Symbols and Semiotics: A Comprehensive Guide (PDF)

**THE SYMBOL** **What is a SYMBOL?** - It is a mark, sign or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. - Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and...

**THE SYMBOL** **What is a SYMBOL?** - It is a mark, sign or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. - Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences. - Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. - Examples: - Numerals are symbols for numbers.  - Alphabetic letters may be symbols for sounds. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. - A red rose may symbolize love and compassion. - The variable \'x\', in a mathematical equation, may symbolize the position of a particle in space. - The word symbol derives from the Greek word **[symbolon]**, *meaning \"token, watchword\"* from word **[syn]** *\"together\"* and **[bállō]** *\"I throw, put.\"* - The sense evolution in Greek is from \"throwing things together\" to \"contrasting\" to \"comparing\" to "token used in comparisons to determine if something is genuine." ** ** **What is SEMIOTICS?** - **[Semiotics]**is the study of signs, symbols, and signification as communicative behavior. - Semiotics studies focus on the relationship of the signifier and the signified, also taking into account interpretation of visual cues, body language, sound, and other contextual clues. - Semiotics is linked with both linguistics and psychology. - Symbols allow the human brain continuously to create meaning using sensory input and decode symbols through both **denotation** and **connotation**. ** ** **What is CARTOGRAPHY?** - It is an organized collection of symbols forms a legend for a map. ** ** **Symbols in Cartography** - **Pictorial Symbols**(also \"Image\", \"Iconic\", or \"Replicative\") appear as the real-world feature, although it is often in a generalized manner; e.g. a tree icon to represent a forest, or green denoting vegetation. - **Functional Symbols**(also \"Representational\") directly represent the activity that takes place at the represented feature; e.g. a picture of a skier to represent a ski resort or a tent to represent a campground. - **Conceptual Symbols**directly represent a concept related to the represented feature; e.g. a dollar sign to represent an ATM, or a Star of David to represent a Jewish synagogue. - **Conventional Symbols**(also \"Associative\") do not have any intuitive relationship but are so commonly used that map readers eventually learn to recognize them; e.g. a red line to represent a highway or a cross to represent a hospital. - **Abstract/Geometric Symbols**(also \"Ad Hoc\") are arbitrary shapes chosen by the cartographer to represent a certain feature.   **Symbolic Action** - A **symbolic action**is an action that has no, or little, practical effect but symbolizes, or signals, what the actor wants or believes. The action conveys meaning to the viewers. ** ** **Difference between Sign and Symbol** +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | **SIGN** | **SYMBOL** | +===================================+===================================+ | A sign is a form of language that | A symbol represents something | | is descriptive in nature. | that are accepted by certain | | | subjective areas. | | Ex.: Road signs (DO NOT ENTER) | | | | Ex.: A letter or letters standing | | | for a chemical element. | +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | A sign could stand for something | May only target certain group of | | and it may be mandatory to be | people.  May be interpreted | | followed. | differently by differently by | | | people. | +-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+   **Associated Terms** - **Alchemical symbols**, originally devised as part of alchemy, were used to denote some elements and some compounds until the 18th century. - **Astronomical symbols**are abstract pictorial symbols used to represent astronomical objects, theoretical constructs and observational events in European astronomy. - **Emblem **is an abstract or representational pictorial image that represents a concept. - **Cultural icon**is an artifact that is identified by members of a culture as representative of that culture. - **Logo** is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordmark. - **National symbol**is a symbol of any entity considering and manifesting itself to the world as a national community: the sovereign states but also nations and countries in a state of colonial or other dependence, (con)federal integration, or even an ethnocultural community considered a \'nationality\' despite having no political autonomy. - **Proto-writing** consists of visible marks communicating limited information. They used ideographic or early mnemonic symbols or both to represent a limited number of concepts, in contrast to true writing systems, which record the language of the writer. - **Mathematical symbols** used in all branches of mathematics to express a formula or to represent a constant. A mathematical concept is independent of the symbol chosen to represent it.   **Illustration to Symbol** 1.