D. U. Ashurova m. R. Galieva cognitive linguistics

Chapter XIII. Cognitive principles of distributing information

Cognitive principles are understood as cognitive conditions and cognitive constraints on the organization of information in the text/discourse, cognitive grounding of distributing information in consecutive order. There are several cognitive principles of distributing information in the text: the principle of iconicity, of distributing old and new information, the principle of relevance (salience) and foregrounding, the principle of linguistic economy/redundancy.

8.1. Cognitive Principle of Iconicity

Iconicity is defined as relations of a certain similarity between the verbal sign and its denotate. The theory of iconicity takes roots in the problem of conventionality/motivation of verbal signs. It is not possible to change the logical order of event sequence as well as the succession of homogeneous sentences. Linguists distinguish three types of iconicity

1. 
   The principle of iconic sequencing. It requires that events described in the text should correspond to those in reality. For instance, a consecutive order of sentences in the text on the whole is supposed to conform to a chronological order of events (КСКТ, 1996). It concerns not only chronological, but also spatial, causative, socially conditioned regularities of the text organization reflecting the real events. Such linguistic phenomena as word order, sequence of tenses, consecutive sentence arrangement in the text are based on the principle of iconic sequence (He came, he saw, he conquered).
   

It should be noted that in the literary text this principle can be deliberately violated. As G.G. Molchanova points out such stylistic phenomena as retrospection, prospection, represented speech, stream of consciousness which violate the logical sequence of events and, accordingly the sequence of sentences in the text (Молчанова, 2007). The violation of traditional word order makes up the basis for such stylistic devices as inversion and chiasmus, which place the inverted elements into “the active zone”. This term, introduced by R. Langacker means activation of the most conceptually important subparts of meanings.

2.