Re: [xmca] Sign & Symbol

[Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>]

On 31 May 2011 01:02, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> In a side discussion of related matters, Huw got me thinking back about the
> diagrams he was making
> and I was led to remember my thoughts upon trying to interpret them.
>
> *What, from a Vygotskian perspective, is the relation between sign and
> symbol? How does this relationship
> related to what one might be imagining when they write about the inner and
> outer sides of words (& The Word)?
> Are signs and symbols assignable to separate "genetic domains" in the
> Vygotskian sense?*
>
> I do not feel on solid ground when thinking about these matters. But they
> seem important. It seems like an awful
> lot to think about all at once.
>
>
The simple case, which may firm up the ground for you a little, is the
distinction between analog and digital.  My shadow cast by the sun is an
extension of the sun, whereas the time on my phone is digitally derived and
likewise represented via something 'other'.  Following Langer, I find it
sensible to refer to the analog phenomena as signals and the digital (i.e.
representations of something else) as symbol.  Both symbol and signal can be
conceived of as being two ends of the spectrum of sign, in which I would
also include the symbolism in art.  I would not fix words at the symbolic
end, rather I think of their adoption towards the symbolic from the signal,
that is, it is the signal aspect of words (the sound made) that accompanies
some activity, by which we gain further symbolic appreciation of them.  This
phenomena is fairly obvious from reading.  When reading we do not focus on
the printed words but the meaning to which the words point.

Huw


> mike
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