Form Miming Meaning: Iconicity in Language and Literature (review)

This stimulating volume presents a selection of papers from a symposium on ‘Iconicity in Language and Literature’ (Zurich, March 1997) organized by the University of Zurich and the University of Amsterdam. In this international gathering, the first of its kind, both linguists and literary scholars presented studies of iconicity in their respective areas.

Iconicity is inherent in language generally but is intensified in creative language, in which a close relation between the form of a word and its meaning heightens expressivity. Thus, linguists have often looked to literature to find the most conspicuous iconic forms (for instance, metaphors or other literary devices such as alliteration, parallelism, and metrical form) while literary scholars have benefited much from contemporary linguistic studies of the nature and types of iconicity and the role iconicity plays in language formation.

After an excellent introduction by the editors, the book’s 20 contributions are divided into 5 sections, in which the linguistic studies are intermingled with the literary: Part 1, ‘General’ (1–120); Part 2, ‘Sound and rhythm’ (121–69); Part 3, ‘Letters, typography and graphic design’ (170–304); Part 4, ‘Word-formation’ (305–42); and Part 5, ‘Syntax and discourse’ (343–422). The book concludes with author and subject indexes.

Of particular value in Part 1 is the paper by Ivan Fónagy (‘Why iconicity?’, 3–36), in which he illustrates how iconicity is a basic principle in natural languages and serves as a modifier or distorter that alters the rules of grammar and influences language change. Also in this introductory section are several literary studies of general interest, including that by John J. White (‘On semiotic interplay’, 83–108), in which White explores iconicity and indexicality in 20th-century literature.

In Part 2 one appreciates the brisk contribution of Hans Heinrich Meier which traces the history of linguists’ conflicted understandings of phonological iconicity (‘Imagination by ideophones’, 135–54).

The contributions in Part 3 address visual aspects of language; among these are articles by Max Nänny on alphabetic letters as imagic icons (‘Alphabetic letters as icons in literary texts’, 173–98) and by Andreas Fischer on iconicity in graphic design (‘Graphological iconicity in print advertising’, 251–83), as well as papers on individual literary texts or poets such as that by Michael Webster on e. e. cummings (‘ “singing is silence” ’ 199–214). Here, however, the paper by Eva Lia Wyss on the ACSII characters used iconically in email (‘Iconicity in the digital world’, 285–304) departs from the core topic in that smiley faces and pictures made of ACSII characters, for instance, are nonlinguistic signs and therefore do not properly belong to the realm of linguistic iconicity.

In Part 4, the paper by Friedrich Ungerer (‘Diagrammatic iconicity in word-formation’, 307–24) discusses the role of isomorphism and iconicity of motivation in word-formation. Of the syntactical studies in the final section, Part 5, most remarkable are those by Olga Fischer (‘On the role played by iconicity in grammaticalisation processes’, 345–74) and Bernt Kortmann (‘Iconicity, typology and cognition’, 375–92).

This diverse and invigorating collection should be of lively interest to linguists and literary critics alike.