http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/world/asia/03actress.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=choi%20jin-sil&st=cse&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/technology/internet/13suicide.html?scp=3&sq=choi%20jin-sil&st=cse
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Order of Discourse
Text drawn from N. Fairclough's "The dialectics of discourse Textus" XIV.2 2001a, pages 231-242
Social practices networked in a particular way constitute a social order – for instance, the emergent neo-liberal global order referred to above, or at more local level, the social order of education in a particular society at a particular time. The discourse/semiotic aspect of a social order is what we can call an order of discourse. It is the way in which diverse genres and discourses and styles are networked together. An order of discourse is a social structuring of semiotic difference – a particular social ordering of relationships amongst different ways of making meaning, ie different discourse and genres and styles. One aspect of this ordering is dominance: some ways of making meaning are dominant or mainstream in a particular order of discourse, others are marginal, or oppositional, or ‘alternative’. For instance, there may be a dominant way to conduct a doctor-patient consultation in Britain, but there are also various other ways, which may be adopted or developed to a greater or lesser extent in opposition to the dominant way. The dominant way probably still maintains social distance between doctors and patients, and the authority of the doctor over the way interaction proceeds; but there are others ways which are more ‘democratic’, in which doctors play down their authority. The political concept of ‘hegemony’ can usefully be used in analyzing orders of discourse (Fairclough 1992, Laclau & Mouffe 1985) – a particular social structuring of semiotic difference may become hegemonic, become part of the legitimizing common sense which sustains relations of domination, but hegemony will always be contested to a greater or lesser extent, in hegemonic struggle. An order of discourse is not a closed or rigid system, but rather an open system, which is put at risk by what happens in actual interactions.
Social practices networked in a particular way constitute a social order – for instance, the emergent neo-liberal global order referred to above, or at more local level, the social order of education in a particular society at a particular time. The discourse/semiotic aspect of a social order is what we can call an order of discourse. It is the way in which diverse genres and discourses and styles are networked together. An order of discourse is a social structuring of semiotic difference – a particular social ordering of relationships amongst different ways of making meaning, ie different discourse and genres and styles. One aspect of this ordering is dominance: some ways of making meaning are dominant or mainstream in a particular order of discourse, others are marginal, or oppositional, or ‘alternative’. For instance, there may be a dominant way to conduct a doctor-patient consultation in Britain, but there are also various other ways, which may be adopted or developed to a greater or lesser extent in opposition to the dominant way. The dominant way probably still maintains social distance between doctors and patients, and the authority of the doctor over the way interaction proceeds; but there are others ways which are more ‘democratic’, in which doctors play down their authority. The political concept of ‘hegemony’ can usefully be used in analyzing orders of discourse (Fairclough 1992, Laclau & Mouffe 1985) – a particular social structuring of semiotic difference may become hegemonic, become part of the legitimizing common sense which sustains relations of domination, but hegemony will always be contested to a greater or lesser extent, in hegemonic struggle. An order of discourse is not a closed or rigid system, but rather an open system, which is put at risk by what happens in actual interactions.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
PAPER IDEA; Politics of memory in media representation of political debate
The Presidential Commission for Truth and Reconciliation
The Presidential Commission for Undocumented Deaths
The Presidential Commission for Undocumented Deaths
Hohendahl- Recasting Public Sphere
Habermas's theory of the public sphere responds rather directly to Koselleck's theory of the modern state, which he received from Carl Schmitt. Koselleck set out to demonstrate that the modern absolutist state, as it emerged during the religious wars of the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, constituted itself by denying any competing political authority and by depoliticizing its subjects. Moral and political decisions were clearly separated by removing morality from the political sphere. Only through this separation could the state guarantee the stability of the political order. For Koselleck, the project of the Enlightenment, on the other hand, consisted of an attempt by intellectuals (philosophers and critics) to undermine the authority of the state not so much through actions as through public discussion. The public sphere of the eighteenth century is the locus where, according to Koselleck, the moral criticism of private citizens challenges the authority of the state as sovereign decision maker. This criticism, although claimed to be strictly moral, has major political implications, namely the destruction of the state through a political revolution. In Koselleck's narrative, modern postrevolutionary societies have lost their secure foundations. Hence they are prone to chaotic upheavals caused by subjects who are no longer controlled by the proper authority of the state. From this perspective, democracy is a symptom of decline rather than the achievement of free and politically mature citizens. By the same token, Koselleck would interpret modern fascism as a consequence of democracy, not its principal opponent.
