Cross-modal iconicity and indexicality in the production of lexical sensory and emotional signs in Finnish Sign Language

Abstract

In the present study, cross-modal (i.e., across sensory modalities such as smell and sound) iconicity (i.e., resemblance) and indexicality (i.e., contiguity) in lexical sensory and emotional signs in Finnish Sign Language will be considered from an articulatory perspective (i.e., the production of signs). Such cross-modal iconicity has not been extensively studied previously, so here, with the help of cognitive semiotics, I aim to carefully describe the cross-modal patterns observed across 118 signs, including 60 sensory signs and 58 emotional signs. The analysis is framed within the theoretical model of Semiotic Hierarchy, which entails a non-reductionist view of meaning. In addition, a pheno-methodological triangulation will be applied: phenomenology (first-person method), literature of phenomenological and semiotic descriptions (second-person perspective) and experimental findings (third-person perspective). The results of this analysis show that (a) 71 of the 118 sensory and emotional signs are cross-modally indexical, (b) only 10 of the 71 signs can be regarded as cross-modally iconic, (c) cross-modal iconicity is highly diagrammatic, (d) iconicity and indexicality are highly integrated, and (e) articulatory feedback matters in the formation of semiotic patterns. This study contributes to our understanding of cross-modal iconicity in signed languages, as well as studies in semiotic systems more generally.

The anatomy of iconicity: cumulative structural analogies underlie objective and subjective measures of iconicity

“…To understand natural language iconicity, then, we must attend closely to aspects of both form and meaning. This can help explain which semantic domains are more or less likely to afford iconicity (Nuckolls, 2019;Van Hoey, 2022), and how this may differ across modalities (Keränen, 2023;B. Thompson et al, 2020).…”

“…The theory of iconicity as structure-mapping has been relatively prominent in the analysis of iconicity in the visual-spatial modality (Taub, 2001;Emmorey, 2014;Capirci et al, 2022;Keränen, 2023), but less so in spoken languages (Taub, 2000;Tufvesson, 2011;A. L. Thompson & Do, 2019).…”