GESPIN – GESTURE & SPEECH IN INTERACTION – Poznań, 24-26 September 2009
Diagrammatic iconicity as a cognitive-semiotic principle in grammar and gesture Irene Mittelberg HumTec, RWTH Aachen University mittelberg@humtec.rwth-aachen.de
Abstract Gestural signs and the objects they represent can be similar in various ways. Gestures imitating physical objects or actions are to a high degree image icons; gestures depicting relationships between two or more entities are diagrammatic icons; and gestures evoking parallelisms between two entities may rely on metaphoric iconicity (Cienki & Müller 2008; McNeill 2005; Müller 2008; Müller et al. fc.). This presentation explores how gestural representations of language and grammar may combine all three types of iconicity (Peirce 1960). Diagrammatic dimensions are particularly relevant here: they seem to belong to the cognitive-semiotic principles that may guide the interpretation of fleeting hand configurations and movements through which embodied abstract notions and structures take shape (Mittelberg 2008, fc.; Mittelberg & Waugh 2009). The architecture of sentences and entire discourses reflects icons of relations of different degrees of complexity (Haiman 1985; Jakobson 1961; Waugh et al. 2004). Since the internal structure of gestural diagrams entails similarity as well as spatial, temporal, and cognitive contiguity, the interplay between iconic (metaphoric) and indexical (metonymic) modes is also briefly discussed.
Bibliography Cienki, A. and C. Müller (Eds.) (2008). Metaphor and Gesture. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Haiman, J. (Ed.) (1985). Iconicity in Syntax. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Jakobson, R. (1961/1987). Poetry of grammar and grammar of poetry. In K. Pomorska and S. Rudy (eds.), Roman Jakobson, Language in Literature. Cambridge/London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 121-144. McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and Thought. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Mittelberg, I. (2008). Peicean semiotics meets conceptual metaphor: Iconic modes in gestural representations of grammar. In A. Cienki and C. Müller (eds.), Metaphor and Gesture, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 115-154. Mittelberg, I. (in press). Geometric and image-schematic patterns in gesture space. In V. Evansand P. Chilton (eds.), Language, Cognition and Space: The State of the Art and New Directions. London: Equinox. Mittelberg, I. & L.R. Waugh (2009). Metonymy first, metaphor second: A cognitive-semiotic approach to multimodal figures of thought in co-speech gesture. In C. J. Forceville and E. Urios-Aparisi (eds.), Multimodal Metaphor. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 322-356. Peirce, C.S. (1960). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (1931-1958). Vol. I.: Principles of Philosophy, Vol. II: Elements of Logic, C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (eds.). Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Waugh, L.R., S.N. Smith, E. Specker, S. Steinhart and J. Wang (2004). Peircean theory, diagrammatic iconicity, and academic texts: Global structure, abstracts, and the role of narrative. Logos and Language. Journal of General Linguistics and Language Theory V, 1 (special issue on Aspects of Iconicity in Contemporary Linguistics), 39-62.