Iconic Signs Research Articles

IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTION OF ICON SIGN IN THE POETRY OF EDUARD HARENTS

Being an integral element of the visual structure of the poem, the symbol, together with the image, becomes an icon, forms a sign-symbolic system of the text, forming the unity of the artistic system. The transformation of the semantic functions of a word into an icon and its use as a means of representation is characteristic of many of Eduard Harent’s poems. The main feature of encoding artistic thought through icon signs is the two-quality feature of such codes, associated simultaneously with both the artistic situation and the icon sign, with a contemplative atmosphere stored in the context of a word-image, which leads to semantic complexity and semantic, so to speak, mixed quality that is formed as a result of intertextual interaction characterized by the specified feature. In general, it is difficult to accurately determine all the prerequisites and foundations for the appearance of this or that icon, since their cultural connections are mediated by many literary and authorial events that complete, abstract and generalize. Therefore, the decoding of the icon sign should be considered at the origins of the specific poetic co-structure that carries them. The object of study of the article is the icon and its functional feature in the poetry of Eduard Harents. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by the choice of object: this article is the first attempt in this sense as a theoretical and literary study. The theoretical value of the article lies in the fact that the study allows us to reflect on the theoretical foundations of the concept of iconotext endowed with icon signs, using the example of poetic texts by Eduard Harents, to consider the theoretical provisions of their application in a poetic text, as well as the acceptance of iconotext as a precedent visual phenomenon, which, having been introduced into the poetic structure, gives it an intertextual character. The purpose of the article is to simultaneously emphasize the special role of intertextuality in a literary text.

FLexSign: A lexical database in French Sign Language (LSF).

In psycholinguistics, studies are conducted to understand language processing mechanisms, whether in comprehension or in production, and independently of the language modality. To do so, researchers need accurate psycholinguistic information about the linguistic material they use. One main obstacle to this process is the lack of information available in sign language. While some lexical databases exist in multiple sign languages, to the best of our knowledge, psycholinguistic data for French Sign Language (LSF) signs are not yet available. The present study presents FLexSign, the first interactive lexical database for LSF, inspired by ASL-Lex (Caselli et al., 2017). The database includes familiarity, concreteness, and iconicity data for 546 signs of LSF. These three factors are known to influence the speed or the accuracy of lexical processing. Familiarity and concreteness are known to generate a robust facilitative effect on sign processing, while iconicity plays a complex but crucial role in the creation and organization of sign language lexicons. Therefore, having accurate information on the iconicity of LSF signs would help to better understand the role of this notion in lexical processing. To develop the database, 33 participants were recruited and asked to complete an online questionnaire. The FLexSign database will be of great use to sign language researchers, providing linguistic information that was previously unavailable and offering many opportunities at both the experimental and clinical levels. The database is also open to future contributions.

Iconology and Semiotics – with some Examples from Schapiro and Thürlemann

Debates on the relationship between Iconology and Semiotics resurface constantly, but recent developments in the fields of Visual semiotics and Cognitive semiotics are seldom referred to. Instead, the use of Semiotics in art history is often reduced to the anglophone reception of Structuralist and Post-Structuralist theory in the field. The aim of the present article is to expand the debate and to show that Visual semiotics has long abandoned the dependence on Linguistics and Structuralism that originally limited both its applicability to the study of non-verbal communication, and its validity in terms of historical hermeneutics. This is done by reconsidering a series of scholarly contributions of formative importance for the development of Visual semiotics in the twentieth century: Meyer Schapiro’s early studies of Romanesque art, Felix Thürlemann’s combination of semiotics and historical methodology, and the Belgian Groupe µ’s proposal for a unified analytical framework of visual semiotics and rhetoric. Drawing on Göran Sonesson’s distinction between iconic signs and iconicity in his interpretation of the semiotic legacy of Peirce, it is shown that the category of secondary iconicity may be operative at all the three levels of meaning defined by Erwin Panofsky: pre-iconographic, iconographic, and iconological. Conceived in these terms, the methodological dialogue between semiotics and art history provides a common ground of inquiry that is very different from the alternative presented by Mieke Bal, Norman Bryson and other art historians more than 30 years ago.

