Iconicity: Literary Texts

Abstract

This article defines the nature of iconicity from a semiotic and linguistic point of view and discusses the three types of icons that form part of iconicity: images, diagrams and metaphors. The discussion concentrates on images and diagrams (metaphors are discussed in a separate entry) that play a role in literary texts and includes a short history of the critical discussion of iconicity since the 1940s. Images depend on aural/oral and visual phenomena and are therefore discussed on the phonetic and the typographic level only. Diagrams are of a more abstract nature and occur also on the morphosyntactic and discourse level. The discussion of the various types on each linguistic level is illustrated with many examples, mainly from English literature, to show the effect and function of iconicity, and how it adds meaning to the text.