The Motivated Sign
Olga Fischer · Max Nänny
Mar 2001 · Iconicity in Language and Literature Book 2 · John Benjamins Publishing
eBook
387
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn more
About this eBook
This volume, a sequel to Form Miming Meaning (1999), offers a selection of papers given at the second international symposium on iconicity (Amsterdam 1999). In the light of semiotic, linguistic and literary theory the studies gathered here investigate how iconicity works on all levels of language, in literary texts and other forms of verbal discourse. They investigate, among other subjects, the semiotic foundations of iconicity, the role played by iconicity in language evolution and in the way words are positioned syntactically. Special consideration is given to the iconic nature of metaphor and the mise en abyme, to iconically motivated punctuation and other typographic matters such as the manipulation of colour, fonts and spacing in advertising and in poetry. Other studies show how iconicity influences Shakespeares rhetoric, the structural design of Margaret Atwoods writings and the changing fashions in fictional landscape description. Thus, these analyses of the motivated sign represent yet another strong challenge to Saussures dogma of arbitrariness (Jakobson).
Rate this eBook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Centre instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
