From mimicry to mime by way of mimesis: Reflections on a general theory of iconicity

Abstract

Abstract. Practically all theories of iconicity are denunciations of its subject matter (for example, those of Goodman, Bierman and the early Eco). My own theory of iconicity was developed in order to save a particular kind of iconicity, pictoriality, from such criticism. In this interest, I distinguished pure iconicity, iconic ground, and iconic sign, on one hand, and primary and secondary iconic signs, on the other hand. Since then, however, several things have happened. The conceptual tools that I created to explain pictoriality have been shown by others to be relevant to linguistic iconicity. On the other hand, semioticians with points of departure different from mine have identified mimicry as it is commonly found in the animal world as a species of iconicity. In the evolutionary semiotics of Deacon, 1 My preoccupation with iconicity has been life-long, but the different projects with which I have been involved since the beginning of this century (SGB and SEDSU), and the collaboration within the Centre for cognitive semiotics, which I am heading since January 2009, has offered me new vistas on my old theme, which I have tried to exploit in the present paper. I want to acknowledge here the assistance afforded by numerous discussions in the above-mentioned fora. The author wants to acknowledge the stimulating remarks made on an earlier version of this paper by Timo Maran and Ester Võsu, which have been attended to in the following.

Meaning making from life to language:The Semiotic Hierarchy and phenomenology

“…The sign concept is often defined within the "science of signs" of semiotics either too broadly, making it more or less synonymous with meaning making as such, even on the level of bio-chemical processes (as in Peircian biosemiotics), or too narrowly, constraining it to language, or at least to convention-based meaning making (in Saussurean semiotics). In his life-long work on a phenomenological semiotics, Sonesson (1989Sonesson ( , 2007Sonesson ( , 2010 has striven for an intermediate position, which is arguably also most adequate for cognitive semiotics (Zlatev 2009b). In particular, he defines the sign (function) through:…”

Material Engagement Theory and its philosophical ties to pragmatism

“…Starting with the former, it is important to note that, while the iconic grounds of some signs are readily perceived, others require prior familiarity with their sign function in order to be discerned (Sonesson 2010(Sonesson , 2013. The panel of the horses is a characteristic example of what Sonesson calls a primary icon, because the easily discerned similarity (i.e., the iconic relevance) between the painted figures and the real animals would have been the main reason that the depictions came to be identified as iconic signs.…”

La traducción como acto doble de comunicación. Entre semiótica cognoscitiva y semiótica de la cultura. Parte I: De la comunicación a la traducción

“…Más tarde, muchos nativos de Mesoamérica querían que sus representaciones de Tonantzin o Coatlicue fueran percibidas como la representación de la Virgen María (Gruzinski 1999). No se trata en estos casos de un signo intercambiado por otro signo, como en la traducción, ya que, en ese caso, el signo sustituido tiene que ser reconocido como siendo un signo; más bien se parece al camuflaje, que, contrariamente al signo, solo puede funcionar como camuflaje cuando no es reconocido como tal (Sonesson 2010). Esto, al menos, parece describir el tipo de acto cognitivo realizado por Cortés llevando a cabo la identificación de su propia persona con Quetzalcóatl.…”