Icons in action

Summary

Iconicity is the informative relation between an utterance's form and its meaning, but defining it formally is difficult. Researchers often base iconicity on resemblances, yet philosophical critiques of depiction raise fundamental issues against resemblance-based accounts. Recent work argues that iconicity should abandon objective resemblances and instead be understood as in the eye of the beholder, reflecting a struggle between iconicity as a property of mind versus environment. This paper proposes an alternative relational ontology informed by 4E cognition approaches, which view iconicity as arising from a niche-constructed organism-environment system. The account offers a philosophical ontology and working definition that keeps iconicity verifiable and context-dependent without reducing it to either objective resemblances or subjective mental states.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Iconicity denotes an informative relation between the form of an utterance and the meaning of that utterance. With good design, an utterance directly invites a suitable perceiver with a certain initiation to grasp a meaning in the right direction. Despite the touted importance of iconicity in languaging, it proves difficult to define more formally. When the term is defined, researchers often base iconicity on resemblances. In the philosophy of depiction fundamental issues have been raised against resemblance-based accounts. Bracketing such metaphysical issues for practical purposes, it has recently been argued that a 'state-of-the-art' definition of iconicity should also do away with objective resemblances. Instead, iconicity is in the eye of the beholder. This revision of iconicity reflects the philosophical struggle between iconicity as a property of the mind versus the environment. In this paper, it is argued that there is an alternative relational ontology available to us, informed broadly by 4E cognition approaches. Such approaches inform a "distributed" view, where iconicity arises from a niche-constructed organism-environment system. This paper aims to further deepen this account by offering a philosophical ontology and working definition that keeps iconicity verifiable and context-dependent without reducing it to either objective resemblances or subjective mental states.