Unmistakably, Habermas's theory of the public sphere reworks Koselleck's narrative, using most of its building blocks: the concept of the absolutist state, the idea of moral criticism as the primary weapon against the state, the dichotomy of private and public, and the understanding of the Enlightenment project as a fundamental critique of authoritarian structures. Habermas, however, coming from the Hegelian-Marxist tradition of the Frankfurt School, reversed the trajectory of the narrative. Where Koselleck perceived decline (already during the eighteenth century), Habermas saw the beginning of modernity, containing the very project that was supposed to shape postwar Germany. This project he defined as the development of a postauthoritarian civil society, based on democratic political institutions. More specifically, he focused on the emergence of the public sphere in the eighteenth century and its subsequent transformation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to offer a historically grounded analysis of the viability and the limitations of democracy after World War II.
Essentially, Habermas links the decline of the public sphere to a new entwinement of state and society during the late nineteenth century. While the state increasingly takes over social functions, social organizations, which are by nature private, tend to participate in the political process. As a result, political decisions, which are supposed to be prepared in the public sphere, turn into a bargaining process between social organizations (Verbinde) and administrative organizations. These arrangements result in a depoliticization of the public sphere. When administrative and representative organizations such as Berufsverbdnde (professional organizations) closely cooperate in the legislative process, the political participation of the citizens is reduced to a few formal acts. The public sphere as a space for critical debate and a locus for political opposition, as Habermas argues, has been emptied of its former substance. Public opinion, the classic control mechanism of early liberal theory, is no longer the result of rational debate but the product of publicity. "Publicity work is aimed at strengthening the prestige of one's own position without making the matter on which a compromise is to be achieved itself a topic of the public discussion. Organizations and functionaries display representation."14 In short, public opin- ion is largely manipulated for the purpose of working out compromises between state and society.
The incident in Hoyerswerda, where right-wing youths attacked and burned a building in which foreigners were temporarily housed, demonstrated in no uncertain terms that for a segment of the German population physical violence has replaced the willingness to enter public debate.
While Habermas's theory of the public sphere had no room for a multicultural society, it did discuss, as we have seen, the transformation of the bourgeois public sphere under the conditions of the social welfare state. Habermas's contribution is particularly remarkable because it was formulated before the serious economic crises of the seventies and eighties.
The social crises of the seventies and early eighties resulted in the marginalization of the unemployed, the old, and the handicapped. To these groups we have to add millions of foreign workers and political refugees who for the most part were not German citizens and therefore, especially during a period of crisis, not accepted as social equals.
Unmistakably, Habermas's theory of the public sphere reworks Koselleck's narrative, using most of its building blocks: the concept of the absolutist state, the idea of moral criticism as the primary weapon against the state, the dichotomy of private and public, and the understanding of the Enlightenment project as a fundamental critique of authoritarian structures. Habermas, however, coming from the Hegelian-Marxist tradition of the Frankfurt School, reversed the trajectory of the narrative. Where Koselleck perceived decline (already during the eighteenth century), Habermas saw the beginning of modernity, containing the very project that was supposed to shape postwar Germany. This project he defined as the development of a postauthoritarian civil society, based on democratic political institutions. More specifically, he focused on the emergence of the public sphere in the eighteenth century and its subsequent transformation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to offer a historically grounded analysis of the viability and the limitations of democracy after World War II.
Essentially, Habermas links the decline of the public sphere to a new entwinement of state and society during the late nineteenth century. While the state increasingly takes over social functions, social organizations, which are by nature private, tend to participate in the political process. As a result, political decisions, which are supposed to be prepared in the public sphere, turn into a bargaining process between social organizations (Verbinde) and administrative organizations. These arrangements result in a depoliticization of the public sphere. When administrative and representative organizations such as Berufsverbdnde (professional organizations) closely cooperate in the legislative process, the political participation of the citizens is reduced to a few formal acts. The public sphere as a space for critical debate and a locus for political opposition, as Habermas argues, has been emptied of its former substance. Public opinion, the classic control mechanism of early liberal theory, is no longer the result of rational debate but the product of publicity. "Publicity work is aimed at strengthening the prestige of one's own position without making the matter on which a compromise is to be achieved itself a topic of the public discussion. Organizations and functionaries display representation."14 In short, public opin- ion is largely manipulated for the purpose of working out compromises between state and society.
The incident in Hoyerswerda, where right-wing youths attacked and burned a building in which foreigners were temporarily housed, demonstrated in no uncertain terms that for a segment of the German population physical violence has replaced the willingness to enter public debate.
While Habermas's theory of the public sphere had no room for a multicultural society, it did discuss, as we have seen, the transformation of the bourgeois public sphere under the conditions of the social welfare state. Habermas's contribution is particularly remarkable because it was formulated before the serious economic crises of the seventies and eighties.
The social crises of the seventies and early eighties resulted in the marginalization of the unemployed, the old, and the handicapped. To these groups we have to add millions of foreign workers and political refugees who for the most part were not German citizens and therefore, especially during a period of crisis, not accepted as social equals.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Caigentan, Vegetable Roots Discourse 菜根譚 채근담
No. 56
Those who study without appreciating sagely wisdom are mere scribes. Those who serve in office and have no affection for the people are thieves in courtly garb. Those who teach and do not act upon their teachings are merely mouthing Chan (Zen). Those who build careers without thinking of planting seeds of virtue are but flowery flourishes.