Documentary Practice as Praxis: A Direct Appeal to the Realization of the Social Act

The essential preoccupation of this paper is documentary practice as (social) praxis, the voice of the photography аs a direct mode of transmission and not only the discovery or mediation of reality. Alan Sekula's photographic discourse is taken as a case study, a practice that directly engages the subject – the position of the worker within the working class, critically representing the reality that is usually masked by spectacle. The hypotheses assume that the methodology of contextualization and discursivization of documentary photography (Untitled Slide Sequence, 1972) leads to a conscious perception of a historical and social reality. Using a cross-methodology of the author's theory and practice, referring to the author's critical point of view, Marxist and post-Marxist theories, this paper indicates that Sekula develops a specific photo-graphology concerned with the directness of expression, the literalness of meaning, and the unmasking of iconic signs captured by capitalist signifiers. The arguments underline that the use of documentary photography as a direct appeal can encourage the realization of a social act. The conclusion implies that the use of the author's voice in the direction of changing the movement of aesthetic production and reception leads to actualization, towards awakening of the passive component – confrontation with social stratification under capitalist order.

"The Dying Gladiator" by M. Yu. Lermontov: aesthetic unity of form and content (to the 210th anniversary of the birth)

The article presents a philological analysis of M. Yu. Lermontov’s poem "The Dying Gladiator". Line-by-line and comparative analysis, as well as the methods of "reference points" and slow reading are used. The study reveals the role of rhythm in expressing the subtext of the work and holding a dialogue with the reader. Rhythmic and verbal-figurative chiasmus is considered as the leading compositional device. It plays the role of an iconic sign recreating the image of the concentric bowl of the Roman Colosseum arena, which, in turn, performs the function of a symbol conveying the idea of the mutual reversibility of the roles of victims and killers. Based on the philological analysis data, the paper refutes the popular opinion about the secondariness and artificial nature of the second part of the poem. In it, just like in the first part, the idea of the destructive influence of passions and violations of the moral imperative on the history of mankind is put forward. The article argues that the artistic harmony image created by the exquisite rhythm and perfect form of the poem is an iconic reference to the Truth and Beauty revealed in Christ and the Moral Law.

An ERP investigation of perceptual vs motoric iconicity in sign production

The type of form-meaning mapping for iconic signs can vary. For perceptually-iconic signs there is a correspondence between visual features of a referent (e.g., the beak of a bird) and the form of the sign (e.g., extended thumb and index finger at the mouth for the American Sign Language (ASL) sign BIRD). For motorically-iconic signs there is a correspondence between how an object is held/manipulated and the form of the sign (e.g., the ASL sign FLUTE depicts how a flute is played). Previous studies have found that iconic signs are retrieved faster in picture-naming tasks, but type of iconicity has not been manipulated. We conducted an ERP study in which deaf signers and a control group of English speakers named pictures that targeted perceptually-iconic, motorically-iconic, or non-iconic ASL signs. For signers (unlike the control group), naming latencies varied by iconicity type: perceptually-iconic < motorically-iconic < non-iconic signs. A reduction in the N400 amplitude was only found for the perceptually-iconic signs, compared to both non-iconic and motorically-iconic signs. No modulations of N400 amplitudes were observed for the control group. We suggest that this pattern of results arises because pictures eliciting perceptually-iconic signs can more effectively prime lexical access due to greater alignment between features of the picture and the semantic and phonological features of the sign. We speculate that naming latencies are facilitated for motorically-iconic signs due to later processes (e.g., faster phonological encoding via cascading activation from semantic features). Overall, the results indicate that type of iconicity plays role in sign production when elicited by picture-naming tasks.

