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Un mélange genevois

Tacit notions of iconicity in Ferdinand De Saussure’s Writings in General Linguistics
  • Jui-Pi Chien
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Semblance and Signification
This chapter is in the book Semblance and Signification

Abstract

This paper explores some notions of iconicity in the newly published Writings in General Linguistics by Saussure. It begins by revisiting the imputed opposition between symbol and sign, and then proposes some contexts which serve to discover iconic traits in Saussure’s theory. In order to relate Saussure’s ideas to the attempts at defining ‘the iconic sign’, the author draws on the controversy over ‘cognitive type’ – whether we should rely on concrete objects in reality or some established laws and principles in interpreting images. Moreover, some conceptual tools like langue, séme and sôme are discussed within the broadened schemes of signs which Saussure proposed in his manuscripts. Finally, the paper concludes with an analysis of ‘the symbolic logic’ and ‘analogical reasoning’, which not only dissolves the opposition between symbol and sign, but also recognizes rules or principles as keys to our perception of similarities between systems of signs.

Abstract

This paper explores some notions of iconicity in the newly published Writings in General Linguistics by Saussure. It begins by revisiting the imputed opposition between symbol and sign, and then proposes some contexts which serve to discover iconic traits in Saussure’s theory. In order to relate Saussure’s ideas to the attempts at defining ‘the iconic sign’, the author draws on the controversy over ‘cognitive type’ – whether we should rely on concrete objects in reality or some established laws and principles in interpreting images. Moreover, some conceptual tools like langue, séme and sôme are discussed within the broadened schemes of signs which Saussure proposed in his manuscripts. Finally, the paper concludes with an analysis of ‘the symbolic logic’ and ‘analogical reasoning’, which not only dissolves the opposition between symbol and sign, but also recognizes rules or principles as keys to our perception of similarities between systems of signs.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface and acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Part I. Word forms, word formation, and meaning
  6. Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words 3
  7. Iconic thinking and the contact-induced transfer of linguistic material 19
  8. Ezra Pound among the Mawu 39
  9. Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language 55
  10. Imagic iconicity in the Chinese language 83
  11. Words in the mirror 101
  12. Part II. General theoretical approaches
  13. Un mélange genevois 135
  14. How to put art and brain together 149
  15. Image, diagram, and metaphor 157
  16. Part III. Narrative grammatical structures
  17. The farmers sowed seeds and hopes 175
  18. Non-iconic chronology in English narrative texts 191
  19. A burning world of war 211
  20. Part IV. Cognitive poetics
  21. Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance 233
  22. Mental space mapping in classical Chinese poetry 251
  23. Iconicity in conceptual blending 269
  24. Part V. Acoustic and visual iconicity
  25. Thematized iconicity and iconic devices in the modern novel 291
  26. Iconicity and intermediality in Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy 313
  27. Words, like shells, are signs as well as things 327
  28. Unveiling creative subplots through the non-traditional application of diagrammatic iconicity 343
  29. Part VI. Intermedial iconicity
  30. The iconic indexicality of photography 355
  31. Unbinding the text 369
  32. Argumentative, iconic, and indexical structures in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin 389
  33. John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art 405
  34. Author index 423
  35. Subject index 425
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.10.07chi

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface and acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Part I. Word forms, word formation, and meaning
  6. Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words 3
  7. Iconic thinking and the contact-induced transfer of linguistic material 19
  8. Ezra Pound among the Mawu 39
  9. Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language 55
  10. Imagic iconicity in the Chinese language 83
  11. Words in the mirror 101
  12. Part II. General theoretical approaches
  13. Un mélange genevois 135
  14. How to put art and brain together 149
  15. Image, diagram, and metaphor 157
  16. Part III. Narrative grammatical structures
  17. The farmers sowed seeds and hopes 175
  18. Non-iconic chronology in English narrative texts 191
  19. A burning world of war 211
  20. Part IV. Cognitive poetics
  21. Aesthetic qualities as structural resemblance 233
  22. Mental space mapping in classical Chinese poetry 251
  23. Iconicity in conceptual blending 269
  24. Part V. Acoustic and visual iconicity
  25. Thematized iconicity and iconic devices in the modern novel 291
  26. Iconicity and intermediality in Charles Simic’s Dime-Store Alchemy 313
  27. Words, like shells, are signs as well as things 327
  28. Unveiling creative subplots through the non-traditional application of diagrammatic iconicity 343
  29. Part VI. Intermedial iconicity
  30. The iconic indexicality of photography 355
  31. Unbinding the text 369
  32. Argumentative, iconic, and indexical structures in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin 389
  33. John Irving’s A Widow for One Year and Tod Williams’ The Door in the Floor as ‘(mult-)i-conic’ works of art 405
  34. Author index 423
  35. Subject index 425
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