No. 69
People with hot blazing tempers set fire to everything. Unsociable people with icy tempers invariably destroy everything. Stiff obstinate people are like stagnant water or decayed trees. With their vital faculties diminished in such ways, it is difficult to speak with such people about building achievements for widespread welfare.
No. 82
When the wind passed through a grove of bamboo, the rattle of the stalks dies away. After the wild geese are gone their reflection in the deep pool disappears. In such a way, things come up for you as a noble person, and when they are gone your mind is empty once again.
No. 106
As a noble person I am bot flighty in manner. Otherwise I will easily be moved by circumstances, and that's bot conducive to calm and settled judgments. At the same time, I am not too unyielding in my judgments, or my vitality would be disabled and my performance muddied.
Caigentan by Hong Zicheng
translated by Robert Aitken
Vegetable Roots Discourse: Wisdom from Ming China on Life and Living
Hwang Byung-gy's Inteview with Chosun Ilbo
Those who study without appreciating sagely wisdom are mere scribes. Those who serve in office and have no affection for the people are thieves in courtly garb. Those who teach and do not act upon their teachings are merely mouthing Chan (Zen). Those who build careers without thinking of planting seeds of virtue are but flowery flourishes.
No. 69
People with hot blazing tempers set fire to everything. Unsociable people with icy tempers invariably destroy everything. Stiff obstinate people are like stagnant water or decayed trees. With their vital faculties diminished in such ways, it is difficult to speak with such people about building achievements for widespread welfare.
No. 82
When the wind passed through a grove of bamboo, the rattle of the stalks dies away. After the wild geese are gone their reflection in the deep pool disappears. In such a way, things come up for you as a noble person, and when they are gone your mind is empty once again.
No. 106
As a noble person I am bot flighty in manner. Otherwise I will easily be moved by circumstances, and that's bot conducive to calm and settled judgments. At the same time, I am not too unyielding in my judgments, or my vitality would be disabled and my performance muddied.
Caigentan by Hong Zicheng
translated by Robert Aitken
Vegetable Roots Discourse: Wisdom from Ming China on Life and Living
Hwang Byung-gy's Inteview with Chosun Ilbo
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Diana & J
The ceremony of Coronation fulfills the same social functions as more strictly religious rituals, that is the values of the community are celebrated and affirmed.
collective sentiment
collective ritual
subliminally understood notion of the monarchy
Coronation was one of those periodic occasions which provided for an affirmation of commonly held national values.
We know that the premature death of film-stars and pop-idols - James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Buddy Holly - leads to demonstrations of public grief, but the scale of the grief is in no way comparable to what we witnessed after Diana's death and is confined to limited sections of the public (p. 5)
Diana, however, belongs to a very different category; she is very much real and authentic.
individual articulations of a national sentiment and not simply as private emotions
Who killed "The Nation's Actress"?: Don't worry! She will be replaced with a new princess
J did not have royal status as Diana did.
No one felt divine emotional collectiveness at the degree Diana's death caused people to feel
She remained a pop star, was not promoted to the princess status
However, she was commemorated but will sure be forgotten easily, because another fake princess will replace her spot.
Diana was not replaceable, but J was.
Why?
What lacks in J. She lacks authenticity. She was made by media as opposed to the fact that Diana's authenticity was made by collective acknowledgement and rituals.
as a victim of information consumerism, commercialism, and unethical journalism.
The public was insisting it had not been deceived. Apart from anything else this was important for its collective self-respect: if it had been deceived then the public endorsement of the marriage was a charade. The case for Diana's royal sacredness had therefore to pushed as vigorously as possible (p. 5).
Motherhood of the two princes.
She (Diana) is the 'People's' as opposed to the Palace's Princess.
from
royal = sacred = moral values of the community
to
royal = sacred = died for our [nation's] sins
Thus in death she was able to accomplish what Bailey has called the 'supreme trick of identification in which the mass see [the leader] not only as an ideal above them but simultaneously as one of them. Through her royal personhood she incorporated human failures, royal hopes and divine aspirations (p. 7).
By praising those qualities in Diana, we indirectly praise them in ourselves: our very recognition that these are the important things in life raises our own moral status, and provides us with the strength and self-confidence to begin a new life, as Diana begins a new life, in those icons of innocence, her two sons.
...so the death of secular social martyrs can be regarded as the seed for the regeneration of the nation (p. 7)
Watson, C. W. (1997) Born a lady, became a princess, died a saint.
collective sentiment
collective ritual
subliminally understood notion of the monarchy
Coronation was one of those periodic occasions which provided for an affirmation of commonly held national values.
