Signs:Signals and Symbols

[Dr. J © 2020]

The basic building block of communication is the sign. A sign is a perceived association between (1) a thing (signifier) and (2) what that thing “stands for” (signified). The “stands for” relationship is definitive. The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, for example, acknowledges of the flag that there is a “republic for which it stands” and that the flag is, therefore, a signifier which stands for the signified republic.

A signifier must be sensible (empirical)—e.g., it can be seen, heard, felt, smelled—but the signified may be appreciable only at the level of ideas (conceptual).

Signsignifier reference empirical flag stand-insignified referent conceptual republic stood for

To say that a sign is a perceived association means that a sign exists in the mind of a perceiver. For example, a source (e.g., writer) may encode a message containing the signifying image (word) “freedom” because that words stands for something to that source. A receiver may decode the image (word) as signifying (standing for) something else.

Perceiversource intending encoder receiver beholding decoder

Usually, when students of communication discuss signifiers they focus on verbal language (spoken-heard or written-read words). However, as Table One illustrates, other media (e.g. an emoticon, clothing color, “body language”) can carry signs as well. Because the medium we are using here (on this page) is a visual one, we will focus on visual examples. So far, you have encountered quite a few signifiers on this page (only some of which are words). What are some of these signifiers and what do you think is signified by them?

Remember that that what makes something a sign is the perceived association. All of this relates to one of the early axioms of communication that I learned: “meanings are in people not in words” (or, it might be added, images). In fact, since we are talking about a perceived association, a signifier may be decoded as meaningful, for example, even when no one encoded it. Some of us find a rainbow, or full moon, meaningful. Gopnik (2020) uses the example of Covid-19: “The microbe has no meaning; we seek to create one in the chaos it brings” (The New Yorker, March 30, The Coronavirus Crisis Reveals . . .).

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Importantly, we may perceive some images (“freedom” or “cat”) as signs while other images (ye,4q9a, 1jyzo/8) may not be so recognized. Note too that some images (e.g., ye,4q9a, 1jyzo/8) may not stand for highly standardized associations (like words) but still be perceived as signifying (standing for) something (e.g., “the typist made some really bad typos”). Reflecting the idea of perceived association, an expression sometimes “stands for” something as encoded by a source—but is decoded as standing for something else (or nothing at all) by an intended receiver. Signs exist in the mind of the perceiver.

Multiple signifiers can be available to represent a single signified and a single signifier can stand for multiple signifieds. For example, there are multiple images available to us (two/2/II/dos/bi-) to signify the concept more-than-one-but-less-than-three. On the other hand, a single sound can signify multiple things (peace/piece, one/won, led/lead, two/too/to, cite/site/sight)—in fact, this is so common that we have a word that designates the idea (homonym). A single gesture can do the same. There are some entertaining cross-cultural examples available but here we’ll unpack a more familiar one. What does the following represent?

You know the answer. It depends on what is in the mind of the perceiver (encoder/decoder). In your decoding, for example, the ink on this page may have signified two, peace, victory, a bunny, or something else.

This demonstrates another important thing. A signifier may signify something that is signified that is itself a signifier and so on. Some scholars maintain that “every time we use a sign, it gets translated into another sign” (Schirato & Cole, 2000, p. 21). “The interpretation of the signifier is always made through another signifier” (p. 33). The image above is not a gesture after all but a simple two-dimensional representation of a complex three-dimensional gesture. This image signifies a signified which is itself a signifier for a conceptual signified that may be dimensionless. In this way, a signifier may be many levels removed from what is ultimately signified. Similarly, something (say, a song or a shirt) may be a signifier that “stands for” a flag, which stands for “the” flag, which stands for a republic—but “republic” too may be a word, a signifier, that stands for something else.

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In fact, signifiers may have no material referent at all (e.g., the words unicorn, mermaid). Sometimes, signifiers are (for example) mere words. The fact that a signifier may signify something real (concrete) or may stand for nothing more than an idea (concept) can be a source of great confusion. We will return to this challenge in our discussion of the distinction between simple signals and symbols.

