THE SYMBOL CONCEPT by terrence w. deacon INTRODUCTION The term symbol derives from the Greek stem of ballein ‘to throw’ and syn ‘together’. This etymology characterizes the way that words are forced into correspondence with ideas and their physical referents irrespective of any natural affinities. Throughout philosophical history, the term ‘symbol’ is almost exclusively applied to spoken utterances, inscriptions, or other culturally generated meaningful artefacts and actions created specifically for representational purposes. These cultural phenomena include talismans, ritual performances, religious relics, military insignias, spoken words, and typographical characters, among innumerable other forms. In contrast, a cough is generally referred to as a sign of a respiratory infection, not a symbol, and portraits are generally described as depicting people, not symbolizing them. These latter are signs that represent by virtue of some ‘natural affinity’, irrespective of human cultural intervention. Symbolic reference contrasts with two other categories of signs. Iconic reference is employed in pantomime and simple depiction. Indexical reference is employed in pointing and innate forms of communication such as laughter and facial expressions. Symbolic reference is a distinguishing feature of human language, in contrast with species-typical vocalizations and communicative gestures. Because of its arbitrary and conventional nature, symbolic reference must be acquired by learning, and lacks both the natural associations and trans-generational reproductive consequences that would make such references biologically evolvable. This is why language is distinguished by extensive reliance on social (as opposed to genetic) transmission. However, this absence of natural constraints also facilitates the capacity for distinct symbol combinations to determine unique references—another hallmark of language. There are significant differences in the ways that symbols and non-symbols are defined in the literature. Symbolic reference is often negatively defined with respect to other forms of referential relationships. Whereas iconic reference depends on form similarity between sign vehicle and what it represents, and indexical reference depends on contiguity, correlation, or causal connection, symbolic reference is often only described as being independent of any likeness or physical linkage between sign vehicle and referent. This negative characterization of symbolic reference—often caricatured as mere arbitrary reference —gives the false impression that symbolic reference is nothing but simple unmediated correspondence. ‘Symbol’ is used in two quite dichotomous ways. In the realm of mathematics, logic, computation, cognitive science, and many syntactic theories the term ‘symbol’ refers to a mark that is arbitrarily mapped to some referent and can be combined with other marks according to an arbitrarily specified set of rules. A symbol is an element of a code, and language acquisition is decryption. In the humanities, social sciences, theology, and mythology the ‘symbol’ is often reserved for complex, esoteric relationships such as the meanings implicit in totems or objects incorporated into religious ritual performances. Layers of meaning and reference may be impossible to fully plumb without extensive cultural experience and exegesis. This multiplicity of meanings muddies the distinction between symbolic forms of reference and other forms and also contributes to confusion about the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic communication. Within linguistics itself, ambiguity about the precise nature of symbolic reference contributes to deep disagreements concerning the sources of language structure, the basis of language competence, the requirements for its acquisition, and the evolutionary origin of language. The problem of unambiguously describing the distinctive properties of symbolic reference as compared to other forms of reference is foundational in linguistic theory THE CODE FALLACY The father of 20 th -century linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure, described language reference as a mapping between a signifier and a signified (see Saussure 1983). Many have described this as the linguistic code. Over the past century this approach has led to remarkable insights concerning the systematicity of language properties. Computer ‘languages’ provide useful exemplars of simple signifier-signified relationships. The references assigned to bit strings in a computer ‘language’ directly correspond to specific machine operations or numerical values; hence, a code. A code is constituted by a one-to-one mapping between conventionally determined sign vehicles in two languages. Most familiar computer languages consist of terms and characters borrowed from English and mathematics. In order to control computer operations that lack the logical organization of a language, what amounts to a translation step is necessary. In a natural language, one-to-one mapping between elements of language and objects in the world is only characteristic of proper names (though the phonological mapping of letters to sounds in alphabetic writing systems offers an imprecise parallel). If a language consisted only of one-to-one correspondence relationships, it would consist entirely of something analogous to proper nouns. This could never produce anything other than lists. So clearly something is missing in this simplified account. A close cousin to a code relationship is a translation. A completely literal translation between natural languages, such as that performed by a computer algorithm, is almost always seriously inadequate. Good translation is aimed at conveying meaning and reference rather than merely replacing words and their syntactic relations with counterparts from another language. The lack of simple counterparts inevitably forces the translator to deal with the complexity of the language-specific and culture-specific grounding of the symbols used in each language. The symbolic reference that distinguishes language must instead rest upon a vast network of non-symbolic relationships that constitute the many nested contexts in which it occurs. There are other serious consequences of adopting this simplified conception of symbolic reference. Codes are used for encryption because they add an additional layer of combinatorial arbitrariness between sign and reference. This astronomically increases the combinatorial possibilities. anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/43.pdf
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 16:29:34 +0000