We know that the premature death of film-stars and pop-idols - James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Buddy Holly - leads to demonstrations of public grief, but the scale of the grief is in no way comparable to what we witnessed after Diana's death and is confined to limited sections of the public (p. 5)
Diana, however, belongs to a very different category; she is very much real and authentic.
individual articulations of a national sentiment and not simply as private emotions
Who killed "The Nation's Actress"?: Don't worry! She will be replaced with a new princess
J did not have royal status as Diana did.
No one felt divine emotional collectiveness at the degree Diana's death caused people to feel
She remained a pop star, was not promoted to the princess status
However, she was commemorated but will sure be forgotten easily, because another fake princess will replace her spot.
Diana was not replaceable, but J was.
Why?
What lacks in J. She lacks authenticity. She was made by media as opposed to the fact that Diana's authenticity was made by collective acknowledgement and rituals.
as a victim of information consumerism, commercialism, and unethical journalism.
The public was insisting it had not been deceived. Apart from anything else this was important for its collective self-respect: if it had been deceived then the public endorsement of the marriage was a charade. The case for Diana's royal sacredness had therefore to pushed as vigorously as possible (p. 5).
Motherhood of the two princes.
She (Diana) is the 'People's' as opposed to the Palace's Princess.
from
royal = sacred = moral values of the community
to
royal = sacred = died for our [nation's] sins
Thus in death she was able to accomplish what Bailey has called the 'supreme trick of identification in which the mass see [the leader] not only as an ideal above them but simultaneously as one of them. Through her royal personhood she incorporated human failures, royal hopes and divine aspirations (p. 7).
By praising those qualities in Diana, we indirectly praise them in ourselves: our very recognition that these are the important things in life raises our own moral status, and provides us with the strength and self-confidence to begin a new life, as Diana begins a new life, in those icons of innocence, her two sons.
...so the death of secular social martyrs can be regarded as the seed for the regeneration of the nation (p. 7)
Watson, C. W. (1997) Born a lady, became a princess, died a saint.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Traumatic Nationalism
People's princess in comparison with Diana
Rumor
The Psychology of Rumor by Gordon Willard Allport (Author), Leo Postman (Author)
Degradation Rituals
Celebrities are expected to embody virtues
They are magnifiers
Mark Crispin Miller; Boxed In: The Culture of TV
talks about media concentration; Barbara Walters
Degradation Rituals (Goffman, 1963; Garfinkel, 1967)
Celebrities have to go through degradation process?
Richard Sennett (Saskia Sassen); The fall of public man 1970s
Mark Andrejevic
Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance Edited by John J. MacAloon
Rumor
The Psychology of Rumor by Gordon Willard Allport (Author), Leo Postman (Author)
Degradation Rituals
Celebrities are expected to embody virtues
They are magnifiers
Mark Crispin Miller; Boxed In: The Culture of TV
talks about media concentration; Barbara Walters
Degradation Rituals (Goffman, 1963; Garfinkel, 1967)
Celebrities have to go through degradation process?
Richard Sennett (Saskia Sassen); The fall of public man 1970s
Mark Andrejevic
Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance Edited by John J. MacAloon
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Sign: icon, index, symbol
People who study signs and communication differentiate three kinds of signs: an ICON from an INDEX from a SYMBOL. This distinction is very important and derives from philosopher C. S. Peirce in the late 19th century. This page is an attempt to sharpen the difference between these three which are described in your text (CELL, pp. 1-4). The critical issue is to appreciate what a symbol is. This is the key to understanding language and how it differs from any animal communication systems.
First, we must note that a sign is a stimulus pattern that has a meaning. The difference between the various kinds of sign has to do with how the meaning happens to be attached to (or associated with) the pattern.
ICON
The icon is the simplest since it is a pattern that physically resembles what it `stands for'.
A picture of your face is an icon of you.
The little square with a picture of a printer on your computer screen is an icon for the print function. (Whereas a little box that has the word `PRINT' is not an icon since it has no physical resemblance to printing or the printer.)
The picture of a smoking cigarette with a diagonal bar across the picture is an icon that directly represents `Smoking? Don't do it' (at least it does with appropriate cultural experience).
Your cat is preparing to jump up on your lap, so you put out the palm of your hand over the cat to prevent him from jumping. The first time, you may physically impede his jump (This is not a sign at all), but after a couple times, just putting your palm out briefly becomes an iconic sign for `You aren't welcome on my lap right now.' The gesture is an icon because it physically resembles an act of preventing him from jumping, even though it would not prevent him if he really wanted to do it.
Words can be partly iconic too. Bow-wow, splash and hiccup resemble the sounds they represent- at least a little. And the bird called the whippoorwill produces a call resembling this English phrase, so whippoorwill is an iconic word. (These are also called onomotopoetic words.)
