Symbolic Meaning

Examples of Symbolic Meaning in the following topics:

• The Symbolic Nature of Culture

  • Although language is perhaps the most obvious system of symbols we use to communicate, many things we do carry symbolic meaning.
  • Think, for example, of the way you dress and what it means to other people.
  • In certain urban environments, the symbolic meaning of people's clothes can signal gang affiliation.
  • The belief that culture is symbolically coded and can, therefore, be taught from one person to another, means that cultures, although bounded, can change.
  • Cultures are shared systems of symbols and meanings.

• The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

  • Symbolic interactionists view the family as a site of social reproduction where meanings are negotiated and maintained by family members.
  • Symbolic interactionism is a social theory that focuses on the analysis of patterns of communication, interpretation, and adjustment between individuals in relation to the meanings of symbols.
  • This emphasis on symbols, negotiated meaning, and the construction of society as an aspect of symbolic interactionism focuses attention on the roles that people play in society.
  • Symbolic interactionists also explore the changing meanings attached to family.
  • Symbolic interactionists explore the changing meanings attached to family.

• Symbolism

  • The term "symbolism" is derived from the word "symbol" which derives from the Latin symbolum, a symbol of faith, and symbolus, a sign of recognition.
  • Symbolism, on the other hand, favored spirituality, the imagination, and dreams.
  • Thus, they wrote and painted in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning.
  • Moréas announced that symbolism was hostile to "plain meanings, declamations, false sentimentality and matter-of-fact description," and that its goal was to "clothe the Ideal in a perceptible form" whose "goal was not in itself, but whose sole purpose was to express the Ideal. " In other words, symbolism expressed scenes from nature, human activities, and all other real world phenomena not for their own sake, but as perceptible surfaces created to represent their esoteric affinities with primordial ideals .
  • In Belgium, symbolism became so popular that it came to be thought of as a national style: the static strangeness of painters like René Magritte can be considered as a direct continuation of symbolism.

• Religious Symbols

  • The Star of David is a Jewish religious symbol that represents Judaism.
  • Religious symbolism is the use by a religion of symbols including archetypes, acts, artwork, events, or natural phenomena.
  • The symbolism of the early Church was characterized as being understood by initiates only.
  • Religious symbolism is effective when it appeals to both the intellect and the emotions.
  • Discuss the use of religious symbols as means of representing the ideals and values of a particular religion

• Symbols and Nature

  • Language is a symbolic system of communication based on a complex system of rules relating spoken, signed, or written symbols.
  • A sign is a symbol that stands for something else.
  • Language is traditionally thought to consist of three parts: signs, meanings, and a code connecting signs with their meanings.
  • Language is based on complex rules relating spoken, signed, or written symbols to their meanings.
  • Written languages use visual symbols to represent the sounds of the spoken languages, but they still require syntactic rules that govern the production of meaning from sequences of words.

• Social Context for Learning

  • Symbol systems, such as language, logic, and mathematical systems, are learned throughout the learner's life.
  • These symbol systems dictate how and what is learned.
  • Without the social interaction with more knowledgeable others, it is impossible to acquire social meaning of important symbol systems and learn how to use them.

• The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

  • Symbolic interactionism looks at individual and group meaning-making, focusing on human action instead of large-scale social structures.
  • Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them
  • According to symbolic interactionism, the objective world has no reality for humans; only subjectively defined objects have meaning.
  • Meanings are not entities that are bestowed on humans and learned by habituation; instead, meanings can be altered through the creative capabilities of humans, and individuals may influence the many meanings that form their society.
  • Because they see meaning as the fundamental component of the interaction of human and society, studying human and social interaction requires an understanding of that meaning.

• Symbolic Interactionism

  • According to symbolic interactionism, the objective world has no reality for humans, only subjectively-defined objects have meaning.
  • Meanings are not entities that are bestowed on humans and learned by habituation.
  • Instead, meanings can be altered through the creative capabilities of humans, and individuals may influence the many meanings that form their society.
  • Because they see meaning as the fundamental component of human and society interaction, studying human and society interaction requires getting at that meaning.
  • Specifically, Symbolic Interaction seeks to uncover the ways "meanings" are deployed within interactions and embedded within larger social structures to facilitate social cohesion (Structural Functionalism) and social change (Conflict Theories).

• Defining Boundaries

  • One important factor in how symbolic boundaries function is how widely they are accepted as valid.
  • Symbolic boundaries are a "necessary but insufficient" condition for social change.
  • He saw the symbolic boundary between the sacred and the profane as the most profound of all social facts, and the one from which lesser symbolic boundaries were derived.
  • Rituals, whether secular or religious, were for Durkheim the means by which groups maintained their symbolic and moral boundaries.
  • Mary Douglas has subsequently emphasized the role of symbolic boundaries in organizing experience, private and public, even in a secular society.

• Basic Map Types

  • Isoline (meaning "equal line") maps use continuous lines (sometimes called isolines or contours) to represent regional differences across a continuous surface.
  • As do dot maps, graduated symbol maps use symbols that occur at points across a map.
  • However, in a graduated symbol map, symbol size varies based on quantity or magnitude.
  • Higher values get larger symbols.
  • A high value within a normally small area means that area will appear larger on the map.