Iconic silence

A semiotic paradox or a semiotic paragon

Bibliographic Data

ID4474601
AuthorsMichal Ephratt (Hebrew language, University of Haifa, 199 Abba Hushi Bl. Mount Carmel, Haifa, 31905, Israel, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume2018
Issue221
Pages239-259
Publication date2018-03-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSemiotica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-1998 • E-ISSN: 1613-3692
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/sem-2016-0115
OpenAlexW2746696511
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited19

For a sign to be a sign it must bond an object (quality), a signifier, and the idea to which it gives rise (CP 1.339). The paper focuses on the iconicity of silence as a hypoiconic signifier, exploring the semiotics of silence in light of the notions and studies of iconicity. Fascinating parallelisms hold between iconicity and silence. These raise many challenges to the study of each separately, let alone dealing with them jointly. Some icons and some silences are qualities in the real world, others are semiotic forms (signifiers) standing for or denoting objects. Simple, intuitive qualities of iconicity and of silence are naturally grasped and shared from antiquity to the present by cultures and peoples. The paper employs Peirce's initial basic trichotomy of iconic classes as well as his later hierarchies for studying the iconic stance of silence as a hypoiconic signifier (Secondness). Analyzing and illustrating the possible complexities between forms (a silent signifier), contents, their relations and their interpretations, group hypoiconic silences into silence as an image, silence as a diagram, and silence as a metaphor

Aesthetics · Art · Iconicity · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Semiotics · Sign (mathematics) · Silence · Visual semiotics · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Media, Communication, and Education · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

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