Limiting the Iconic
From the metatheoretical foundations to the creative possibilities of iconicity in language
Author
Iconicity has become a popular notion in contemporary linguistic research. This book is the first to present a synthesis of the vast amount of scholarship on linguistic iconicity which has been produced in the previous decades, ranging from iconicity in phonology and morpho-syntax to the role of iconicity in language change. An extensive analysis is provided of some basic but nonetheless fundamental questions relating to iconicity in language, including: what is a linguistic sign and how are linguistic signs different from signs in general? What is an iconic sign and how may iconicity be involved in language? How does iconicity pertain to the relation between language and cognition? This book offers a new and comprehensive theoretical framework for iconicity in language. It is argued that the linguistic sign is fundamentally arbitrary, but that iconicity may be involved on a secondary level, adding extra meaning to an utterance.
[Iconicity in Language and Literature, 6] 2008. xiii, 286 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgements | p. ix
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Introduction | pp. 1–5
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1. Language and reality in early Greek thought: Tracing back the roots of iconicity in language | pp. 7–30
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2. "L'arbitraire du signe": A Saussurian dogma? | pp. 31–45
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3. Iconicity: A semiotic approach | pp. 47–82
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4. Jakobson's quest for the essence of language: A prelude to a theory of linguistic iconicity | pp. 83–90
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5. Iconicity in language: General classification and specific principles | pp. 91–172
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6. Cognitive foundations for iconicity in language | pp. 173–221
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7. Double negation: An iconic account | pp. 223–249
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Conclusions | pp. 251–255
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Author index | pp. 275–277
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Language index | p. 279
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Subject index | pp. 281–286
“Growing out of the author's dissertation, this book reads every bit like a monograph by a seasoned linguist. The survey of the literature on the topic is thorough and the author's critiques of previous scholars' theories and constructs are detailed, careful, and balanced. Of all the chapters, Chapter 5 strikes this reviewer as the most substantive and impressive: De Cuypere analyzes major works on iconicity to argue that most of these authors are off the mark. You think hard and eventually agree that he makes sense. At the end of the book, you think hard again and decide that he is largely right. Then you realize that you have read a very good book, a very important book, a book that you would come back to for information and inspiration later in your work.”
Rong Chen, California State University, San Bernardino, on Linguist List 20-1353, 2009
Cited by
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Benczes, Réka
2020. Sound Symbolism and Semantic Change. In Dynamics of Language Changes, ► pp. 253 ff.
Benczes, Réka & Gábor Kovács
2022. Palatal is for happiness, plosive is for sadness: evidence for stochastic relationships between phoneme classes and sentiment polarity in Hungarian. Language and Cognition 14:4 ► pp. 672 ff.
Calfoglou, Christine
2014. Iconic Motivation in Translation: Where Non-Fiction Meets Poetry?. In Literary Translation, ► pp. 99 ff.
Carling, Gerd & Niklas Johansson
2014. Motivated language change: processes involved in the growth and conventionalization of onomatopoeia and sound symbolism. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 46:2 ► pp. 199 ff.
Deumert, Ana
2017. Creole as necessity? Creole as choice?. In Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas [Creole Language Library, 53], ► pp. 101 ff.
Fortescue, Michael
2014. The Iconicity of Lengthening and Reduplicating Suffixes in Nuuchahnulth. International Journal of American Linguistics 80:4 ► pp. 533 ff.
Gwóźdź, Maja
2014. Phonaesthetic Phonological Iconicity in Literary Analysis Illustrated by Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber”. Analyses/Rereadings/Theories: A Journal Devoted to Literature, Film and Theatre 2:2 ► pp. 1 ff.
Ivanovich Rozhanskiy, Fedor
Joseph, John E.
Kirichenko, Alexander
2016. The Art of Transference. Mnemosyne 69:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Lefilliâtre, Boris
2019. The cognitive motivation and purposes of playful blending in English. Corela :17-2
Mitrović, Todor
2020. From the iconisation of the body to the likeness with Christ: On the trails of decentralisation of the iconic system in late antiquity. Kultura :167 ► pp. 179 ff.
Moreno Cabrera, Juan Carlos
2022. This is not a pipe. In Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems [Iconicity in Language and Literature, 18], ► pp. 193 ff.
Panagiotidou, Maria-Eirini
2017. Ekphrasis, cognition, and iconicity. In Dimensions of Iconicity [Iconicity in Language and Literature, 15],
Panagiotidou, Maria-Eirini
2022. Transposition: Cognitive Facets of the Ekphrastic Experience. In The Poetics of Ekphrasis, ► pp. 139 ff.
Rainer, Franz, Wolfgang U. Dressler, Francesco Gardani & Hans Christian Luschützky
2014. Morphology and meaning: An overview. In Morphology and Meaning [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 327], ► pp. 3 ff.
Rupp, Laura & David Britain
2019. Conclusion. In Linguistic Perspectives on a Variable English Morpheme, ► pp. 321 ff.
Rupp, Laura & David Britain
2019. Verbal –s. In Linguistic Perspectives on a Variable English Morpheme, ► pp. 25 ff.
Rupp, Laura & David Britain
2019. Introduction. In Linguistic Perspectives on a Variable English Morpheme, ► pp. 1 ff.
Schwenter, Scott A.
2016. Some Issues in Negation in Portuguese. In The Handbook of Portuguese Linguistics, ► pp. 425 ff.
Shcherbak, Nina F.
2021. Theory of Sign and Cognition: Literary Language and the Language of Music. In Language, Music and Gesture: Informational Crossroads, ► pp. 13 ff.
Smith, Chris A.
2016. Tracking semantic change in fl- monomorphemes in the Oxford English Dictionary
. Journal of Historical Linguistics 6:2 ► pp. 165 ff.
Sonesson, Göran
2022. The intricate dialectics of iconization and structuration. In Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems [Iconicity in Language and Literature, 18], ► pp. 11 ff.
[no author supplied]
2012. On the form and contents of contrastive features. In Underlying Representations, ► pp. 149 ff.
[no author supplied]
[no author supplied]
2017. Literatur. In Nicht-ikonische Chronologie, ► pp. 286 ff.
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Subjects
Philosophy
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General