Woorde wat teken en be-teken – ikonisiteit in die poësie

Abstract

Words as signs and signatures – iconicity in poetic texts

In this article aspects of iconicity in language and in poetic texts are discussed. The recent renewed interest in the anti-arbitrary debate is used as a point of departure in order to examine the iconic characteristics and the iconic functions of language and poetic texts. Some less known theoretic views on aspects of iconicity are mentioned and discussed. To underscore the theoretic discussion a few poems of the poet T.T. Cloete are analysed and interpreted focusing on iconicity. The most important conclusions which are once again put forward in the article are firstly that the functioning of poetic texts cannot be adequately described, analysed and interpreted according to logical semantic and linguistic systems alone and that the motivated or iconic origin and archetypical meanings in language can and may indeed play an important role in the production of meaning and secondly that the referential aspect of a text should not be neglected because text analyses of iconic poems once again underscore the view that referentiality indeed remains the basis of the production and communication of meaning.