Evolution of Visual Narratives in Fashion Magazines: The Role and Impact of Iconic Signifiers

Design is a phenomenon that has a communicative or functional purpose in the process of transforming images into form by acquiring meaning in the human mind. Fashion magazines are one of the areas in which the visual significance of design is most clearly recognisable. The aim of this study is to identify the visual signs on the covers of fashion magazines and to analyse how these signs convey the meanings they are intended to convey. Also in this direction, the aim is to determine how the signs on the front covers of the French magazines, which is the subject of the study, differ from each other through the signs. The sample group of the study includes a total of 985 front covers covering the fashion magazines Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan from 2000 to 2020. In the research in which the quantitative research method was used, the visual semiotic analysis of the Groupe μ was chosen as the data collection method. Iconic values were used in this analysis to classify the visual elements on magazine covers. A relational survey design was used to analyse the data collected as part of the quantitative research method. A table of iconic signs was created, which form the structure of the visual semiotic analysis of the Groupe μ. In this way, an attempt was made to find out which visual signs were used to transfer the meaning conveyed by the visual messages on the magazine covers to the cover designs. To arrive at the research results, the SPSS package program was used. The research results show that there are significant differences in the visual expression strategies of the various fashion magazines and how each magazine reflects its own unique visual language and brand identity. We believe that this study contributes greatly to our understanding of diversity in the visual design of fashion magazines and its impact on the fashion industry.

Teaching Implication of Meaning Construction at Morphological Level of Affixation in a Complex Indonesian Verb Formation

A tension exists between rationalists and empiricists regarding the nature of knowledge: innate then activated/discovered (rationalists) or constructed then invented (empiricists). The assumption is that, to a certain extent, basic knowledge seems to be innate in our mind and develops through experience by thinking processes to construct meanings. This meaning construction (thinking), mainly using language, is to make sense of and interpret the world. Meanings should be the primary motivation underlying linguistic constructions at all levels. This paper investigates meaning constructions at the lexical level of affixation by focusing on semantic behaviours of verbs in a complex word formation as an attempt: 1) to find out the semantic patterns of verb-based complex word formation, 2) to reveal if there is an iconic relationship of a sign (signifier) and its meaning (signified), and 3) to suggest for its teaching. Using semantic classes of verbs, based on situation types in deriving complex words, this study attempts to find out semantic patterns of such complex word formation and the possibility of revealing its iconicity. Using Antconc software, this study scrutinized linguistic expressions involving related verbs of state, event, and action in a corpus to reveal meaning construction at that level. The findings show several semantic patterns of verb-based complex word formation and an indication of the iconicity of signs. The paper also offers suggestions for teaching affixation

Feeling signs: motor encoding enhances sign language learning in hearing adults.

Manual production enhances learning and recall of signs by hearing second language learners; however, the mechanisms enabling this effect are unclear. We examined whether the motor encoding (somatosensory feedback) that occurs during sign production benefits learning and whether it interacts with sign iconicity, which also enhances learning. American Sign Language (ASL) signs varying in iconicity were learned either via production (repetition) with the eyes closed or via observation without production. Signs learned via production were recalled more accurately than signs learned via observation, indicating that motor encoding from manual production enriches the representations of signs. Moreover, the effect of motor encoding interacted with iconicity, suggesting that motor encoding may particularly enhance the recall of signs low in iconicity. Together, these results reveal the importance of somatosensory feedback as a key mechanism underlying the beneficial effect of production on sign learning, demonstrating that feeling one's own signing promotes learning and recall of signs.

Iconicity and Gesture Jointly Facilitate Learning of Second Language Signs at First Exposure in Hearing Nonsigners

AbstractWhen learning spoken second language (L2), words overlapping in form and meaning with one's native language (L1) help break into the new language. When nonsigning speakers learn a sign language as L2, such overlaps are absent because of the modality differences (L1: speech, L2: sign). In such cases, nonsigning speakers might use iconic form‐meaning mappings in signs or their own gestural experience as gateways into the to‐be‐acquired sign language. In this study, we investigated how both these phenomena may contribute jointly to the acquisition of sign language vocabulary by hearing nonsigners. Participants were presented with three types of signs in the Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT): arbitrary signs, iconic signs with high or low gesture overlap. Signs that were both iconic and highly overlapping with gestures boosted learning most at first exposure, and this effect remained the day after. Findings highlight the influence of modality‐specific attributes supporting the acquisition of a signed lexicon.

