Zur Anwendung piktographischer Elemente in popkulturellen Kurztexten am Beispiel des Herz-Piktogramms

Abstract

ON THE USE OF PICTOGRAPHIC ELEMENTS IN POP-CULTURAL SHORT TEXTS ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE HEART PICTOGRAM The article focuses on the use of pictographic elements in short texts of the pop-culture based on the example of the heart pictogram in the utterances which are built according to the pattern: ‘I ♥ ...’. It addresses two basic aspects of its use. The first one is the fact of combining two different semiotic codes: language and an iconic code in one sentence. This quite rare transsemiotic unit is understandable merely on the basis of an established convention, due to which the pictogram of a heart can be effortlessly encoded as `love’. The second aspect, which is also based on the convention, is the replaceability of the elements of a short text. It is especially plausible when the pictogram of a heart is replaced by other pictograms. However, after such a change, the primary meaning of the short text remains legible even if the implemented pictograms have an entirely different meaning.

Keywords

• short text
• pictogram
• multimodality
• conventionality
• pop-culture