Home Linguistics & Semiotics Iconic text strategies
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Iconic text strategies

Path, sorting & weighting, kaleidoscope
  • Friedrich Ungerer
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Search
Insistent Images
This chapter is in the book Insistent Images

Abstract

This paper takes the iconic approach to text interpretation beyond the traditional perspectives of iconic sequencing, iconic proximity and quantitative iconicity by claiming that for our comprehension of texts strategies we depend on the holistic or gestalt transfer from complex natural or human action patterns. Pursuing this line the article not only presents prototypical examples (guidebooks and manuals for the path strategy, the top-down structure of news stories for the sorting & weighting strategy and lyrical poems for the kaleidoscope strategy), but also discusses examples of strategy blends and strategy incorporation, focussing on the relationship between individual episodes and overarching strategies found in films such as Les favoris de la lune, Short Cuts, Night on Earth and Italiensk for Begyndere.

Abstract

This paper takes the iconic approach to text interpretation beyond the traditional perspectives of iconic sequencing, iconic proximity and quantitative iconicity by claiming that for our comprehension of texts strategies we depend on the holistic or gestalt transfer from complex natural or human action patterns. Pursuing this line the article not only presents prototypical examples (guidebooks and manuals for the path strategy, the top-down structure of news stories for the sorting & weighting strategy and lyrical poems for the kaleidoscope strategy), but also discusses examples of strategy blends and strategy incorporation, focussing on the relationship between individual episodes and overarching strategies found in films such as Les favoris de la lune, Short Cuts, Night on Earth and Italiensk for Begyndere.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface and acknowledgements vii
  4. List of Contributors ix
  5. Introduction: Insistent Images 1
  6. PART I. Iconicity and grammaticalization
  7. Putting grammaticalization to the iconicity test 17
  8. Iconic thumbs, pinkies and pointers 37
  9. PART II. Iconicity and the aural
  10. The physical basis for phonological iconicity 57
  11. Reading aloud and Charles Dickens’ aural iconic prose style 73
  12. Iconicity and the divine in the fin de siècle poetry of W.B. Yeats 91
  13. Is lámatyáve a linguistic heresy? 103
  14. PART III. Iconicity and the visual
  15. The beauty of life and the variety of signs 113
  16. Forms of restricted iconicity in modern avant-garde poetry 129
  17. Eco-Iconicity in the poetry and poem-groups of E.E. Cummings 155
  18. The language of film is a matrix of icons 173
  19. Liberature 191
  20. PART IV. Iconicity and conceptualization
  21. Meaning on the one and on the other hand 211
  22. Iconic text strategies 229
  23. ‘Damn mad’ 247
  24. PART V. Iconicity and structure
  25. Iconicity and the grammar–lexis interface 269
  26. Iconicity in the coding of pragmatic functions 289
  27. Double negation and iconicity 301
  28. PART VI. Iconicity and multimedia / intertextuality
  29. Iconicity in multimedia performance 323
  30. Author index 347
  31. Subject index 353
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.5.20ung

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface and acknowledgements vii
  4. List of Contributors ix
  5. Introduction: Insistent Images 1
  6. PART I. Iconicity and grammaticalization
  7. Putting grammaticalization to the iconicity test 17
  8. Iconic thumbs, pinkies and pointers 37
  9. PART II. Iconicity and the aural
  10. The physical basis for phonological iconicity 57
  11. Reading aloud and Charles Dickens’ aural iconic prose style 73
  12. Iconicity and the divine in the fin de siècle poetry of W.B. Yeats 91
  13. Is lámatyáve a linguistic heresy? 103
  14. PART III. Iconicity and the visual
  15. The beauty of life and the variety of signs 113
  16. Forms of restricted iconicity in modern avant-garde poetry 129
  17. Eco-Iconicity in the poetry and poem-groups of E.E. Cummings 155
  18. The language of film is a matrix of icons 173
  19. Liberature 191
  20. PART IV. Iconicity and conceptualization
  21. Meaning on the one and on the other hand 211
  22. Iconic text strategies 229
  23. ‘Damn mad’ 247
  24. PART V. Iconicity and structure
  25. Iconicity and the grammar–lexis interface 269
  26. Iconicity in the coding of pragmatic functions 289
  27. Double negation and iconicity 301
  28. PART VI. Iconicity and multimedia / intertextuality
  29. Iconicity in multimedia performance 323
  30. Author index 347
  31. Subject index 353
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 26.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/ill.5.20ung/html
Scroll to top button