**The Picture** - - It is a record, as true to life as possible, of that which the human eye sees or is believed to see. - With the invention of photography, the naturalistic art of \"image recording\" lost its original meaning and value, so that it is no coincidence that the departure from realistic representation in painting runs parallel with the emergence of photographic techniques. - This kind of pictorial reproduction now makes it possible to affect humankind with a mass of pictorial material in ever-increasing quantities, whether in the form of printing or of television. - A picture was experienced as what one might call a concentrated medium, a self-enclosed message. - Also, the sense of an object of contemplation. - With the flood of pictorial information and moving pictures has developed into a real pictorial language. - For the viewer of the pictures, the accompanying verbal expression now plays only a secondary role in the understanding of the meaning of a communication. - The art of which lay precisely in the communication of the action without the use of speech. 2.**The Diagram** - - The essential purpose of a diagram is to analyze or break down an object or event into its parts, rather than merely describing it verbally or representing it photographically. - The complete picture is therefore either stylized, cut up, or dissected, so that a construction, a mechanism, or a function can be explained. - In addition to the representation of objects, other kinds of diagram can employ graphics in order to represent tables listing abstract concepts that illustrate technical or economic facts. a.Stages of schematization - The first illustration consists of a drawing recognizable to almost everyone as the moon landing craft LEM. - This is an example of extreme simplification: an outline drawing showing only the most essential outward forms and renouncing any treatment of surfaces by means of colors, halftones, shadows, or structural information about the material. - In this sense the illustration, may be regarded as representing the first level of schematization, since the departure from reality is already considerable and the sketch relies to a great extent on the viewer\'s own memory image of the object. A blue outline of a space ship Description automatically generated - - - The second example is of a diagram that makes greater demands on the viewer\'s intelligence. - It is a **cross section** of a motor. - The picture has become divorced from reality as the object will never really be seen in the form illustrated, but the cross-cut representation is absolutely necessary for the clarification of explanations about the functioning principle of the motor.  - - - A third and even more abstract form of schematization is shown in the form of a **wiring diagram**. - The outward form of the object has now completely disappeared and only a part of the function of the equipment is explained, namely the electrical. - Within the wiring diagram there are certain signs whose meaning cannot be immediately recognized, since they belong to the category of scientific signs and as such must be learned by the technician. A diagram of electrical wiring Description automatically generated - - - Verbal explanation becomes essential. - The stronger the schematization becomes with increasing distancing from straightforward representation of the object, the more dependent it becomes upon explanatory language. - The illustration of a **table** with a basic grid dividing up specific values. - The two-dimensional arrangement of these lines of value with a horizontal and a vertical coordinate allows given relationships to be visually fixed at all the crossing points. - The connecting lines between the individual points produce the curve, which makes situations and trends instantly comprehensible to the viewer with spontaneous clarity.  b.Computer aids to schematization - - - The need for representation of third and fourth dimensions gives the technician the occasion to make use of new sources of schematization, for example that of **digital recording on a computer-controlled screen**. - The main advantage of which is to allow the precise regulation of the timing of a course of action. - The progression from picture to picture makes it possible to identify and correct faulty decisions that could not have been foreseen by the human brain. 3. **The Ground Plan** - - The term **ground plan** in the present context is taken to mean the visibly indicated division of a space or a visual arrangement of a lapse of time. - Such divisions and arrangements are the schematic bases on which something is organized or happens. - Example: clock face, map 4.  **The Allegory** - - The **allegory** consists of a purely figurative representation, usually a personification of an abstract concept, with the objective of providing a naturalistic illustration of some extraordinary deed, exceptional situation, or outstanding quality. 5. ** The Images of Superstition** - - **Superstition** is defined as \"misdirected reverence." - It is based as a whole on a primitive fear of the future, of the malign. - Humankind has always tried to protect itself from ill fortune. - Many superstitious acts have a thoroughly reasonable core of sense. - Amulets are a product of superstition.