Cross-modal iconicity in songs about weeping
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10739243 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anna Bonifazi (0000-0002-7200-2684, University of Cologne , Köln , Germany, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 2024 |
| Issue | 256 |
| Pages | 1-29 |
| Publication date | 2024-03-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Semiotica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-1998 • E-ISSN: 1613-3692 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/sem-2022-0100 |
| OpenAlex | W4388799819 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 43 |
The article explores cross-modal iconic relations in nine diverse Western-music songs ranging from 1600 to 2015, all of them thematizing dysphoric weeping. Initial input comes from five recurrent features observed in ancient Greek texts associated with performative events, including the prominence of sound, interjections and strong self-referentiality, repetitions and refrains, the motif of endlessness, and tears associated with streams of water, dew, and libation liquids. The analysis adopts Peirce’s conceptual distinction between image, diagram, and metaphor iconicity, although the continuum reading proposed by several scholars is ultimately favored. The sample turns out to offer plenty of evidence of iconic relations. Interjections, falsetto, verbal repetitions, musical repetitions, musical rendering of sighs and endlessness, ostinato patterns, downward notes, and water images (rain and rivers), all of this is shown to substantiate cross-modal iconicity encompassing weeping, lyrics, music (including musical notation), and images, in different combinations. Quantitative investigations confirming/disconfirming and adding iconicity patterns, and comparative analyses linking Western and non-Western lament traditions constitute desiderata for future work
Art · Iconicity · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Musical · Performative utterance · History · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Multisensory perception and integration · Philosophy · Psychology · Visual Culture and Art Theory
Planctus
Language from the Body
Multimodal Metaphor
Conceptualizing Music
Iconicity in English and Spanish and Its Relation to Lexical Category and Age of Acquisition
Structure-mapping
The bridge of iconicity
Depicting as a method of communication.
Construals of iconicity
Conceptual blending, creativity, and music
Cross-modal iconicity
Most musicall, most melancholy’
Iconicity as a General Property of Language
Referential iconicity in music and speech
Women Cry with Words
Flow Like a Waterfall'
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |