Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

• Zahra Ahmadi ¹
• Hassan Zolfagharzadeh ²

¹ Ph.D. Candidate in Architecture , Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Imam Khomeini International University (IKIU), Qazvin, Iran.

² Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Imam Khomeini International University (IKIU), Qazvin, Iran.

Abstract

Extended Abstract
Background and Objectives: Language or linguistic system is one of the most fundamental principles in twentieth-century philosophical studies and postmodern philosophy. The twentieth-century scholars considered “language” as the basis of thought - not its tool. According to them, truth, i.e., objective reality and whatever it is, is formed in language. Thus, the revival of thought in the form of language has changed the issues of cultural criticism of postmodernism. The linguistic theory has simultaneously paid attention to meaning and symbolism in architecture. The way of conveying meaning in language and applying linguistic knowledge through linguistic similarities with architecture was studied through paradigms such as semiotics. The founders of semiotics, Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), considered language as a system of signs with structural (syntactic) and semantic aspects. Rhetorical devices are one of the tools used to form and recognize meaning. Most contemporary semiologists consider studying these techniques, or at least some of their features, in the realm of semiotics. The verbal language of postmodernism uses rhetorical devices to form meaning. Previous studies have not addressed the role of metonymy and its interaction with metaphor in the formation and expression of meaning in the language of postmodern architecture. Therefore, the research question is: “How do rhetorical devices influence the expression of meaning in language and architecture?” So, the present study aims “to study how rhetorical devices are formed and how they operate in forming and transferring meaning, as well as decoding and reproducing it in postmodern architecture.” This study is significant because in societies such as Iran, which are influenced by Western thoughts, knowing the opportunities and threats of applying these thoughts enhances architects’ and designers’ creativity and minimizes cultural damages caused by accepting such thought currents.
Methods: To answer the research question and reach the research goal, the semiotics of Saussure and Peirce, as well as Barthes’s mythology, were studied in linguistics, and the data obtained from them were compared with architecture. Then, the rhetorical devices of metonymy, metaphor, amphibology, and irony were defined in verbal language and semiotics. Their formation and functions were compared with postmodern architecture in two paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes. The analyses were performed using Charles Jencks’ (1939-2019) definition of postmodern architecture as well as his interpretation of the New State Gallery (Neue Staatsgalerie (1977-1983) in German) in Stuttgart, Germany. Then, the results were examined in several other buildings. So, the present study was qualitative-applied research. Data were collected by library study. Then, they were analyzed descriptively and comparatively using a semiotic approach and case studies.
Findings: According to Saussure’s linguistics, architecture is a language without the intrinsic and natural relationship between its signifier (body) and signified (meaning). What is perceived as the architectural meaning is the outcome of conventions between the architect and audiences. While, according to Pierce’s semiotics and the referral system of its signs, architecture is a language in which rhetorical devices, especially metaphor and its interaction with metonymy, play a crucial role in its “genesis” and “function.” Metaphor is formed on the paradigmatic axis and metonymy on the syntagmatic axis. The interaction of metaphor and metonymy also forms other rhetorical devices in architecture, such as irony and amphibology. The body of architecture changes and transforms with the formation of metaphor and its meaning with the metonymy formation. From this point of view, for some reasons, the architecture language, especially postmodern architecture, can be considered to have a metaphorical and rhetorical pattern. These reasons are:
a) The referential system of this language,
b) The proliferation, multiplicity, difference, and suspense of meaning follow this system in this language, and
c) Changes in the architecture’s body and the meaning follow metaphor and metonymy and the interaction of the two.
On the other hand, the combination of the Saussurean and Peircean models indicates that postmodern architecture has a movement toward a single meaning. However, the totality of this meaning is suspended in its language’s metaphorical and rhetorical system. Postmodern architecture reproduces and develops concepts such as pluralism, contradiction, pleasure, and complexity through its postmodern signs and rhetorical devices. In contrast, comparing its features with the concept of “myth” defined by Barthes showed that postmodern architecture uses the architectural elements of the prior contexts and impoverishes their meanings without suppressing them by making fundamental changes in their layers and codes. Then, using rhetorical devices, combining the explicit and implicit meanings of the elements and “making them its own,” it imposes itself on the cultures as the ideology while shaping the facts.
Conclusion: Just as architecture can develop, multiply and enrich linguistic symbols, meanings and concepts, language also has the power to encode or “give meaning” to architectural signs. Thus, understanding the function of rhetorical devices, especially the metonymy and metaphor interaction, makes it possible to decode and reproduce the meaning of any complex rhetorical architecture through semiotic analysis. In addition, using these devices to express thought in the architectural design makes the semantic richness of the resulting architecture possible.

Graphical Abstract

Highlights

- Paying attention to the role of the metonymy device and especially its interactive relationship with metaphor in the language of postmodern architecture to produce and express meaning.
- Investigating the formation and function of rhetorical devices in the production and transmission of meaning and its decoding and reproduction in postmodern architecture.
- Defining the conditions for realizing rhetorical devices of metonymy and metaphor through semiotics and analyzing their interactive relationship in the two axes of syntagmatic and paradigmatic to create two other devices of amphibology and irony in postmodern architecture.

Keywords

• Language
• Postmodern Architecture
• Semiotics
• Rhetorical Devices
• Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Relationships