For the moment, we return to our broader discussion about signs generally. Remember, I have been using the word image above as a convenience given that we are working here in a visual medium. We might, however, be just as accurately be talking about sound, smell, taste, or feel. Or we might, more inclusively, use a word like sensation or perception to designate the range of referents that can work as signs.

Anything can be a sign because any thing that can be sensed can stand for something else. As a decoder in the spring of 2020, whether someone is encroaching withing my six feet of “social distancing” space in Kroger—and whether they are wearing a mask—are signs of how seriously they take their health, my health, and public health more generally. For example, while face masks function as protective devices, “masks further function as an important social signal.” (Ferris Jabr, 30 March 2020, It’s time to face facts, America: Masks work, Wired).

On the following pages, Table One surveys some of the diversity of channels—two dozen of them—that can convey a signifier. Table Two samples the variety of messages that can be signified in a single medium / channel. Each facial expression is a signifier with the most commonly associated signified meaning identified below it.

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Table One: Signifier Types/Channels

I Olfactory (smelling)e.g., baking bread, perfume, new car smell

II Gustatory (tasting)

III Tactile (feeling)A. Deaf-blind languagesB. VibrationC. Bodily contact (shake-bump-high5, pat, hug, kiss, nudge, pinch, tickle, hold), D. Haptics (temperature, humidity, texture (i.e., paper quality, silk-velvet-burlap)

IV Auditory (hearing – “semantics of sound”)A. Vocal

1. Speech - spoken language (English, Chinese, French)2. Prosodic - paralanguage features

tempo–rate, rhythm, silence, pitch–tone, loudness, clarity, stress 3. Vocal “quality” (i.e., breathy, nasal, gravely, creaky) 4. Physiological effects (i.e., coughing, snoring, sneezing, laughing)5. Musical effects (i.e., whistling, humming)

B. Non-vocal1. language-based codes (drums, Morse code, etc.)2. snap, clap, tap, slap, etc.

C. Assisted (e.g., dinner bell, music, instrument [Peter and the Wolf]) D. Non-human (crickets, cat screeching, dog barking, car alarm, ding)

V Visual (seeing)A. Writing - Written language (English, Latin, German)B. Sign languages

e.g., emoticons, deaf, religious, professional (sports, auctions, TV direction, etc.)

C. Language-based codes (semaphore, smoke signals, internet)

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D. Kinesics1. body posture-stance 2. facial expression [see Table Two]

eye behavior (contact, wink-blink, attend, regulate, emotion)3. gesture

hands location (head, eyes, ears, mouth, hips)emblems

(fingers crossed, V, OK, “the” finger, quiet, (thumb out-up-down, stop, shame, bowl, crack)

head (nod, shake, cock, tilt, chin)shoulder

E. Proxemics (seating, blocking, sight, & public-social-personal-intimate body proximity)

F. Chronemics [also often auditory]F. Personal Artifacts

autos, clothing (uniform), jewelry, wallet picturesflags, diplomas, trophies, mugs, furniture, walls

G. Visual aesthetics1. appearance (e.g., attractiveness, similarity)2. drawing-painting-photographs-sculpture-film-architecture

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Table Two: Facial Expressions

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Signs: Signals & Symbols

A sign may be perceived as a signal (“simple sign”) or a symbol. In practice, the difference is probably more one of degree than kind but, for simplicity sake, we will treat them here as two discrete kinds of sign.

A signal is a sign that communicates a real, substantive, material relationship between the signifier and the signified. For example, in July of 2016, Donald Trump argued that the probable Russian “hack” of DNC computers is a “sign” (a signal) that other nations don’t respect us. The expression “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” is meant to articulate a signal relationship. In this case, real smoke is believed to signal real, substantive, material fire. The kind that burns.

A symbol is a sign that only signifies a hypothetical relationship to the signified. It invokes a referent that is a mental abstraction. To perceive a sign as a symbol is to acknowledge that even if it is true that “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” the words “smoke” and “fire” do not necessarily signal either—as is the case on this page. So where there is “smoke” (the word) there is not necessarily real smoke—let alone real fire. As they say in General Semantics, the word is not the thing. Nor is a picture.

