Chapter 2

Diagrammatic iconicity and rendering time in a narrative text

Like contrast and analogy, iconicity defined as correspondence of form and meaning stems from the ability of human mind to observe similarity between entities. When similarity is perceived and considered with reference to difference, it gives rise to analogy. In this sense, analogy and contrast can be seen as two sides of a single “cognitive coin”. Both underlie iconicity (especially individual types of diagrammatic iconicity), which is a significant property of texts, with the difference between “the literary” and “the non-literary” being mainly a matter of degree. I discuss some examples of the functioning of diagrammatic iconicity on all levels of text organization and substantiate the claim that it is one of the reasons why a translation of a text can only be partly analogous (equivalent?) to the original, the relation between the two being that of (stronger or weaker) contrast.