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What exactly iconicity means?
Kinga Krawiec
Agata Ziarczyńska
Katarzyna Sobich
Jarosław Siegieda
Dawid Leszczyński
Iconicity
In Peircean terms, iconicity is one of the three relationships in
which a representamen (expression) may stand to its object
(content or referent) and which may be taken as the “ground”
for their forming a sign.
There is nothing similar with culture icon or paiting icons.
It is offen abstrac.
Icons in the religious sense are not particularly good
instances of icons in the semiotical sense.
Contrary to the icons of computer programs and those of
cognitive psychology, iconic signs may occur in any sense
modality (e.g. in audition, notably in verbal language).
Not all visual signs are iconic in the semiotic sense;
many icons found in computer programs are actually
aniconic visual signs.
The ground
The ground is a part of the sign with the function of
picking out the relevant elements of expression and
content
Iconic ground
The iconic ground consists of a set of two classes of properties
ascribed to two different “things”, which are taken to possess the
properties in question independently, not only of the sign relation,
but of each other.
Iconic sign – what does it mean?
• A primary iconic sign (such as a
picture) is a sign in which the
similarity between the expression
and the content is at least one of
the reasons for positing a sign
relation
• A secondary iconic sign is a
sign in which theexistence of a
sign relation is at least one of the
reasons for positing a similarity
between expression and content
– “Droodles”
Indexicality
Peirce gives many different definitions of indexicality :
”cause”, ”real connection”, ”existential connection”, etc.
Indexicality as ”real connection”
• If indexicality depends on ”real connection” ,
causality is a particular case
• The semantically relevant distinction should be made
between contiguity and factorality
(the relation of part to whole)
• This is the basis of secondary signs (signs for signs)
such as metonymy and synékdoke
Symbolicity
Peirce says that the symbolic sign is without a
ground ( it is created only by the sign relation )
Iconic and indexical grounds only describe that which
connects two objects; they do not tell us whether the result is
a sign or not
(Sonesson 1992)
We should separate the study of the
phylogenetic and ontogenetic emergence
of iconicity, indexicality and symbolicity
from that of the corresponding signs
(Sonesson 2003)
„...If iconic signs are to be a distinct kind of sign,
their difference should be statable in terms of the
traditional vocabulary of denotation, signification
and connotation...”
Arthur K. Bierman
Biermans arguments against the view that there
are any iconic signs in the sense indicated:
1. The Metaphysical Argument
2. The Null Denotation Argument
3. The Uniqueness Argument
4. The Diversity Argument
5. The Residue Argument
6. The Symmetricality Argument
7. The Correct Application Argument
8. The Unchanged Meaning Argument
The Metaphysical argument
„This hardly seems suitble unless we are
prepared to call everything a sign and unless we
are prepared to acknowledge that everything has
the same donotation”
The Uniqueness argument
If an iconic sign is have null denotation,
it must not resemle any-thing elese in the
universe, that is, it must be unique
Sonesson's argument
Nothing becomes an icon only because is has iconicity
(similarity). For something to become an icon, iconicity
must pertain to something which for other reasons is a
sign— something which has the sign function
(Sonesson 1989)
Bierman's argument
''If an object's resemblancet to another object is sufficient for
its being an iconic sign, we have no way of deciding which of
the two object is the iconic,
for resemlance is asymmetrical relation''
Arthur K. Bierman
Sonesson's argument
The sign relation is asymmetric: something we call
expression stands for a content, not the reverse
Similarity is what logicians call a relation of
equivalence: it is symmetric (if ”a” stands for ”b”,
then ”b” also stands for ”a”) and reflexive (”a” also
stands for ”a”)
The Unchanged Meaning argument
''Should we be able to show that an icon does change its
meaning, even though being correctly applied, then we can
conclude that it lacks one of the features which a sign must
have to be a sign''
Arthur K. Bierman
”Cultural” arguments formulated by Umberto Eco
and René Lindekens:
●
Children must learn to interpret pictures
●
Pictures are not really similar to what they depict
The more similar a picture to reality in one respect,
the more dissimilar in other respects
●
Our experiment
Hypothesis:
Does iconicity is innate?
Conditions:
●
Child (5 years old)
●
3 picture of real objects which the child did not see
Prediction:
Child correctly selects the object
Result:
The child correctly chosen object
Conclusions
The subject of the experiment showed that
primary iconicity (recognizing signs)
can be innate, unlearned ability created in
childs minds during their development.
References:
*Bierman, A., (1962). That There Are no Iconic Signs.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
*Hochberg, J. & Brooks, V. (1962). Pictorial recognition as
an unlearned ability: a study of one child's performance.
American Journal of Psychology
*Sonesson, G. (1998) That there are many kinds of
iconical signs