Also words can be pronounced in an iconic way: His nose grew wa-a-a-ay out to here. Julia Childes grabbed that carrot and went CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP. Aw, poor widdow ba-by!
Of course sometimes there could be a dispute about what `physical resemblance' means and how similar it must be. And just because we humans can recognize a little picture of something doesn't mean that any other animal could. (Do you think your cat could recognize a picture of a can of catfood and interpret it as ``Time to eat''? Not likely.) So physical resemblance is by no means a simple concept. But how and why an image or a sound has some particular semantic content for us humans is fairly easy to understand.
INDEX
An `index' is defined by some sensory feature, A, (something directly visible, audible, smellable, etc) that correlates with and thus implies or `points to' B, something of interest to an animal. All animals exploit various kinds of indexical signs in dealing with the world. The more intelligent animals are good at learning and exploiting more sophisticated indices (thus a cat will use and learn many more indexical signs than a frog, a fish or an ant -- which tend to be restricted to ones acquired innately).
Thus,
dark clouds in the west are an index of impending rain (at least in Indiana),
for a fish in the sea, the direction of greater light is the direction of warmer water,
a limping gait is a sign that an animal is physically impaired,
a scowling facial expression is an index of the person's displeasure or concern (to a human),
sensing a pheremone in the air is an indexical sign (for some insects) that a sexually receptive member of its own species is located upwind,
a particular alarm call in certain monkeys is a sign that the animal has either directly sensed (eg, seen, smelled, heard) a particular type of predator OR has heard another monkey give this predator alarm call.
a particular pronunciation of a word is a index that someone comes from a particular geographic place or social group.
Note that all of these above depend on a certain statistical regularity of part A (the signal pattern) with part B (the behaviorally relevant state). The exploitation of this regularity requires first, detecting property A (which is not necessarily simple) and either learning (or innately knowing) its correlation with the B. In that case the animal will use A as an index for B.
Note that for humans, some indices can be artificial and manmade (rather than environmentally natural or innate to particular species):
a beep from your oven can signal that the cookies are ready to be removed,
a red stoplight is a sign that you should stop your car if you don't want to risk an accident,
in an animal behavior experiment, a flashing light could be a sign that food will be available in a certain place or that a shock will soon follow.
a person can wave their hand as a sign of recognition and greeting (though this may be partly iconic too).
Notice that the correlation need not be perfect. It isn't always warmer closer to the sea surface, dark clouds in the west don't always mean the rain is coming this way, and even a stoplight can be broken sometimes. This doesn't detract from the usefulness of these signs as a way for an animal to guide its life in a confusing and only partly predictable world.
Words are said to be indexical when they directly point to their meaning - without depending on any relationship to other words. Thus, words like here, there, I, me, you, this, etc. For all of these there is an implied pointing gesture. (Remember in Latin, index really meant the index finger.)
SYMBOL
Words as Symbols.
Now, what about a noun word in a human language? Let's say English `KITTY'? Isn't this just a kind of arbitrary index? Isn't KITTY just an index for the presence of a cat (just for English speakers of course)? In support, one might note that a small child and its mother would be likely to say KITTY in the presence of a cat (so there should be some correlation between the cat and the word KITTY). The sounds [kIDi] correlate partially with the presence of cat (so A predicts B). Doesn't that show that this is just an indexical sign like those above? Unfortunately no - even if its true that most early words for children are learned indexically (that is, by pointing to what they refer to). In general, however, it is very rare for the utterance of a word to correlate with the thing it refers to. Sometimes such a correlation exists, of course, buta word in any language is vastly more complex and sophisticated even for language-learning infants. Notice that:
You and your baby will also freely use the word KITTY when a cat is NOT around (so the correlation between KITTY and the cat is a very weak). [If your dog knows the `word' TAKE-A-WALK, try just discussing taking a walk in earshot of the dog and see what happens! Dogs have no grasp of `Talking about taking-a-walk'. That's because take-a-walk is only an indexical sign for your dog, not a symbol as it is for you and your baby.]
Many words in every language describe objects that noone has ever seen, like MONSTER, UNICORN, GHOST, DEVIL, etc. (so the possibility of a ny correlation is ruled out completely)! What percent of the time that you utter the word ROCKET or TRAIN, do you suppose there is a physical rocket or train present? My guess is 0% for ROCKET and about 1-3% train. If there is no correlation or an extremely weak one, then these words cannot be indices.
On the other hand, any word has strong associations with other words that are `activated' whenever a word is heard or read. Thus KITTY activates words like CAT, FUR, BABY, PURR, PUPPY, PLAY, SAUCER, MILK, YARNBALL, CATFOOD, etc.
By `activate', I mean that you are more likely to think of or utter these other words after hearing or saying KITTY. (There are many kinds of experimental evidence for this, plus intuition.) This suggests that KITTY may be somehow physically linked to these other words in the brain. It suggests that KITTY gets some of its meaning from the selective activation of just these particular words (and their associated emotional content) when the word KITTY is spoken.