Driver Familiarity with Nonverbal Signs of Traffic and its Connection with the Role of Television Programs

The study entitled “Driver Familiarity with Nonverbal Signs of Traffic and its Connection with the Role of Television Programs”. Itis a descriptive study, with using both analytical and survey methods. The main objectives of it is to identify the roles and consequences of television programs on the identification of traffic nonverbal signs among drivers, then to analyze the meanings of traffic icon signs in Kalar district. The sample of the study consists of all traffic signs in Garmian administration, including (26) signs in the main streets of Kalar that were taken through boards sampling, and (506) drivers who have (private and public licenses)formthe both (maleand female)genders in Kalar district who were randomly selected. In conclusion, several scientific results are found such as that each nonverbal traffic in terms of color, shape and content has its own linguistic meaning and direct a specific message for the drivers’ safety in the different areas. The research also shows that the specific traffic television programs have high positive impact in familiarizing drivers with the various content of the traffic signs. it also clarifies that there are some other nonverbal signs that the television programs have paid little attention to introducetheir contentswhich the majority of drivers do not understand the messages behind them.

Пралогическая коммуникация

The paper deals with a pre-logical communication contrasted to verbal interaction founded on logical grounds. The material for the study includes archaic incantations, modern superstitions and poetic texts. The methods of interpretative and intentional analysis have been applied. A pre-logical communication is based on the establishment of relations between objects or events devoid of cause-and-effect relationship in reality. Such conceptualization has been described, explained and terminologically fixed as participation by L. Lévy-Bruhl. It is characteristic of a magic worldview which historically precedes logical reality, but remains up to now in certain types of discourse. Psychologically, such explanation is a biased generalization of accidental connection between things. However, such illogical reality representation has a right to exist as it helps people explain the unexplainable. Semiotically it corresponds to transaction of iconic signs to signals or indices. Three types of pre-logical explanation of events in everyday life have been described in this paper, i.e. diagnostic, prognostic and magical. A pre-logical communication in literary discourse may be understood as a demonstration of universal interconnection of things and events making a whole worldview. This interconnection is based on multiple associations and intertextual allusions. Three types of pre-logical worldview may be singled out as creative, metaphoric and intertextual multiplication of reality. A deliberate usage of pre-logical communication in scientific, pedagogical, legal and political types of discourse may be qualified as a manipulative influence, whereas when used in everyday, advertising, recreational and artistic communication it is determined by the intention to broaden the limits of a routine existence.

Characterizing language production across modalities

ABSTRACT This study investigates factors influencing lexical access in language production across modalities (signed and oral). Data from deaf and hearing signers were reanalyzed (Baus and Costa, 2015, On the temporal dynamics of sign production: An ERP study in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). Brain Research, 1609(1), 40-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2015.03.013; Gimeno-Martínez and Baus, 2022, Iconicity in sign language production: Task matters. Neuropsychologia, 167, 108166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108166) testing the influence of psycholinguistic variables and ERP mean amplitudes on signing and naming latencies. Deaf signers' signing latencies were influenced by sign iconicity in the picture signing task, and by spoken psycholinguistic variables in the word-to-sign translation task. Additionally, ERP amplitudes before response influenced signing but not translation latencies. Hearing signers' latencies, both signing and naming, were influenced by sign iconicity and word frequency, with early ERP amplitudes predicting only naming latencies. These findings highlight general and modality-specific determinants of lexical access in language production.

