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Chiastic iconicity

Refiguring symmetry
  • Randy Allen Harris
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Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems
This chapter is in the book Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems

Abstract

Chiastic structure (ABBA) leverages the iconicity principles of identity, sequential order, and quantity for consolidated iconicities of harmonious balance and cyclicity, effecting an aesthetic response that is very often but somewhat incongruously associated with mirror-image symmetry. The ABBA pattern does not effect this response alone, however. Chiastic figures collocate preferentially with other figures to achieve these effects, especially including figures of parallelism. These figural convergences, collocating additionally with certain grammatical features, raise the iconicity stakes somewhat further to enact a quite specific suite of meanings: comprehensiveness, irrelevance of order, reciprocal specification, and reciprocal energy. These claims are developed with particular attention to lexical chiasmus, the rhetorical scheme known as ‘antimetabole’.

Abstract

Chiastic structure (ABBA) leverages the iconicity principles of identity, sequential order, and quantity for consolidated iconicities of harmonious balance and cyclicity, effecting an aesthetic response that is very often but somewhat incongruously associated with mirror-image symmetry. The ABBA pattern does not effect this response alone, however. Chiastic figures collocate preferentially with other figures to achieve these effects, especially including figures of parallelism. These figural convergences, collocating additionally with certain grammatical features, raise the iconicity stakes somewhat further to enact a quite specific suite of meanings: comprehensiveness, irrelevance of order, reciprocal specification, and reciprocal energy. These claims are developed with particular attention to lexical chiasmus, the rhetorical scheme known as ‘antimetabole’.

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
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.18.06har

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
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