Furthermore, many word meanings have associates that are component parts which are also words. Thus a KITTY has FEET, PAWS, WHISKERS, EARS, CLAWS, TONGUE, TEETH, TAIL, etc. A TREE has BRANCH, LEAF, PINECONE, FLOWER, ACORN, BARK, BIRDNEST, etc.
Many words are situated in a hierarchy of superordinate category words (that is, larger, inclusive categories) like CAT, PET, MAMMAL, ANIMAL, FELINE, FAMILY MEMBER, etc.
Many words have a hierarchy of subordinate category subtype words: MY KITTY, YOUR KITTY, STRIPED KITTY, TABBY, etc.
These word-word relationships (sometimes called word-associates) are critical for anchoring the meaning of a word without requiring any correlation in space and time between the signal (the sound of the word) and its meaning. Indices do not require any such set of relationships to work as signs. In summary, symbols like most words in a human language are (a) easily removable from their context, and (b) are closely associated with large sets of other words.
Notice that humans easily learn words for things we have never experienced. Children who grow up in the tropics learn to correctly use words like SNOW and ICE without ever seeing snow or ice. It is not a big problem for them because they have heard descriptions of them in terms of words they do know, like COLD, WHITE, CLEAR, HARD, SOFT, FLUFFY, WATER, MELT, FALLING, SLIPPERY, etc. From these descriptions, they get a pretty good idea what snow and ice are like - enough to read and produce the words appropriately.
This is the enormous power of human symbols: When you have learned a basic vocabulary (based in part on indexical relationships), you can use it to bootstrap to many other new concepts and words. And given the possibility of cultural transmission from generation to generation, human knowledge and understanding become cumulative and have grown at a very rapid rate (relative to the creation and transmission of innate knowledge).
IMPORTANT CLAIM:
Apparently no living nonhuman animals are able to use word-like symbols.
There are, however, some (disputed) claims that a few individual animals (mostly higher primates like monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas) have been trained by humans to use a small (< 50) inventory of symbol-like units using hand signs or small physical tokens. If this claim is true, it implies a huge divide between humans and nonhuman animals. It means that no animal communication systems can be understood as just `simple versions of human languages'. This claim is daring and provocative, but probably true. [Of course, if one believes that humans are derived from nonhuman animals, then somehow our ancestors must have passed through stages that were intermediate between index-based communication systems (like dogs, monkeys, bees, whales, etc) and modern-human symbolic language even though we have very little direct evidence about how this evolution took place.]
Nonword Symbols.
Words (especially nouns, verbs and adjectives) are the architype for symbols. But the most common use of the term symbol in everyday, nontechnical language is for signs that are not words: eg, a flag or totem animal as the symbol of a country (bald eagle for USA, bear for Russia, etc), a cross for Christianity, star of David for Judaism, swastika for Nazism, a particular type font for a specific product (eg, Coca-Cola, Indiana University, etc).
It seems that a similar set of associations to other words exist for such symbols. Thus, the US FLAG (that is, the graphic pattern in red, white and blue, not the English word FLAG) gets its meaning partly from its association to words and concepts like: HOMELAND, WASHINGTON, BALD EAGLE, PATRIOTISM, MOM, DAD, APPLE PIE, PRIDE, HEROISM, DEMOCRACY, `OH SAY CAN YOU SEE...', `I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE...', SACRIFICE, etc etc.
Mathematical and logical symbols also get their meaning from their relation to other symbols. Thus pi is defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter: pi = c/d.
So, nonword symbols are much like words but often lack a phonetic form.
Conclusion.
The term sign is often used for all three of these: icons, indices and symbols. All have a signal aspect, some physical pattern (eg, a sound or visible shape) and a meaning (some semantic content that is implied or `brought to mind') by the signal. But they differ in that icons have a physical resemblance between the signal and the meaning and an index has a correlation in space and time with its meaning. But a symbol is an arbitrary pattern (usually a sound pattern in a language) that gets its meaning primarily from its mental association with other symbols and only secondarily from its correlation with environmentally relevant properties.
Contents drawn from http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/teach/103/sign.symbol.html
First, we must note that a sign is a stimulus pattern that has a meaning. The difference between the various kinds of sign has to do with how the meaning happens to be attached to (or associated with) the pattern.
ICON
The icon is the simplest since it is a pattern that physically resembles what it `stands for'.
A picture of your face is an icon of you.
The little square with a picture of a printer on your computer screen is an icon for the print function. (Whereas a little box that has the word `PRINT' is not an icon since it has no physical resemblance to printing or the printer.)
The picture of a smoking cigarette with a diagonal bar across the picture is an icon that directly represents `Smoking? Don't do it' (at least it does with appropriate cultural experience).
