This volume investigates iconicity as to both comprehension and production of meaning in language, gesture, pictures, art and literature. It highlights iconic processes in meaning-making and interpretation across different semiotic systems at structurally, historically and pragmatically different levels of iconicity, with special focus on Cognitive Semiotics. Exploring the ubiquity of iconicity in verbal, visual and gestural communication, these contributions discuss it from the point of view of human meaning-making, examined as a phenomenon that is experienced, embodied and often polysemiotic in nature.

Several current linguistic approaches converge in rejecting the wide-spread idea that language is an autonomous system, i.e. that it is structured independently from the outside world and the natural equipment of language users. Around the world, semiotically biased linguistics (functionalism, naturalism, etc.) takes this position, which differentiates it very clearly from generative linguistics. One of the basic assumptions of such approaches is that language structure includes some non-arbitrary aspects, from the phonological through the textual level, and a great amount of research has occurred in the last decade regarding the “iconic aspects” of language(s). This volume focuses on generally neglected dimensions of language and semiotic activity, featuring contributions by philosophers, linguists, semioticians, and psychologists. After tracing the tradition of iconicity in the history of linguistic thought, the central section is devoted to specific analyses emphasizing the role of non-arbitrary phenomena in language foundation and linguistic structure. Specifically discussed are numeration systems, the gestural systems of communication among deaf people, the genesis of writing in children, and inter-ethnic communication.

The Iconicity in Language and Literature series has long been dedicated to the recognition and understanding of the pervasiveness of iconicity in language in its many forms and functions. The present volume, divided into four sections, brings together and unifies different perspectives on iconicity. Chapters in the first section (Iconicity in language) provide linguistic analyses of systems of iconic forms in different languages, across both space (areally) and time (diachronically). The second section (Iconicity in literature) is concerned with stylistic analyses of iconicity in literature, in both poetry and prose and across a range of devices and genres. The third section (Iconicity in visual media) highlights the use and effects of iconicity in pictorial, photographic and cinematic media. The final section (Iconicity in semiotic analysis) offers a theoretical perspective, targeting an operationalisation of iconicity with respect to the relationship between types and subtypes of Peircean signs.

Annotation Presents selected papers from a March 1997 symposium held in Zurich, in sections on general topics, sound and rhythm, typography and graphic design, word-formation, and syntax and discourse. Studies explore iconicity from two different angles. A first group of scholars is especially interested in how far the primary code, the code of grammar, is influenced by iconic motivation and how originally iconic models have become conventionalized. A second group of contributors is more interested in the presence of iconicity as part of the secondary code. Specific subjects include imagination by ideophones, the visual poetry of e. e. cummings, and iconic use of syntax in fiction. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Volume 1: The recent past has seen an increasing interest in iconicity especially among linguists. This collection puts the interdisciplinary study of iconic dimensions (comprising what has been termed imagic iconicity, as well as diagrammatic iconicity, i.e. iconicity of a more abstract and less semiotic type) on the map, paying special attention to the use of iconicity in literary texts. The studies presented here explore iconicity from two different angles. A first group of authors brings into focus how far the primary code, the code of grammar is influenced by iconic motivation (with contributions on rules involved in discourse; rules in word formation; and phonological rules), and how originally iconic models have become conventionalized. Others go one step further in exploring how, for instance, the presence of iconicity can tell us more about the structure of human cognition, or how the iconicist desire for symmetry can be related to the symmetry of the human body. A second group of contributors is more interested in the presence of iconicity as part of the secondary code, i.e. in how speakers and writers remotivate or play with the primary code; how they concretise what has become conventional or how they use form to add to meaning in literary texts, commercial language and in the new electronic use of texts.Volume 2: 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).Volume 3: This volume, a sequel to "Form Miming Meaning" (1999) and "The Motivated Sign" (2001), offers a selection of papers given at the Third International Symposium on Iconicity in Language and Literature (Jena 2001). The studies collected here present a number of new departures. Special consideration is given to the way non-linguistic visual and auditory signs (such as gestures and bird sounds) are represented in language, and more specifically in signed language, and how such signs influence semantic conceptualization. Other studies examine more closely how visual signs and representations of time and space are incorporated or reflected in literary language, in fiction as well as (experimental) poetry. A further new approach concerns intermedial iconicity, which emerges in art when its medium is changed or another medium is imitated. A more abstract, diagrammatic type of iconicity is again investigated, with reference to both language and literature: some essays focus on the device of reduplication, isomorphic tendencies in word formation and on creative iconic patterns in syntax, while others explore numerical design in Dante and geometrical patterning in Dylan Thomas. A number of theoretically-oriented papers pursue post-Peircean approaches, such as the application of reader-response theory and of systems theory to iconicity. Volume 4: This fourth volume of the Iconicity series is like its predecessors devoted to the study of iconicity in language and literature in all its forms. Many of the papers turn the notion of iconicity inside-out, some suggesting that less-is-more; others focus on the cognitive factors inside the brain that are important for the iconic phenomena that are produced in the outside world. In addition this volume includes a paper related to iconicity in music and its interaction with language. Other papers range from the theoretical issues involved in the evolution of language, to those that offer many inside-out claims, such as claiming that nouns are derived from pronouns, and as such should more properly be called pro-pronouns . Also, this volume includes perhaps the first English-language analysis of the iconic aspects of sound symbolism in a prayer from the Koran. This is a truly interdisciplinary collection that should turn some of the notions of iconicity in language and literature outside-in and in-side-out .

