What Are Symbols?

Communication element intended to represent or stand for a person, object, group, process, or idea. Symbols may be presented graphically (e.g., the cross for Christianity, or the light/dark halved circle for yin-yang) or representationally (e.g., Uncle Sam standing for the U.S., or a lion standing for courage). They may involve associated letters (e.g., C for the chemical element carbon), or they may be assigned arbitrarily (e.g., the mathematical symbol for infinity or the dollar symbol). Symbols are not a language of and by themselves; rather they are devices by which ideas often too complex or highly charged to articulate in ordinary language are transmitted between people sharing a common culture. Every society has evolved a symbol system that reflects a specific cultural logic; and every symbolism functions to communicate information between members of the culture in much the same way as, but more subtly than, conventional language. Though a symbol may take the discrete form of a wedding ring or a totem pole, symbols tend to appear in clusters and depend on one another for their accretion of meaning and value.