Symbols, Semiotics, and Material Culture in Society
The Signs We Live By
Humans inhabit a world saturated with meaning, accessible to all in varying degrees. Beyond the meanings we take for granted in daily life, others characterize specific human groups or entities. Accessing these meanings often requires specific processes of initiation.
The sign, its message, and the bearer are facets of a single concept. Consider the traffic light as an example. Within a sign, the relationship between the message and its entity is metonymic. A crown doesn’t literally represent a king, but it signifies the special treatment associated with royalty. This connection is deeply rooted in our affective and emotional responses.
Symbols transcend immediate social contexts. They synthesize and organize beliefs and values held by members of a social group. Symbols shape and guide the development of new knowledge while preserving existing observations. In this sense, symbols and their systems are extrinsic sources of information, external mechanisms shaping how we perceive, understand, judge, and interact with the world.
Symbols provide a framework for organizing various processes, from aesthetic and philosophical to scientific patterns. They offer a standard, a model for structuring social processes and psychological functioning. Through symbols, we objectify, retain, and accumulate human experience. This accumulation is selective, transmitting knowledge across generations.
Symbolic phenomena are inherently public. Symbols are tangible formulations designed for knowledge dissemination. They abstract and solidify experiences into understandable forms. They are concrete embodiments of ideas, attitudes, values, judgments, and beliefs. Ultimately, symbolic forms are social events, as public as any other, such as the institution of marriage.
The essence of a symbol lies in its ability to represent abstract ideas like solidarity, authority, love, and hate. These ideas, holding immense significance for individuals, are difficult to represent directly.
Symbolism: Expression and Value
Symbolism is highly expressive. It’s a way of conveying meaning where both the speaker and the listener understand the significance. Whenever we communicate, we engage in symbolism because we deem the message worthwhile. Symbolized concepts always carry value.
Attitudes towards symbols are rarely neutral. They evoke emotional responses because the value of the symbolized concept transfers to the symbol itself. The symbol, rather than the abstract notion it represents, becomes the object of veneration or rejection. Consider the instrumental aspect of symbols: they express ideas, thoughts, and beliefs, but they also serve social functions. Symbols are used to imprison individuals, condemn actions, incite wars, and maintain social order.
Semiotics and Material Culture
Symbols are not confined to language and writing. Material objects and behaviors also generate and transmit cultural meanings. Clothing, eating habits, hygiene practices, vocalizations, silences, architectural styles, and spatial arrangements all contribute to a culture’s semiotic landscape.
Semiotics analyzes these nonverbal cultural meanings. It’s a captivating field for sociologists and anthropologists because it facilitates cross-cultural comparisons. Material objects and behaviors, like symbols, derive meaning from their cultural context. For instance, white signifies joy in some cultures while representing mourning and death in others.
The inherent qualities of an object, such as its color or size, are less important than the meaning people ascribe to it. What matters is the ability to express cultural values and beliefs through these objects and behaviors. Semiotics decodes these cultural messages.
By examining how different cultures, separated by time and geography, utilize symbols and material culture, we gain insights into the evolution of values and interests across societies. Material culture, encompassing objects from primitive tools to advanced machines, reveals the ingenuity and adaptability of humans.
Understanding material culture requires more than just identifying objects. We must consider their uses, the attitudes we hold towards them, and the values we assign to them. Material culture, alongside knowledge and skills, forms the tangible expression of human culture.