Means and Functions of Intersemiotics in the Novel Girl with a Pearl Earring by T. Chevalier

The article studies approache to the concept of ‘intersemiotics’ in contemporary literary studies. The author provides its definition and characteristic, defines peculiar features of intersemiotics among other related concepts. The purpose of the study is to identify and analyze means and functions of the category of intersemiotics in the novel Girl with a Pearl Earring by T. Chevalier. The analysis of the novel has shown that the key means for implementing the category of intersemiotics are as follows: ekphrasis, the interaction of different types of iconic signs which creates additional meanings, and lingua‐artistic technique of writing. All of these means are firstly used as one of the author’s tools for embodying the profound meaning of the work, secondly, they contribute to the creation of visual images in the reader’s mind, which, in turn, become the basis for recreating

Neologisms in Polycode Text of Image Advertising: Some Peculiarities of the USE in the Context of Media Sphere

The article considers the problem of neologisms functioning in mass media on the material of image advertising texts. The relevance is determined by the importance of advertising communication as an integral part of modern society, as well as the need to study the peculiarities of compositional structure of polycode texts of image advertising, in particular, correlation of verbal and nonverbal parts of an advertising text involved in the process of influencing an individual to manipulate both the collective behavior and consciousness.Development of globalization processes, availability of Internet and mass media could not but affect the advertising language having transformed it by introducing neologisms which are used in everyday language but not quite familiar to the majority. Newly coined words can be both Russian derivatives and borrowings. The purpose of the research is to study some peculiarities of neologisms usage in polycode texts of image advertising as well as to define a system forming factor in the structure of verbal/nonverbal that influences formation of an advertising objects image in an individual lexicon. The objectives of the study are to consider the notion of image, image advertising and its structural and compositional features along with the analysis of cognitive-psychological influence of images formed by neologisms combined with iconic signs on an individual.The need in reasoned influence on the individual when advertising has led to hybridization of the advertising text which became a complex and integrated textual entity with the integration of verbal and non-verbal elements.The analysis of image advertising language material showed that neologisms when correlating with other verbal and visual/graphic elements develop and/or adapt associative connections and internal images behind the image in an individual lexicon

Мовні засоби маніпуляції в рекламі на українських Telegram-каналах

Background. With the increasing access to the internet among Ukrainians, mass media is transitioning from traditional methods of disseminating information to modern ones, such as social media channels and chatbots. This article investigates the linguistic tools of manipulation in advertisements on Ukrainian Telegram channels, focusing on “Times of Ukraine”, “Real Ukraine | Radar Alarm”, and “HK Kyiv”. Methods. The study encompasses over 950,000 word usages, including 1,200 advertising announcements, analyzed through linguistic research methods of analysis and synthesis. Results. The research identified consistent use of directive style, emotionally charged lexicon, iconic signs (emojis), appeals to authority, omission of primary sources, hyperbolization, capitalization (writing in all caps), bold highlighting of certain phrases, implications of fear and urgency, calls to action, and persuasive tactics through quantification (in case of presenting statistical data) by the authors of the advertising texts. Emotionally charged language was a characteristic feature across the corpus. The authors frequently utilized affective lexicon that resonates with the audience's feelings, enhancing the persuasiveness of the messages. Furthermore, strategic appeals to authority through references to influential figures or institutions were identified as tactics to establish and/or strengthen trust in the information source. The analysis also revealed an overuse of the technique of omitting the primary source by the authors, which undermines the credibility of such messages. The study also demonstrated the use of hyperbolic expressions designed to create an enhanced sense of urgency and compel the reader to act in favor of the Telegram channel. Conclusion. The findings highlight the need to increase the level of media literacy among digital content consumers. The implications of these findings are manifold. Not only do they shed light on the rhetorical sophistication within social media landscapes, but they also provide empirical data to inform the development of educational initiatives and digital tools aimed at empowering users to navigate the complexities of online information. The research thereby contributes to the growing body of knowledge in cognitive and behavioral responses to online communication, underpinning strategies for resisting manipulative messages and fostering information hygiene in the digital age.

Le populisme de Podemos et l’image de son leader charismatique, Pablo Iglesias (2014-2019) : de la construction à l’érosion d’un signe iconique

After reviewing the principles of the populist articulation of the discourses that have guided the Podemos party’s strategy since 2014, this article proposes a semiotic analysis of the elements that have contributed to making the leader of the Spanish party, Pablo Iglesias, the empty signifier of this strategy. We thus observe how this media figure became an iconic sign of the political project, from the establishment of an ethos of a normal man that was supposed to allow the leader to maintain a metonymic relationship with the people that was expressed during the 15M movement in 2011, to the enhancement of his image as a presidential candidate for the 2015 general elections. But this hyper-incarnation went together with a major disappointment as soon as the leader's image no longer quite matched the myth that had been built up around him, as he was not elected President of the government in 2015 and internal tensions increased between 2016 and 2019.

