Iconicity (of Reading). Lolita

The paper focuses on the issue of iconicity of (printed) literary narrative and proposes the idea of iconic reading (or iconicity of reading). It discusses Peircean notion of iconic sign, examines its use within the field of iconicity studies in language and literature (Olga Fischer, Christina Ljungberg, Winfried Nöth, etc.), and considers the differences of paradigms in iconicity research: (1) iconicity as a permanent property of a sign; imitation pattern – form mimes meaning; (2) iconicity as a variable quality of a sign, actualized by the speaker; imitation pattern – form miming form; (3) iconicity as the ground of human thought and a function of a sign, actualized by the reader / reading. Consideration of the differences within the field of iconicity research helps to reveal the underestimated textual aspects that actualize iconic dimension of literary narrative, and inspires to examine their role in the analysis of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, precisely, its “Foreword” (both original English and Russian versions). The analysis of the fictional “Foreword”, which establishes the pattern of iconization of the novel as a whole, and inevitably includes the references to its “main” part, shows how the novel iconizes writing. Withal, the analysis demonstrates how this iconization configures the particular model of reading, which becomes the representamen of the specific cognitive icon. The mental representamen of this icon “stands for” the specific object – the text as the tangible media product, marked by the structural and discursive traits of its own. Respectively, such (cognitive) icon represents the pattern of mimetic relationship between form and meaning, introduced by Lars Elleström (2010), – meaning mimes form, worthy of further consideration.

Afanasy Fet’s Poem «Rainy Summer» («Dozhdlivoe Leto»): Rhythm and Meaning (To the 200th Anniversary of the Birth)

The study was set out to analyse the poem «Rainy Summer» by Afanasy Fet. The applied methodology involves poetry and linguistic aesthetic analyses of the text, linguistic commenting, line-by-line analysis and slow reading. The peculiarities of the text size, rhyme and rhythm are considered in the background of the traditions of Russian poetry. The study reveals certain principles of the figurative-thematic structure of the poem, defines its phonics, stylistics and, in part, syntax. In the paper special attention is paid to the aesthetic function of Fet’s grammatical anomalies. The symbolic meaning of verbal-figurative details and the entire poem is clarified. It is indicated that harmony in the rhythm, style, and music of the Fet’s poem plays the role of an iconic sign of the Creator.

Iconic Character of Bestiary Images in the Novels of F. Werfel and E. Canetti

The anthropomorphic depiction of animals bearing allegorical meanings is the well-represented and actively demanded bestiary of world literature. It reflects the mythological thinking of writers and is an integral part of the worldview basis on which literary works are based. Bestiary images in the artistic text acquire the status of universal representative symbols. This study discusses bestiary images in novelistic works of Austrian writers, Franz Werfel (1890-1945) and Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Using the semiotic approach, the researchers define a range of images and meanings that are related to these two writers as representatives of the era of historical upheavals and individual authorial purposes that reflect the basis of the worldview of each of them. A bestiary image in a literary text can function as an iconic sign, which, on the one hand, reflects the material object in its materiality, and on the other hand, contributes to the emerging of "new", constructed by analogy, aesthetic reality. The similarity to the referent, in this case, is included in the overall system of ontological values. An iconic sign, after Ch.S. Pierce, refers to a simple sign based on the similarity to a thing and participating in the creation of symptoms of a higher order – symbols. Bestiary images in a literary text acquire the status of universal representative characters. The functioning of animal images in the text, their nomination, combinatorics, communication with the elements, time periods, and behavioural patterns are the way of the study of the philosophical foundations of the author's world picture. Canetti’s bestiary is represented by metaphorical images of a monkey, a cat, a pig, and a tortoise, which are used as a tool for analysing various psychic and psychological states of the characters of the novel "Blinding" (Die Blendung, 1931-1932). Multiple forms of anthropopathy and zoomorphism are based on the writer's attitude towards the initial "equality" of man and animal. The study of zoopoetics (the term of J. Lacan) of Werfel’s novel "Barbara, or Piety" (Barbara oder die Frömigkeit, 1929) helps to reveal the axiological foundation upon which the writer constructs his novels. The functioning of images of animals, a horse, for example, is related to the semantics of sacrifice that is rethought and acquiring new meanings in a new historical context. Composite images connecting different characteristics and associated with various natural elements are important. It is apparent that the study of the works by Werfel and Canetti, given the iconic nature of bestiary images, seems relevant to detect common patterns of development of European literature and culture of the first third of the 20th Century.