A story that illustrates the difference between the perception of a signal and symbol is that of The Boy Who Cried Wolf (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pJyYU9m1TM ) . In the first part of this story, the boy decides to have a little fun by exploiting the fact that the villagers will interpret the word wolf as a signal when, for him, it is only a symbol. He encodes a symbol, they decode the word as a literal signal of the animal . . . and come running. In the second half of the story, the boy uses the word wolf to indicate the material presence of the actual animal but the villages interpret wolf as just a word. He encodes a signal but they decode a symbol. The implications are problematic—a theme humorously, if disturbingly explored in this short clip from the Family Guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTLJHiy8HHo ).

These examples have demonstrated how words can be interpreted as signals and/or symbols. The concept holds, however, for signs embedded in any channel.

For example, consider the images below.

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Different species leave different signs behind, signaling their activities.

Imagine that someday, maybe hundreds of years from now, an alien race lands on our moon. As they begin to explore the surface, they encounter the following sight. What would they make of it? It is hard to say for sure. But they might interpret it as evidence—as a signal—that beings had once walked there.

Footprints as signals: Walking on the moon

On our own planet, the discoveries of petroglyphs, like those pictured below, were interpreted as signaling that people had lived in those areas hundreds of years earlier. But they were also interpreted as evidence that those pre-historic peoples were themselves symbol users—even when we can’t be sure what those symbols stood for. Note, for example, the foot prints. This could be interpreted as the residue of very small wall-walking people—or, more likely, the footprints were used to communicate deliberately, abstractly, and symbolically.

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Footprints as symbols: Writing on the wall

In fact, such evidence goes a long way toward proving Burke’s assertion that human beings are the “symbol-making, symbol-using, symbol misusing animal” (Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature and Method). In the next section, we will consider the contention that the modern human is also an “animal used by symbols” (McGwire, 1990).

Symbols and Signal Reactions

“Signal reactions are spontaneous, automatic, instinctive movements, thoughts” or reflexes. Remember Pavlov’s poor old dog? Having been conditioned to associate the signifier bell and the signified food and unconditioned to thinking conditionally, man’s best friend faithfully salivated after hearing the bell and before discovering that the bowl was empty. Pavlov’s dog had a signal reaction. We want to be able to distinguish the kind of signal reaction Pavlov’s dog had (reacting to a symbol bell as a signal of food) from the kinds of conditional responses that humans are capable of having (understanding that the bell is only an abstract symbol that should not be confused for an actual signal of real food).

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However, it must be acknowledged that humans too sometimes respond to a bell as if it signaled something that it does not. I recall one academic session in which I needed to get to a class at 8:00 am, Monday-Friday. It was also a session in which I was not getting a lot of sleep and tried to squeeze every minute of shut eye out of my scant time for it. I learned that if I bolted out of bed at 7:00 am and jumped into the shower, dressed, and grabbed a Pop Tart that I could make it to class by 8:00. And so, I set my alarm for 7:00. My plan worked. Every weekday morning, I bolted out of bed and jumped into the shower and made it to class in time. One Monday morning, I was nearly to campus when I realized that it was a holiday, that there was no class, and that I could have stayed in bed. I had behaved just like Pavlov’s dog—reacting to a symbol bell as if it was a signal of real need. Responding to a symbol as a signal is not uncommon. Consider the defensive player whose desire to react quickly causes him to lean left when the player with the basketball looks left, dips the left shoulder and crosses their dribble over to that left hand—only to see the dribbler cross-back over to the right as their own momentum carries them in the wrong direction. So successful is this fake, so severe is the signal reaction, that play-by-play commentators sometimes say the dribbler has “broken the ankles” of the defensive player. Again, the receiver has decoded a symbol as if it were a signal—the dribbler is driving left/right—to their detriment. Watch a few of the ten examples here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhyZrDKejBo&feature=youtu.be).

