الإشارات والرموز واللغة .. كتاب علم النَّفس جميل صَليبا

Signs, symbols and language

1 - Signs and symbols
Definition of signals
- They defined the sign by saying: It is an event perceived by the senses, which moves the mind to imagine another event that is not perceived, or is not possible to perceive. Smoke is a sign of fire, and tears are a sign of sadness, and one of the conditions of fire and sadness is that they be not perceived by the senses. The signals are natural, like smoke compared to fire, and conventional, like traffic signals compared to car drivers.

Natural signals are divided into visual signals and auditory signals. Visual is the movement, trembling, redness, and yellowing that accompanies emotion, and auditory is the screaming that accompanies pleasure or anger.

The sign is a material phenomenon because, as we said, it must be perceptible or possible to perceive with the visible senses. But the thing referred to may be physical, or it may be psychological. For example: lightning is a physical sign indicating a physical event, which is a storm. Tears are a physical sign of a psychological event, which is sadness.

Language is a collection of signs indicating emotional states, the form of movements, and the language of speech. There are two types: natural language, a group of signs that are spoken without intention, and are understood by people directly, such as crying, which is spontaneous and unintentional, and every person, regardless of his gender or country, understands the meaning of this sign, and knows that it indicates sadness in the natural state. Idiomatic language is a set of signs designed for understanding between people. A person does not understand its meaning unless he learns it, like the words that indicate meanings in all languages.

In between, natural language and conventional language are intermediate languages, such as the traditional sounds and movements that a person makes to indicate some things, so every person understands them. Children of all nations point to a dog by imitating its bark, and to a cat by imitating its meow, and their signs are similar to natural language on the one hand, and to conventional language on the other hand.

Reference and association of ideas
Some of them claimed that the meaning of the reference to the thing referred to is based on the association of ideas, and that signs called natural signs have no meaning. If the experience did not link the image of smoke to the idea of ​​fire, and the image of tears to the idea of ​​sadness, then the smoke would not indicate fire, nor would the tears indicate sadness.

But the connection of two things by association does not necessarily make one of them a sign indicating the other. Humans remind me of water, Al-Rashid of a baramkeh, and a school janitor, but not one of these things is a sign indicating the other. The sign link is different from the connection of conjunction, similarity, and opposition, because The sign is a present indication of an absent fact, which is
As a result of it, and linked to it is the connection between the effect and the cause. An example of this is that the passage of black clouds indicates rain, because they are the result of the condensation of water vapor in the atmosphere, so the link between the sign and the thing referred to is a natural, general bond; As for the association, it only indicates a special relationship, single and partial. It may be said that some signs do not indicate a natural relationship between them and the thing referred to. For example: The passage of the train is not a natural cause for the presence of the red light on the line, and the idea is not necessarily a cause for the occurrence of the expression, except that these signs are agreed upon terms and situations. If they are conventionalized to indicate the arrival of the train with the red light, this light becomes a sign indicating the arrival of the train. If we agree to wear black clothing at funerals, this color becomes a sign of sadness.

We can correct our definition of the sign by saying: It is an effect that is perceived by the senses due to an absent, unperceived cause, or one that is not possible to perceive.

There is also some ambiguity in this definition, because the causes that precede the occurrence of a thing may be many, and the sign may indicate what is distant from them. The direct currency of redness in the face is not the coming of a change in blood circulation, not shyness, and the currency of red light is the movement of some iron wires in a train. We often neglect the immediate currency and think about the distant cause of its relationship to our desires and wills. The signs do not indicate purely physical relationships; Rather, it indicates reasons connected to our perceptions and emotions, and the meaning of all of this is that the relationship of the sign to the thing referred to is an imagined relationship, not a real material relationship.

One of the characteristics of signs is that they apply to a group of similar perceptions, and their function is then limited to evoking these perceptions, to symbolize things with them. This is required:
1- The sign must indicate a specific meaning.
2 - That there should not be a connection between them and some similar perceptions that is different from their connection to others.

As we explained previously, we can say that signals are divided according to the senses into visual signals, auditory signals, tactile signals, and others, except that most signals are auditory or visual. If we remember that the relationship between the signal and the thing referred to may be natural, or conventional, it is possible to divide the signals as follows:

Natural signals
1 - Visual: (movements, tremors, redness, and yellowing that accompany agitation).
2 - Auditory: (screaming from pleasure or pain).

Idiomatic signs
1 - Visual: (language) of writing, maritime signals, the language of the deaf and dumb, railway signals, traffic signals, music symbols, and calligraphy. etc).
2 - Auditory: (speech language, siren sound, etc.)

The transition from natural visual signs to conventional visual signs occurs (by analytical movements), that is, by movements that indicate ideas, which are widespread among elementary nations. The transition from natural auditory signals to conventional auditory signals is achieved through traditional words, exclamation sounds, calls, and others.

Natural language - Natural language is the physiological phenomena that accompany agitations and emotions, and the movements that accompany thoughts.

Research in natural language includes two issues:
1 - What are the laws of the occurrence of these phenomena?
2- How do we understand its meaning?

How do we understand the meaning of signals?
Some philosophers (Galde-Stuart, Garnier, and Geoffroy) claimed that man has a special innate faculty that perceives these natural signs. They called it the faculty of language, or the faculty of expressing thought, because it perceives the meaning of laughter and crying, and their indication of joy and sadness, with a similar innate perception. By the mind’s awareness of the connection between the effect and the cause.
But if we delve deeper into the analysis, we will find no need to talk about this innate faculty, because the sign is essentially nothing but a simple phenomenon linked to another simple phenomenon. Crying is not originally a sign of pain, but it becomes so with learning and experience, and if it is said that a child is afraid of a frowning face out of an innate fear without learning or experience, we would say that this matter is not true, for Darwin frowned in front of his son, whom he had He was only four months old and made frightening signs and terrifying noises in front of him, but he did not succeed in generating fear in his heart.
Tin said: We learn the meaning of a smile at the beginning of childhood. The mother’s smile in front of the child indicates everything he loves, including breastfeeding, play, movement, and sociability, while her harsh look is associated with deprivation and pain. The child learns through experience to associate a smile with an appropriate thing, and a frown on his face with an inappropriate thing. Then he imitates these movements and understands them.
We explained in the agitation chapter that imitating some movements may generate in the imitator’s soul a part of the feeling that matches them. Because physical phenomena are not a result of agitation, but rather one of its causes, and part of its corrective parts.