The metaphor and the iconic attitude

This paper discusses visual metaphors and aspects of similarity in relation to metaphors. The concept of metaphor should here be understood as a semiotic unit that is also a sign (cf. Ricœur, P. 1986. The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.). This implies that not all semiotic units are signs, but also that not all signs are typical metaphors. The metaphor is a particular kind of sign because of its making use of the openness present in similarity relations. Metaphorical meaning making is related to a quality of vagueness in iconic sign relations. Furthermore, a notion of iconic attitude is proposed as a designation of subjective and intersubjective perspectives that might be taken on meanings founded on similarity. The iconic attitude mirrors the flexibility of thought and responds to the potentiality of vagueness in iconic sign relations; but, at the same time, the iconic attitude works as a stabilizing factor for meaning. Moreover, this attitude is crucial for the specification of the similarity relation in an actual sign experience with an iconic ground.

Creolised Text in Mass Media: Principles of Effective Decoding

Arising and active development of innovative information channels, forming net thinking, require non-standard forms of presenting material in mass media. One of the solutions to this problem is increasing the number of creolised texts not only in electronic, but in printed media as well. Such texts containing verbal (heading, subscript, text comprising of more than one sentence) and non-verbal (image, scheme, table, font, colour) parts are widely spread in mass media because they allow the reader to precisely understand the author’s intention and the intention can be expressed in an implicit way. Such texts correspond to mass communication general trends towards information visualization, raising the effectiveness of the text impact on audience thanks to double coding, compact presentation of the material. These are the reasons of growing scientific interest in creolized texts in psychology, literature studies, linguistics, journalism. However, the terminology of the scientific sphere is not conventional: different terms “creolized text”, “semantically complicated text”, “polycode text”, etc. are all used in similar meanings in scientific papers. The authors of the article characterize terms used in Russian and foreign articles and monographs, assess their frequency and semantic scope. The specific features of creolized texts are pointed out, different types of such texts depending on metagraphic and iconic sign systems included in them are described. We distinguish three phases in reading such texts (preliminary stage, organised perception, final stage) and the role of visual and verbal components in the process. By the example of caricatures we show the importance of background knowledge for adequate decoding of creolized texts. Linguistic and cultural universals are an optimal source of objects whose meaning is evident to the representative of a certain culture. This makes the creolized text decoding easier in linguistic culture of its origin. On the other hand, texts based on linguistic and cultural universalia (realia, idioms, homophones, homographs, etc.) present extra difficulties for non-natives. The material of the research is caricatures of the late 20th — early 21st centuries by A.Merinov. Each of the caricatures is based on a certain linguistic and cultural universal.

Iconicity

Iconicity is a relationship of resemblance or similarity between the two aspects of a sign: its form and its meaning. An iconic sign is one whose form resembles its meaning in some way. The opposite of iconicity is arbitrariness. In an arbitrary sign, the association between form and meaning is based solely on convention; there is nothing in the form of the sign that resembles aspects of its meaning. The Hindu-Arabic numerals 1, 2, 3 are arbitrary, because their current form does not correlate to any aspect of their meaning. In contrast, the Roman numerals I, II, III are iconic, because the number of occurrences of the sign I correlates with the quantity that the numerals represent. Because iconicity has to do with the properties of signs in general and not only those of linguistic signs, it plays an important role in the field of semiotics—the study of signs and signaling. However, language is the most pervasive symbolic communicative system used by humans, and the notion of iconicity plays an important role in characterizing the linguistic sign and linguistic systems. Iconicity is also central to the study of literary uses of language, such as prose and poetry. There are various types of iconicity: the form of a sign may resemble aspects of its meaning in several ways: it may create a mental image of the concept (imagic iconicity), or its structure and the arrangement of its elements may resemble the structural relationship between components of the concept represented (diagrammatic iconicity). An example of the first type is the word cuckoo, whose sounds resemble the call of the bird, or a sign such as RABBIT in Israeli Sign Language, whose form—the hands representing the rabbit's long ears—resembles a visual property of that animal. An example of diagrammatic iconicity is vēnī, vīdī, vīcī, where the order of clauses in a discourse is understood as reflecting the sequence of events in the world. Iconicity is found on all linguistic levels: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse. It is found both in spoken languages and in sign languages. However, sign languages, because of the visual-gestural modality through which they are transmitted, are much richer in iconic devices, and therefore offer a rich array of topics and perspectives for investigating iconicity, and the interaction between iconicity and language structure.