In each of these cases (wolf, alarm, crossover), humans have been fooled (“used by”) symbols. However, it must also be acknowledge that we have chosen the rules by which we may, occasionally, be fooled. In such cases, we may conclude that the advantages of a speedy reaction are worth us sometimes being fooled.

In other cases, being “used by symbols” can be so satisfying that we deliberately choose to be tricked. In such cases, symbols can be amazingly effective in fooling us that they are signals of something real. Consider the novel reader, video game player, or movie viewer. Each may choose to “suspend disbelief” so that the symbols they expose themselves to will have an opportunity to trick them so thoroughly that bodily reactions are automatically triggered. They experience fear and hope and joy, they laugh and they cry in response to manipulation by these symbols. Their hormones (adrenalin, dopamine, etc.) respond. Their muscles tighten and relax. The effects can be profound—and profitable. Consider this example: Who is 80 years old and makes one billion dollars a year? This guy . . .

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Larson notes, our reactions to the symbols associated with a product is “quite literally a benefit of the product” (p. 138). For example, research shows that “food tastes better” when preceded by effective menu descriptions and table wine served in quality wine glasses tastes better than the same wine served in other vessels.

More hopefully, but still frightening in its way, is the effect of placebos. Although those in the medical field do not use the language of symbol/signal, it seems clear that a placebo is a mere symbol of a medical intervention that is decoded as if it signaled an actual medicine. According to the folks at WebMD

“A placebo is anything that seems to be a ‘real” medical treatment -- but isn't. It could be a pill, a shot, or some other type of "fake" treatment. What all placebos have in common is that they do not contain an active substance meant to affect health.”

“Research on the placebo effect has focused on the relationship of mind and body. One of the most common theories is that the placebo effect is due to a person's expectations. If a person expects a pill to do something, then it's possible that the body's own chemistry can cause effects similar to what a medication might have caused.”

“For instance, in one study, people were given a placebo and told it was a stimulant. After taking the pill, their pulse rate sped up, their blood pressure increased, and their reaction speeds improved. When people were given the same pill and told it was to help them get to sleep, they experienced the opposite effects.”

“The fact that the placebo effect is tied to expectations doesn't make it imaginary or fake. Some studies show that there are actual physical changes that occur with the placebo effect. For instance, some studies have documented an increase in the body's production of endorphins, one of the body's natural pain relievers.”

Humans, it seems, are biologically eager to react to signs as if they were signals. One explanation for this is that humans evolved for millions of years in an environment where a

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slow reaction to a sign was dangerous. Delay of even a fraction of a second might mean the difference between life and death: those who, for example, immediately reacted to a sign of a tiger as if it signaled a real tiger survived, those who were too slow were not as “fit” and were “selected out” in human evolution. The emergence of symbols is a fairly recent development in human history but our biology is still predisposed to a long-lived biological inheritance. Therefore, we are eager to mentally, even hormonally, mistake symbols for signals. [By the way, we also sometimes get habituated to customary signal-symbol connections. Therefore, we sometimes fail to react to signals because they are not accompanied by the usual symbols.]

We have considered cases where the misinterpretation of a symbol as a signal has done more good than harm: when we choose to be deceived (suspending disbelief to watch an entertaining movie), when we choose to risk deception (the alarm clock), and when benevolent others choose to deceive us to help us (with placebos). However, we must also consider the

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possibility that those who would manipulate us with symbols do not always have our best interest at heart. See, for example, This Video Will Hurt on the “nocebo” effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hO4_UEe-4).

We also have to consider the unfortunate reactions that sometimes arise from misinterpreting symbols as signals—even when no one is trying to deliberately deceive us. Consider, for example, the biological overreactions of some people who are allergic to rose pollen when they are exposed to realistic looking artificial roses. Or consider, for example, that people have insufficient under-reactions to “female-named” storms that result in twice as many deaths as “male-named” storms (Pfeiffer, 2014). We’ll want to keep our eyes open for what Professor Dennett terms “dangerous memes.”