Your cat is preparing to jump up on your lap, so you put out the palm of your hand over the cat to prevent him from jumping. The first time, you may physically impede his jump (This is not a sign at all), but after a couple times, just putting your palm out briefly becomes an iconic sign for `You aren't welcome on my lap right now.' The gesture is an icon because it physically resembles an act of preventing him from jumping, even though it would not prevent him if he really wanted to do it.
Words can be partly iconic too. Bow-wow, splash and hiccup resemble the sounds they represent- at least a little. And the bird called the whippoorwill produces a call resembling this English phrase, so whippoorwill is an iconic word. (These are also called onomotopoetic words.)
Also words can be pronounced in an iconic way: His nose grew wa-a-a-ay out to here. Julia Childes grabbed that carrot and went CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP. Aw, poor widdow ba-by!
Of course sometimes there could be a dispute about what `physical resemblance' means and how similar it must be. And just because we humans can recognize a little picture of something doesn't mean that any other animal could. (Do you think your cat could recognize a picture of a can of catfood and interpret it as ``Time to eat''? Not likely.) So physical resemblance is by no means a simple concept. But how and why an image or a sound has some particular semantic content for us humans is fairly easy to understand.
INDEX
An `index' is defined by some sensory feature, A, (something directly visible, audible, smellable, etc) that correlates with and thus implies or `points to' B, something of interest to an animal. All animals exploit various kinds of indexical signs in dealing with the world. The more intelligent animals are good at learning and exploiting more sophisticated indices (thus a cat will use and learn many more indexical signs than a frog, a fish or an ant -- which tend to be restricted to ones acquired innately).
Thus,
dark clouds in the west are an index of impending rain (at least in Indiana),
for a fish in the sea, the direction of greater light is the direction of warmer water,
a limping gait is a sign that an animal is physically impaired,
a scowling facial expression is an index of the person's displeasure or concern (to a human),
sensing a pheremone in the air is an indexical sign (for some insects) that a sexually receptive member of its own species is located upwind,
a particular alarm call in certain monkeys is a sign that the animal has either directly sensed (eg, seen, smelled, heard) a particular type of predator OR has heard another monkey give this predator alarm call.
a particular pronunciation of a word is a index that someone comes from a particular geographic place or social group.
Note that all of these above depend on a certain statistical regularity of part A (the signal pattern) with part B (the behaviorally relevant state). The exploitation of this regularity requires first, detecting property A (which is not necessarily simple) and either learning (or innately knowing) its correlation with the B. In that case the animal will use A as an index for B.
Note that for humans, some indices can be artificial and manmade (rather than environmentally natural or innate to particular species):
a beep from your oven can signal that the cookies are ready to be removed,
a red stoplight is a sign that you should stop your car if you don't want to risk an accident,
in an animal behavior experiment, a flashing light could be a sign that food will be available in a certain place or that a shock will soon follow.
a person can wave their hand as a sign of recognition and greeting (though this may be partly iconic too).
Notice that the correlation need not be perfect. It isn't always warmer closer to the sea surface, dark clouds in the west don't always mean the rain is coming this way, and even a stoplight can be broken sometimes. This doesn't detract from the usefulness of these signs as a way for an animal to guide its life in a confusing and only partly predictable world.
Words are said to be indexical when they directly point to their meaning - without depending on any relationship to other words. Thus, words like here, there, I, me, you, this, etc. For all of these there is an implied pointing gesture. (Remember in Latin, index really meant the index finger.)
SYMBOL
Words as Symbols.
Now, what about a noun word in a human language? Let's say English `KITTY'? Isn't this just a kind of arbitrary index? Isn't KITTY just an index for the presence of a cat (just for English speakers of course)? In support, one might note that a small child and its mother would be likely to say KITTY in the presence of a cat (so there should be some correlation between the cat and the word KITTY). The sounds [kIDi] correlate partially with the presence of cat (so A predicts B). Doesn't that show that this is just an indexical sign like those above? Unfortunately no - even if its true that most early words for children are learned indexically (that is, by pointing to what they refer to). In general, however, it is very rare for the utterance of a word to correlate with the thing it refers to. Sometimes such a correlation exists, of course, buta word in any language is vastly more complex and sophisticated even for language-learning infants. Notice that:
You and your baby will also freely use the word KITTY when a cat is NOT around (so the correlation between KITTY and the cat is a very weak). [If your dog knows the `word' TAKE-A-WALK, try just discussing taking a walk in earshot of the dog and see what happens! Dogs have no grasp of `Talking about taking-a-walk'. That's because take-a-walk is only an indexical sign for your dog, not a symbol as it is for you and your baby.]
Many words in every language describe objects that noone has ever seen, like MONSTER, UNICORN, GHOST, DEVIL, etc. (so the possibility of a ny correlation is ruled out completely)! What percent of the time that you utter the word ROCKET or TRAIN, do you suppose there is a physical rocket or train present? My guess is 0% for ROCKET and about 1-3% train. If there is no correlation or an extremely weak one, then these words cannot be indices.
