Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Iconicity as a key epistemic source of change in the self

The film The Lives of Others revisited in the light of triadic semiotics

Abstract

In this text, the phenomenological categorial analysis at the basis of Peircean semiotic is used to explore the working of iconic signs and their relationship to the self as an ongoing interpretative process as well as to the manifold of identities that human beings adopt in the different circumstances they go through. A film was chosen to describe the relevance of iconicity for the evolving self-interpretative process that serves to adapt us to life changes. The plot of The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen, von Donnersmarck 2006) brings out in exemplary fashion the epistemic function of iconicity to account for spontaneity as the origin of the new and unexpected in the lifeworld. Peirce’s triadic analysis of the imagination elucidates how change is introduced even in a most authoritarian sociopolitical system, whose main goal is to avoid the irruption of the freewheeling possibilism of iconicity.

Abstract

In this text, the phenomenological categorial analysis at the basis of Peircean semiotic is used to explore the working of iconic signs and their relationship to the self as an ongoing interpretative process as well as to the manifold of identities that human beings adopt in the different circumstances they go through. A film was chosen to describe the relevance of iconicity for the evolving self-interpretative process that serves to adapt us to life changes. The plot of The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen, von Donnersmarck 2006) brings out in exemplary fashion the epistemic function of iconicity to account for spontaneity as the origin of the new and unexpected in the lifeworld. Peirce’s triadic analysis of the imagination elucidates how change is introduced even in a most authoritarian sociopolitical system, whose main goal is to avoid the irruption of the freewheeling possibilism of iconicity.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Preface and acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. General framework
  6. The intricate dialectics of iconization and structuration 11
  7. The iconicity ring model for sound symbolism 27
  8. Iconicity as a key epistemic source of change in the self 47
  9. Indexicality and iconization in Mock ing Spanish 63
  10. Part II. Symmetry
  11. Iconicity of symmetries in language and in literature 79
  12. Chiastic iconicity 103
  13. Tonal iconicity and narrative transformation 135
  14. Part III. Visual and intermedial iconicity
  15. Władysław Strzemiński’s theory of vision and Ronald Langacker’s theory of language 155
  16. Iconicity for an iconoclast 173
  17. This is not a pipe 193
  18. Image superimposition in signed language discourse and in motion pictures 213
  19. Part IV. Gesture and sign language
  20. Iconicity in gesture 245
  21. Where frozen signs reclaim iconic ground 265
  22. Recurring iconic mapping patterns within and across verb types in German Sign Language 289
  23. Part V. Onomatopoeia and sound symbolism
  24. Echoes of the past 331
  25. The correlation between meaning and verb formation in Japanese sound-symbolic words 351
  26. The phonosemantics of the Korean monosyllabic ideophone ttak 369
  27. The iconicity of emotive Hijazi non-lexical expressions of disgust 389
  28. Author index 405
  29. Subject index 407
Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems
This chapter is in the book Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.18.03and

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Preface and acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I. General framework
  6. The intricate dialectics of iconization and structuration 11
  7. The iconicity ring model for sound symbolism 27
  8. Iconicity as a key epistemic source of change in the self 47
  9. Indexicality and iconization in Mock ing Spanish 63
  10. Part II. Symmetry
  11. Iconicity of symmetries in language and in literature 79
  12. Chiastic iconicity 103
  13. Tonal iconicity and narrative transformation 135
  14. Part III. Visual and intermedial iconicity
  15. Władysław Strzemiński’s theory of vision and Ronald Langacker’s theory of language 155
  16. Iconicity for an iconoclast 173
  17. This is not a pipe 193
  18. Image superimposition in signed language discourse and in motion pictures 213
  19. Part IV. Gesture and sign language
  20. Iconicity in gesture 245
  21. Where frozen signs reclaim iconic ground 265
  22. Recurring iconic mapping patterns within and across verb types in German Sign Language 289
  23. Part V. Onomatopoeia and sound symbolism
  24. Echoes of the past 331
  25. The correlation between meaning and verb formation in Japanese sound-symbolic words 351
  26. The phonosemantics of the Korean monosyllabic ideophone ttak 369
  27. The iconicity of emotive Hijazi non-lexical expressions of disgust 389
  28. Author index 405
  29. Subject index 407
Downloaded on 13.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/ill.18.03and/html
Scroll to top button