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External WebsitesEmeritus Professor of Communications, Fordham University, Bronx, New York. Author of The Languages of Communication and others.
George N. Gordon Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Last Updated: Sep 7, 2024 • Article History Table of ContentsAsk the Chatbot a Question
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Signals, signs, and symbols, three related components of communication processes found in all known cultures, have attracted considerable scholarly attention because they do not relate primarily to the usual conception of words or language. Each is apparently an increasingly more complex modification of the former, and each was probably developed in the depths of prehistory before, or at the start of, early human experiments with vocal language.
A signal may be considered as an interruption in a field of constant energy transfer. An example is the dots and dashes that open and close the electromagnetic field of a telegraph circuit. Such interruptions do not require the construction of a man-made field; interruptions in nature (e.g., the tapping of a pencil in a silent room, or puffs of smoke rising from a mountaintop) may produce the same result. The basic function of such signals is to provide the change of a single environmental factor in order to attract attention and to transfer meaning. A code system that refers interruptions to some form of meaningful language may easily be developed with a crude vocabulary of dots, dashes, or other elemental audio and visual articulations. Taken by themselves, the interruptions have a potential breadth of meaning that seems extremely small; they may indicate the presence of an individual in a room, an impatience, agreement, or disagreement with some aspect of the environment, or, in the case of a scream for help, a critical situation demanding attention. Coded to refer to spoken or written language, their potential to communicate language is extremely great.
While signs are usually less germane to the development of words than signals, most of them contain greater amounts of meaning of and by themselves. Ashley Montagu, an anthropologist, has defined a sign as a “concrete denoter” possessing an inherent specific meaning, roughly analogous to the sentence “This is it; do something about it!” The most common signs encountered in daily life are pictures or drawings, although a human posture like a clenched fist, an outstretched arm, or a hand posed in a “stop” gesture may also serve as signs. The main difference between a sign and a signal is that a sign (like a policeman’s badge) contains meanings of an intrinsic nature; a signal (like a scream for help) is merely a device by which one is able to formulate extrinsic meanings. Their difference is illustrated by the observation that many types of animals respond to signals while only a few intelligent and trained animals (usually dogs and apes) are competent to respond to even simple signs.
All known cultures utilize signs to convey relatively simple messages swiftly and conveniently. The meaning of signs may depend on their form, setting, colour, or location. In the United States, traffic signs, uniforms, badges, and barber poles are frequently encountered signs. Taken en masse, any society’s lexicon of signs makes up a rich vocabulary of colourful communications.
Symbols are more difficult than signs to understand and to define, because, unlike signs and signals, they are intricately woven into an individual’s ongoing perceptions of the world. They appear to contain a dimly understood capacity that (as one of their functions), in fact, defines the very reality of that world. The symbol has been defined as any device with which an abstraction can be made. Although far from being a precise construction, it leads in a profitable direction. The abstractions of the values that people imbue in other people and in things they own and use lie at the heart of symbolism. Here is a process, according to the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, whereby
some components of [the mind’s] experience elicit consciousness, beliefs, emotions, and usages respecting other components of experience.
In Whitehead’s opinion, symbols are analogues or metaphors (that may include written and spoken language as well as visual objects) standing for some quality of reality that is enhanced in importance or value by the process of symbolization itself.
Almost every society has evolved a symbol system whereby, at first glance, strange objects and odd types of behaviour appear to the outside observer to have irrational meanings and seem to evoke odd, unwarranted cognitions and emotions. Upon examination, each symbol system reflects a specific cultural logic, and every symbol functions to communicate information between members of the culture in much the same way as, but in a more subtle manner than, conventional language. Although a symbol may take the form of as discrete an object as a wedding ring or a totem pole, symbols tend to appear in clusters and depend upon one another for their accretion of meaning and value. They are not a language of and by themselves; rather they are devices by which ideas too difficult, dangerous, or inconvenient to articulate in common language are transmitted between people who have acculturated in common ways. It does not appear possible to compile discrete vocabularies of symbols, because they lack the precision and regularities present in natural language that are necessary for explicit definitions.
Rich clusters of related and unrelated symbols are usually regarded as icons. They are actually groups of interactive symbols, like the White House in Washington, D.C., a funeral ceremony, or an Impressionist painting. Although, in examples such as these, there is a tendency to isolate icons and individual symbols for examination, symbolic communication is so closely allied to all forms of human activity that it is generally and nonconsciously used and treated by most people as the most important aspect of communication in society. With the recognition that spoken and written words and numbers themselves constitute symbolic metaphors, their critical roles in the worlds of science, mathematics, literature, and art can be understood. In addition, with these symbols, an individual is able to define his own identity.