ISBN : 9782296125155
ICONICITY STRIKES BACK: THE THIRD GÉNÉRATI
Göran Sonesson
The theory of iconicity is at the core of all visual semiotics — even, though, as I have been the first to insist, iconicity is much broader than pictoriality, and there is more to the pictorial sign function than mere iconicity. At present, in any case, I want to take stock of the situation within the study of iconicity — which itself cannot be studied apart from the other possible sign functions. Until recently, the situation could roughly be described as follows: most semioticians accepted some or other version of Eco's critique of iconicity, according to which iconic (and thus pictorial) signs are as conventional as linguistic ones and, in the early version, as readily divisible into features. Philosophers, as well as some philosophically inspired semioticians, were convinced by Goodman's arguments (earlier formulated by Bierman) according to which iconical signs, in Peirce's sense, were impossible, since similarity, unlike the sign, is not asymmetrical, while it is, on the other hand, too widely distributed (the arguments of symmetry and regression, respectively). Orthodox Peirceans, on the other hand, took iconicity as such for granted, without making any effort to add something to Peirce's own presentation or amen...