Iconymology [Elektronische Ressource] : origins and development of icons and their meanings / von Marc Oliver Orth

Marc Oliver Orth

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• Publié par: gottfried_wilhelm_leibniz_universitat_hannover
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 10
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

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MarcOliverOrth
Iconymology
OriginsandDevelopmentofIconsandtheirMeanings
Hannover•2006ICONYMOLOGY
OriginsandDevelopmentofIconsandtheirMeanings
Von der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Hannover zur Erlangung des Grades eines
DoktorsderPhilosophie(Dr. phil.)genehmigteDissertationvonMarcOliverOrth,geborenam
24.Februar1974inHannover.
Erscheinungsjahr2006Referentin:FrauProf.Dr.RitaKupetz
Koreferent:HerrProf.Dr.PeterSchlobinski
TagdermündlichenPrüfung:08.02.2006Copyright©2006byMarcOliverOrth
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,
or transmitted, in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
otherwise,withoutthepriorconsentofthepublisher.
MarcOliverOrth•Hahnenstraße3•30167Hannover
[e-mail]
Iconymology was composed in Palatino and Myriad Pro with NeoOffice (a MacOSX port of
OpenOffice.org)onaniMacG4.Thecoverillustrationwasdrawnbytheauthor.
VerlagderQuickPrinterGmbH•Hauptstraße53•51491Overath
QuickPrinterGmbH•Overath
http://www.quickprinter.de/
PrintedinGermany
FirstEdition
ISBN3-9810759-2-7ABSTRACT
Iconymologyisconcernedwiththeanalysisoftheoriginsanddevelopmentofideapicturesused
within the human-computer interface and their meanings. The analysis is done in two stages
with a diachronic and a synchronic section, focusing on syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic
aspectsofthesigns.Itcoverstheprinciplesofcomplexpictorialmeaninggenerationviavisual
codesandmetaphors,thechangesinthesecodesandmetaphors,andthemechanismsthatlead
to these changes. The results are contrasted with regular language change phenomena. This
work contributes to pictorial semiotics, human interface design, and literacy as a linguistic
researchfield.
Human-computer interaction has been simplified by the use of pictorial idea signs. All the
(inter)action takes place in a complex collage, each part representing an idea. Aspecific group
among these idea pictures are icons, which represent objects and are characterized by having
intrinsicpropertiesandbehavior,andwhichtheuserthinksofinconcreteterms.
Iconshavechangedconsiderablysincetheircommercialintroductionin1981,andaswritten
signs they deserve semiotic and linguistic attention. A closer look at the types, patterns, and
mechanismsofchangeandthesearchforpossibletriggersforthesechangesrevealphenomena
resembling language change. More similarities are found in the contrastive analysis of the
developmentoficonsondifferentuserinterfaces,whichrevealsdistinctivevariantsofthesame
sign system (of which all icons are composed), so-called icon dialects. The constituents of icons
are particularly remarkable, as they represent a kind of pictorial idea writing system with its
ownvisualgrammar,independentofthelinearsyntaxofspokenlanguage.
The resultsof this analysis help togain insights into meaning-generation via pictorial signs
and the emergence of a whole sign set that represents a pictorial writing system at an early
stage. This is furthermore of interest for the research field of New Media literacy: the semiotic
competence required to operate a computer successfully is also increasingly useful in other
spheres. Idea pictures are widely used today, because they are an extremely effective and
efficientmeansofconveyingamaximumamountofinformationinaminimalperiodoftime.
KEYWORDS
semiotics•newmedialiteracy•humaninterfacedesign
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