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Language and Semantic Reaction

"Language is not only an object in our hands, it is the reservoir of tradition and the medium in and through which we exist and perceive our world" (Hans-Georg Gadamer, 1976)

“Once we call it by name, we can start having a real conversation about our priorities and values. Because the revolt against brutality begins with a revolt against the language that hides that brutality.”(Rebecca Solnit, 2014)

“Language matters” (Mooney & Evans, 2019, p. 2). Language is a powerful tool with “almost magical possibilities” (Larson, p. 153). However, as most of us know very few languages fluently, our tools can sometimes limit, even use, us. As Abraham Maslow put it “If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” This is an issue because our language(s) significantly influence the way we think (http://blog.ted.com/2013/02/19/5-examples-of-how-the-languages-we-speak-can-affect-the-way-we-think/). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis maintains that language influences how we think (Mooney & Evans, 2019, p. 32). Research on linguistic relativity, for example, has demonstrated that people’s ability to perceive differences in color is linked to the language that they have for thinking about color difference. People with shorter or more popular names earn more than those whose names are longer or less common (http://info.theladders.com/our-team/3556). Language significantly frames thought. Consider gendered language. Research shows that people are significantly more likely to imagine male actors when a masculine generic is used (he, his, mankind, etc.) than when a gender neutral term is used.

Further, our language profoundly influences the ways that we think about the past and future.“For example, a study by Keith Chen of Yale Business School analyzed data from 76 countries, focusing on things like saving money, smoking and exercise habits, and general health. The surprising result was that cultures in which most people speak languages without a future tense make better health and financial decisions overall. In fact, it found that speaking a tensed language, like English, made people 30 percent less likely to save money.” (Floorwalker, 2014)

It is thought that speakers of un-tensed languages, see their lives less in discrete bundles and more as a whole. “Therefore they are automatically more mindful of how their decisions will affect their futures” (Floorwalker, 2014). They “consistently accumulate more wealth, hold onto it for longer periods of time, are healthier, and live longer” than those of us for whom “the past is something we've left behind, and the future is like a distant planet where consequences live” that we do not currently have to confront.

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In some research, people who spoke both English and Japanese made different decisions when posed with the same problem in different languages. For English-speaking students who know a second language, framing decisions in the “foreign” language lead to better decision-making (http://www.wired.com/2012/04/language-and-bias/).

Further, “recent studies have suggested that language may act as a cue to which cultural frame of reference a given interaction belongs in.”

“For example: A test was applied to bilingual Arab Israelis who spoke both Arabic and Hebrew (two cultures that have famously held a little animosity toward each other over the years) that asked participants to record whether words had negative or positive connotations. When the test was given in Arabic, the participants picked Jewish names as being intrinsically negative, but this effect disappeared when the test was given in Hebrew. In short, their bias against Jewish names arose from the fact that they were thinking in Arabic at the time, and not because they necessarily had any deep-seated bias against Jews. . . . The effect can be seen virtually any time you deal with culturally sensitive concepts in two different languages:” (Floorwalker, 2014)

Given the power of language, misreading its symbolicity for a signal is especially dangerous. Korzypski lamented the “linguistic tragedy” which befalls people whose semantic-signal reactions cause them to mistake symbols for signals. Elevated blood pressure, quarrels, explosions of temper, and even violence are reactions to some words as if they could hurt us. In the last six months, I’ve had one acquaintance unfriend a large number of people and another leave Facebook entirely because they are worried that people’s posts would give them a heart attack! Personally, Larson reports. language choices have an impact on hemorrhaging and stomach ulcers (p. 153). He notes significantly elevated risks of death among nursing home residents in the week’s following a birthday. The language we are exposed to can even change the structure of our brain (Teicher et. al. 2010). Socially, we risk (for example) seeing women as immature and not quite ready-for-prime-time when we refer to them as girls but to males of the same age as men.

