rhyme, nearly every time. CogBlog (16 April). [URL]
Tubaj, E. 2019. Rhyming for a reason: Why Rhyming slogans are more effective in communicating big ideas. CogBlog (26 November). [URL]
Turner, M. 1998. Figure. In Figurative Language and Thought, A. N. Katz, C. Cacciari, R. W. Gibbs, Jr., and M. Turner (eds.), 44–87. New York: Oxford.Google Scholar
1991. Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vickers, B. 1988. In Defence of Rhetoric. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Welsh, John. 1981. Chiasmus in Antiquity. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press.Google Scholar
Wescott, R. 1971. Linguistic iconism. Language, 47(2): 416–428. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weyl, H. 1952. Symmetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Harris, Randy Allen
2023. Rules Are Rules: Rhetorical Figures and Algorithms. In Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics 2021 (LACompLing2021) [Studies in Computational Intelligence, 1081], ► pp. 217 ff. DOI logo
Pelkey, Jamin
2021. Zhuangzi, Peirce, and the butterfly dreamscape: concentric meaning in the Qiwulun 齊物論. Chinese Semiotic Studies 17:2 ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 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.