Semiotics of V. Nabokov’s artistic language in the light of N. Goodman’s theory of symbolization

The article is devoted to the problems of V. Nabokov’s author’s style, considered from the standpoint of semiotics. Russian-language prose created by V. Nabokov during the Berlin period of his life is used as research material: the novels “Mary”, “King, Queen, Knave”, “The Luzhin Defense”, “Glory”, “Camera Obscura”, “Despair”, “Invitation to a Beheading”, “The Gift” and stories from the collection “The Return of Chorb”. The features of the Nabokov’s text verbal sign, as well as the visual and expressive capabilities of the verbal images in the writer’s works are considered. Thanks to the use of N. Goodman’s general theory of symbols and Aage A. Hansen-Löwe’s theory of intermediality as a methodological basis, the possibility of interpreting Nabokov’s poetics as “flickering,” metaphorical, “polycode” opens up. As a “code” of Nabokov’s images, not only verbal signs themselves are considered, but also their translation into signs of other arts that are not directly related to words - painting, cinema, architecture. As a result of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that V. Nabokov’s verbal sign strives for maximum visual expressiveness, taking on some of the properties of the iconic sign. Thanks to the chosen approach, new results were achieved in the study of V. Nabokov’s artistic language.

The contribution of individual parameters to perceived iconicity and transparency in gesture-sign pairs

It is often assumed that gestures are more iconic than signs, as they do not have to conformto a linguistic system. This study introduces an expanded methodology to explore(a) the relative transparency and iconicity of silent gestures and signs, and (b) the iconicityof three individual parameters (handshape, location and movement). We elicitedmeaning guesses and iconicity ratings (both whole-item and for each parameter) fromsign-naive participants for both gestures and signs. Pilot data provide no evidence fordifferences in transparency and iconicity of gestures and signs, butwe do find interestingexamples of signs rated as more iconic than gestures. The iconicity of all three parametersis correlated with the iconicity of the whole item in both gestures and signs, butthere may be a role for iconic strategies and the saliency of individual parameters. Withthis method, we provide a novel, more fine-grained manner of investigating iconicity inthe manual modality.

Przekład intersemiotyczny. Przypadek znaku drogowego, ekfrazy i adaptacji filmowej

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; The article is an attempt to clarify and refine the ways of understanding two basic types of translation: from one language into another ethnic language (translation proper) – i.e. following the principles of translating homo- geneous systems of signs – and from one system of signs to another, e.g. verbal to iconic, or vice versa, which is sometimes called transmutation. Therefore, the starting point for the discussion is Roman Jakobson’s well-known typology of translation, which also took into account cases of intralingual translation within the same language, called rewording. However, the article mainly focuses on various cases of intersemiotic translation and thus transmutation, meaning situations where a text expressed in one system of signs is translated into a system of a different nature. The primary research question concerns what is actually being translated in such a situation and how this type of translation differs from a typical language-to-language translation. The article is chiefly theoretical, and the examples concern the cases of translating verbal signs into iconic ones, such as the rules governing traffic into a road sign, the translation of an image (a painting, photography) into a literary text (ekphrasis and its varieties), and a film adaptation. The equivalence of codes secures the adequacy of a linguistic translation. In the case of ekphrasis, the image is usually replaced by a verbal narrative, and in a film adaptation, the type and sequence of iconic signs must simply be invented because these sign systems are not directly equivalent, as Benveniste and Lotman believe. Examples that illustrate the main theses of the article are Jacek Kaczmarski’s art-inspired songs, several film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Polański, Kurosawa), and Agnieszka Holland’s film adaptation (Pokot [Spoor]) of one of Olga Tokarczuk’s novels.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;