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Symbols as Virtual Reality

This “reality” problem is compounded since symbols can stand for other symbols creating the possibility of a multistage system of abstraction. The view of semiotics advanced by Pierce, for example, envisions three stages: a real “objective” referent, a mental conception of that thing, and, a word or other sign that refers to that concept. For example, an actual dog, the idea of a dog, and the word dog.

referent interpretant sign(“objective”) (mental image) (word)

Donovan observes that “in classic structuralist theory there is, in effect, a threefold layer of signification: the elided referent, the concept that designates the referent (termed the signified), and the word that designates the concept or signified (termed the signifier) (p. 75). We might illustrate this:

referent concept word(designated) (signified-designator) (signifier)

However, as post-structuralists remind us, there is no guarantee that the signified concept refers to a real, material, objective referent. The designated referent may be just another symbol. Put another way, signified virtual realities may come to signify (or stand for) other virtual realities.

In fact, rhetorical theorists often speak of a symbolic universe, inter-textual matrix, or virtual web of such connections. Fiddes (1991) provides an interesting example:

Meat certainly qualifies as symbolic in these terms since its economic and social importance is often greater than might be anticipated from its purely nutritional value. But symbolism is more than a few ethereal associations which somehow disrupt our otherwise rational judgment. That is only the surface of an infinite system of thought that can be implicit or explicit, private or public, tacit, or overt. Nutrition and economics, for example, are themselves symbolic. (p. 41).

The risk of virtual illusions are magnified in a social symbol system that is anonymous and therefore appears objective. Gadamer describes language as a reservoir in which a multitude of meanings is collected and made available for virtual living through communication. Berger & Luckman argue that human experience is externalized and sedimented in sign systems like language.

An objectively [intersubjectively] available sign system bestows a status of incipient anonymity on the sedimented experiences by detaching them from their original context of concrete individual biographies and making them generally available (p. 68).

Consider, for example, the vast array of experiences that we have collapsed into the word love.

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Hypothetical abstraction and purely symbolic reasoning are often touted as unique accomplishments of the human species. They may be. But they also separate us from the real “material” world—surrounding us instead with a fictional, socially-constructed, virtual, reality. If reality is socially constructed, then in the beginning was the word. But, evidence suggests that there may have been a time in human history when signs were simply signals. Our capacity to be critical thinkers depends on our ability to make the distinction.

Distinguishing Signals and Symbols: Thinking Critically About Communication

Anything that can be sensed, can be a signifier. Signifiers stand for things, but they aren’t those things. Sometimes not even the things they stand for are things, they aren’t real, the signifier is “just” a symbol. Nevertheless, symbols have consequences because we confuse them with signals.

Communication competence requires an ability to distinguish real signals from symbolic fantasy. The discipline of “Communication Studies” is dedicated, in part, to the development of such capacities. Wineberg (1973) explains, for example, that General Semantics is a field dedicated to developing the habit of delayed responses: “The delay does not have to be more than a fraction in many cases, just enough to pass from the unmediated signal reaction, to the modified, thought-out symbol behavior” (p. 43). General Semanticists remind us that The map is not the territory, The word is not the thing, and that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. The problem, of course, is that our reactions to words can hurt—if they are mis-read as signals of something real.

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For relative better or worse, signal reaction can be means to “desirable” or “undesirable” ends. However, we must never forget the bad news that we are living a fantasy, manipulated by symbols, whenever we have semantic reactions. It is important then that we are able to distinguish signal and symbol reactions.

SIGNAL SYMBOLactual hypotheticalliteral figurativeautomatic chosenconditioned conditionalrigid flexiblereflexive reflectiveundelayed delayedstereotyped variable“thalamic” “cortical”smoke = fire smoke is just a wordwolf cry = wolf wolf is just a word bell = sign of food a bell is just a bell alarm clock (Get up!) alarm clock (Is it a holiday?)

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NOTE: The ideas discussed here are fundamental to communication. So fundamental that they are often simply assumed. Nevertheless, there are many different vocabularies that have been used to discuss these ideas. None of them seem substantially better ways to conceptualize the distinctions under consideration. Here, I have tried to explain these ideas as coherently as possible rather than reproduce various iterations of them as faithfully as possible. If you are interested in how others have constructed these ideas, you may be interested in the following related theories:

SemioticsGeneral SemanticsStructuralismPost-StructuralismLinguistic RelativitySocial ConstructionSociolinguisticsPsycholinguisticsMuted Group Theory

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