On the other hand, any word has strong associations with other words that are `activated' whenever a word is heard or read. Thus KITTY activates words like CAT, FUR, BABY, PURR, PUPPY, PLAY, SAUCER, MILK, YARNBALL, CATFOOD, etc.
By `activate', I mean that you are more likely to think of or utter these other words after hearing or saying KITTY. (There are many kinds of experimental evidence for this, plus intuition.) This suggests that KITTY may be somehow physically linked to these other words in the brain. It suggests that KITTY gets some of its meaning from the selective activation of just these particular words (and their associated emotional content) when the word KITTY is spoken.
Furthermore, many word meanings have associates that are component parts which are also words. Thus a KITTY has FEET, PAWS, WHISKERS, EARS, CLAWS, TONGUE, TEETH, TAIL, etc. A TREE has BRANCH, LEAF, PINECONE, FLOWER, ACORN, BARK, BIRDNEST, etc.
Many words are situated in a hierarchy of superordinate category words (that is, larger, inclusive categories) like CAT, PET, MAMMAL, ANIMAL, FELINE, FAMILY MEMBER, etc.
Many words have a hierarchy of subordinate category subtype words: MY KITTY, YOUR KITTY, STRIPED KITTY, TABBY, etc.
These word-word relationships (sometimes called word-associates) are critical for anchoring the meaning of a word without requiring any correlation in space and time between the signal (the sound of the word) and its meaning. Indices do not require any such set of relationships to work as signs. In summary, symbols like most words in a human language are (a) easily removable from their context, and (b) are closely associated with large sets of other words.
Notice that humans easily learn words for things we have never experienced. Children who grow up in the tropics learn to correctly use words like SNOW and ICE without ever seeing snow or ice. It is not a big problem for them because they have heard descriptions of them in terms of words they do know, like COLD, WHITE, CLEAR, HARD, SOFT, FLUFFY, WATER, MELT, FALLING, SLIPPERY, etc. From these descriptions, they get a pretty good idea what snow and ice are like - enough to read and produce the words appropriately.
This is the enormous power of human symbols: When you have learned a basic vocabulary (based in part on indexical relationships), you can use it to bootstrap to many other new concepts and words. And given the possibility of cultural transmission from generation to generation, human knowledge and understanding become cumulative and have grown at a very rapid rate (relative to the creation and transmission of innate knowledge).
IMPORTANT CLAIM:
Apparently no living nonhuman animals are able to use word-like symbols.
There are, however, some (disputed) claims that a few individual animals (mostly higher primates like monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas) have been trained by humans to use a small (< 50) inventory of symbol-like units using hand signs or small physical tokens. If this claim is true, it implies a huge divide between humans and nonhuman animals. It means that no animal communication systems can be understood as just `simple versions of human languages'. This claim is daring and provocative, but probably true. [Of course, if one believes that humans are derived from nonhuman animals, then somehow our ancestors must have passed through stages that were intermediate between index-based communication systems (like dogs, monkeys, bees, whales, etc) and modern-human symbolic language even though we have very little direct evidence about how this evolution took place.]
Nonword Symbols.
Words (especially nouns, verbs and adjectives) are the architype for symbols. But the most common use of the term symbol in everyday, nontechnical language is for signs that are not words: eg, a flag or totem animal as the symbol of a country (bald eagle for USA, bear for Russia, etc), a cross for Christianity, star of David for Judaism, swastika for Nazism, a particular type font for a specific product (eg, Coca-Cola, Indiana University, etc).
It seems that a similar set of associations to other words exist for such symbols. Thus, the US FLAG (that is, the graphic pattern in red, white and blue, not the English word FLAG) gets its meaning partly from its association to words and concepts like: HOMELAND, WASHINGTON, BALD EAGLE, PATRIOTISM, MOM, DAD, APPLE PIE, PRIDE, HEROISM, DEMOCRACY, `OH SAY CAN YOU SEE...', `I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE...', SACRIFICE, etc etc.
Mathematical and logical symbols also get their meaning from their relation to other symbols. Thus pi is defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter: pi = c/d.
So, nonword symbols are much like words but often lack a phonetic form.
Conclusion.
The term sign is often used for all three of these: icons, indices and symbols. All have a signal aspect, some physical pattern (eg, a sound or visible shape) and a meaning (some semantic content that is implied or `brought to mind') by the signal. But they differ in that icons have a physical resemblance between the signal and the meaning and an index has a correlation in space and time with its meaning. But a symbol is an arbitrary pattern (usually a sound pattern in a language) that gets its meaning primarily from its mental association with other symbols and only secondarily from its correlation with environmentally relevant properties.
Contents drawn from http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/teach/103/sign.symbol.html
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