The Motivated sign : iconicity in language and literature 2 / edited by Olga Fischer, Max Nanny.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Fischer, Olga.

Nänny, Max.

Series:

Iconicity in Language and Literature ; 2

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Iconicity (Linguistics).

Semiotics.

Linguistics.

Physical Description:

xiv, 387 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This volume, a sequel to Form Miming Meaning (1999), offers a selection of papers given at the second international symposium on iconicity (Amsterdam 1999). In the light of semiotic, linguistic and literary theory the studies gathered here investigate how iconicity works on all levels of language, in literary texts and other forms of verbal discourse. They investigate, among other subjects, the semiotic foundations of iconicity, the role played by iconicity in language evolution and in the way words are positioned syntactically. Special consideration is given to the iconic nature of metaphor and the 'mise en abyme', to iconically motivated punctuation and other typographic matters such as the manipulation of colour, fonts and spacing in advertising and in poetry. Other studies show how iconicity influences Shakespeare's rhetoric, the structural design of Margaret Atwood's writings and the changing fashions in fictional landscape description. Thus, these analyses of 'the motivated sign' represent yet another strong challenge to "Saussure's dogma of arbitrariness" (Jakobson).

Contents:

The Motivated Sign

Title page

LCC page

Dedication

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

List of contributors

Introduction: veni, vidi, vici

PART I. General

Semiotic foundations of iconicity in language and literature

The semiotics of the mise-en-abyme

Good probes: Icons, anaphors, and the evolution of language

PART II. Sounds and beyond

The sound as an echo to the sense: The iconicity of English gl-words

On natural motivation in metaphors: The case of the cucurbits

Old English poetic texts and their Latin sources: Iconicityin Cædmon 's Hymn and The Phoenix

PART III. Visual iconicity: Typography and the use of images

Iconic punctuation: Ellipsis marks in a historical perspective

Iconic functions of long and short lines

Iconicity in advertising signs: Motive and method in miming 'the body '

Iconoclasm and iconicity in seventeenth-century English poetry

PART IV. Iconicity in grammatical structures

Structural iconicity: The English S- and OF- genitives

The position of the adjective in (Old) English from an iconic perspective

Present participles as iconic expressions

Of Markov chains and upholstery buttons: "Moi, madame, votre chien …"

PART V. Iconicity in textual structures

Iconicity and rhetoric: A note on the iconic force of rhetorical figures in Shakespeare

The emergence of experiential iconicity and spatial perspective in landscape descriptions in English fiction

Iconic dimensions in Margaret Atwood's poetry and prose

Author index

Subject index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612163517

9781282163515

1282163515

9789027299338

9027299331

OCLC:

705531337