Cultural Wisdom of Minangkabau Ethnic Community for Local – Global Virtual Identity

The development of digital technology is extending the opportunity to create a new identity of society. Digital technology enables cultural experience across boundaries, to new places of virtual world. Virtual identity functions as main differentiator of personal account in social media. It represents a personal being in virtual world. It also functions as a sign to culture and life’s value of the person behind an account. This paper discussed about the virtual identity use by the Minangkabau ethnic’s people in Facebook. Iconic artifacts of Minangkabau use in profile picture of the social media. Those artifacts valued with Minangkabau’s cultural wisdom. The approach use for this research is cultural studies, with the semiotic method use to search the relation between the image and the cultural wisdom representation of Minangkabau. The visual data collected by capturing profile picture in Facebook. The image analyzed as everyday symbolic and expressive practice and form of Minangkabau ethnic’s people. The picture is the iconic sign resembles to its conceptual object in certain ways. The result is the understanding of how profile picture function as indirect visual communication of local - global identity of Minangkabau ethnic people. The message convey in virtual identity relates the account and others in cyberspace.

Man in the “Points of Intensity”: Garden as a Space of Self- Identification

The article deals with the issue of semiotic and cognitive potential of a garden as a compositional form (“Ogrody” by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz). Silva rerum, florilegia, hortus act as its genre presupposition in European artistic tradition. We define the semiotic potential of a “garden” through the system of symbolic meanings: garden as a collection, locus amoenus, sphere of potentiality or ordering, garden as a memory space, intellectual space, etc. The garden via a compositional form of this text and the space of thought functions as an iconic sign of memory. Each object of the past, being replaced by a sign, receives localization in our memory and becomes a “text”. This allows us “to read” the past in the absence of an immediate reception. Garden acquires the properties of textuality and a semiotic object. Hence Iwaszkiewicz considers six gardens in “Ogrody” as a model of his life. Memory is a nonlinear space. Therefore, transitions between gardens are only arbitrary, associative. At the same time garden as a compositional form becomes the cognitive tool of identity. Topology of this memory space (configuration of people, books, music, which become signs) is the cognitive map of the “self (selfhood, selfness). The self-referent structures create the illusion: I (the one who writes) is combined with that person from the past (also I), which he recalls. Nonetheless, all narratives about selfhood are only “the map, but not a territory” (A. Korzybski).

Cross-language effects in written word recognition: The case of bilingual deaf children

In recent years, multiple studies have shown that the languages of a bilingual interact during processing. We investigated sign activation as deaf children read words. In a word–picture verification task, we manipulated the underlying sign equivalents. We presented children with word–picture pairs for which the sign translation equivalents varied with respect to sign phonology overlap (i.e., handshape, movement, hand-palm orientation, and location) and sign iconicity (i.e., transparent depiction of meaning or not). For the deaf children, non-matching word–picture pairs with sign translation equivalents that had highly similar elements (i.e., strong sign phonological relations) showed relatively longer response latencies and more errors than non-matching word–picture pairs without sign phonological relations (inhibitory effects). In contrast, matching word–picture pairs with strongly iconic sign translation equivalents showed relatively shorter response latencies and fewer errors than pairs with weakly iconic translation equivalents (facilitatory effects). No such activation effects were found in the word–picture verification task for the hearing children. The results provide evidence for interactive cross-language processing in deaf children.