Iconicity as a Pervasive Semiotic Principle: Perspectives, Methods and Domains of Inquiry

This volume brings together a set of studies devoted to the many ways in which iconicity continues to shape language, literature and meaning-making. Far from being a marginal or exceptional phenomenon, iconicity emerges in this volume as a pervasive semiotic principle, active across different levels of linguistic structure, textual organization, literary interpretation, embodied communication and cultural representation. The contributions collected in this book explore iconicity as a dynamic relation between form and meaning. They examine how linguistic signs may imitate, suggest, diagram, evoke or reconfigure aspects of experience, not only through sound and visual form, but also through naming practices, grammatical structures, textual strategies, gesture, sign languages and digital communication. In doing so, the volume continues the line of inquiry developed within the Iconicity in Language and Literature series, where iconicity is understood as a central force in the production and interpretation of signs across verbal and gestural systems.