Bloomsbury Semiotics offers a state-of-the-art overview of the entire field of semiotics by revealing its influence on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. With four volumes spanning theory, method and practice across the disciplines, this definitive reference work emphasizes and strengthens common bonds shared across intellectual cultures, and facilitates the discovery and recovery of meaning across fields. It comprises: Volume 1: History and Semiosis Volume 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical Sciences Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences Volume 4: Semiotic Movements Written by leading international experts, the chapters provide comprehensive overviews of the history and status of semiotic inquiry across a diverse range of traditions and disciplines. Together, they highlight key contemporary developments and debates along with ongoing research priorities. Providing the most comprehensive and united overview of the field, Bloomsbury Semiotics enables anyone, from students to seasoned practitioners, to better understand and benefit from semiotic insight and how it relates to their own area of study or research. Volume 1: History and Semiosis provides a general and historical orientation to semiotic traditions and their methodologies, followed by an in-depth overview of critical issues in the study of sign systems and semiosis. It ends with an exploration of issues of sign classification and practical application, setting the scene for the remaining volumes.

Surveys key findings and ideas in sign language phonology, exploring the crucial areas in phonology to which sign language studies has contributed.

These case studies offer new approaches to the analysis and interpretation of symbols in a variety of media and as expressed on a range of objects at different scales. This third volume in the Material Religion in Antiquity series stems from the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (ICAS I) that took place in Florence in May 2022. The archaeological process of reconstructing and understanding our past has undergone several reassessments in the last century, producing an equal number of new perspectives and approaches. The recent materiality turn emphasizes the necessity to ground those achievements in order to build fresh avenues of interpretation and reach new boundaries in the study of the human kind and its ecology. Symbols must not be conceived only as allegory but also, and perhaps mainly, as reason (raison d’être) and meaning (culture). They may be considered key elements leading to interpretation, not only in their physical manifestation but by being infused with the gestures, beliefs and intentions of their creators, created in a specific context and with a specific chaîne opératoire. In this volume a variety of case studies is offered, representing disparate ancient cultures in the Mediterranean and central Europe and the Near East. The thread that connects them revolves around the prominence of symbols and allegorical aspects in archaeology, whether they are considered as expressions of iconographic evidence, material culture or ritual ceremonies, seen from a multicultural perspective. This (and subsequent ICAS) volumes, therefore, aims to embrace all the different aspects pertaining to symbols in archaeology in a specific ‘place’, allowing the reader to deepen their knowledge of such a fascinating and multifaceted topic, by looking at it from a multicultural perspective.

This book assesses the place of logic, mathematics, and computer science in present day, interdisciplinary areas of computational linguistics. Computational linguistics studies natural language in its various manifestations from a computational point of view, both on the theoretical level (modeling grammar modules dealing with natural language form and meaning and the relation between these two) and on the practical level (developing applications for language and speech technology). It is a collection of chapters presenting new and future research. The book focuses mainly on logical approaches to computational processing of natural language and on the applicability of methods and techniques from the study of formal languages, programming, and other specification languages. It presents work from other approaches to linguistics, as well, especially because they inspire new work and approaches.

Bringing together 16 articles by renowned scholars from around the globe, this volume offers a multi-dimensional view of comparative and world literature. Drawing on the scope of these scholars’ collective intellects and insights, it connects disparate research contexts to illuminate the multi-dimensional views of related areas as we step into the third decade of the 21st century. The book will be of particular interest to scholars working in comparative literary and cultural studies, and to readers interested in the future of literary studies in a cross-culturized world.