Semantics of Symbol
Helen V. Shelestiuk
General
The present paper is the summary of my views on imaginative symbols in the aspects of their semantic structure and conceptual transpositions in them. As was defined in one of my earlier works, symbol is a multi-notion conventional sign which represents, apart from its inherent and immediate designatum, an essentially different, usually more abstract designatum, connected with the former by a logical link. (Shelestiuk 1997: 125) In semantic terms, in symbols we deal with a hierarchy of meanings, where the direct meaning constitutes the first layer of sense and serves as a basis for the indirect (secondary) meaning - the second layer of sense, both of them united under the same designator (a name, a visual image, a significant object or person, etc.)
In (Shelestiuk 1997) I discussed the indispensable characteristics of symbols, which are, in fact, the complex structure of a symbol and the equally important status of meanings in it. Other important, if not indispensable, features of symbols are: imaginativeness; motivation; immanent polysemy; archetypal nature; integration into the structure of secondary semiotic systems and universality in various cultures. I will not dwell here on each of these features, but regard some of them as I outline the essentials of the theory of symbols.
There may be more than one secondary concept associated with the immediate designatum in symbol. This feature is termed immanent polysemy in (Shelestiuk 1997); Philip Wheelwright (1968: 220) seems to mean the same when he speaks of ambiguity and vagueness of symbols. Immanent polysemy of a symbol means its innumerable implications: a cluster of conceptually disparate meanings related to a symbol (for example, fire – hearth and home; masculine principle; passion; the sun; purification); a circle of equonymous meanings (fire – purification – funeral pyre, purgatory, Gehenna); or a sense perspective - a chain of meanings, where, as the thought moves away from the direct meaning, links of abstract metaphors / metonymies may be followed by links of their concrete realization in other domains (fire - vigor - masculine principle - fertilization; fire – passion - heart; fire - the sun – God - spirit).
Among symbols I specify language and speech symbols. Language symbols are fixed in people’s mind as stable associative complexes, existing in the lexical meaning of a word as ‘a symbolic aura’, i. e. a number of semes of cultural-stereotype and archetypal or mythological character. Cultural-stereotype symbols are contemporary and comprehensible for all the representatives of a culture, with a transparent logical connection between a direct and a secondary meaning, the latter being easily deducible. Archetypal symbols, consistent with K. G. Jung’s archetypes, are symbols based on the most ancient or primary ideas of the ambient world. In archetypes the connection between the direct and secondary meaning is often darkened.
Examples of cultural stereotypes: e.g. rose – beauty, love; wall – obstacle, restriction of freedom, estrangement; mountain – spiritual elevation, also courage associated with overcoming difficulties; way – movement in time, progress, course of life. Examples of archetypes: the sky – father; the earth – mother; egg - primordial embryo, out of which the world developed; snake - god of the underground world, of the dead; bird – mediator between the earth and the heaven, this world and the other world; tree (of life), mountain (of life) – the world itself.
Structural and Dynamic Features of Symbol
As a specific sign symbol implies the combination of structural-semantic and dynamic (nominative) features, the latter referring to the process of symbolization.
Structurally, symbol is a multi-notional complex sign. There is a minimum of two equally important kernels in it. The direct meaning is the image of a symbol. It denotes a concrete notion, which is nevertheless generalized to provide a basis for further abstractions. The figurative meaning is the idea of a symbol. It is different from the direct meaning in quality and may be archetypal, cultural-stereotype or individual and subjective.
The dynamic (nominative) aspect in a symbol – symbolization - may be defined as semantic transposition, which implies the transfer from a sign in praesentia to a sign in absentia. In other words, the name of an object is transposed onto an absent sign denoting a qualitatively different notion. This transposition is due to the fact that the immediate designatum itself induces the secondary designatum on the basis of apparent or conventional associations between notions. In original symbols, however, the secondary designatum is implied by the immediate designatum as seen through the prism of the context, whereby some features of the immediate designatum are ascribed to the secondary designatum.
From the perspective of symbolization as a process I specify metaphor and metonymy as the fundamental mechanisms of transposition. If symbol is viewed as a static sign, metonymy and metaphor reveal themselves as the fundamental types of logical connections between meanings by their obligate or potential characteristics. Metaphor suggests similarity of meanings. Metonymy, as I broadly see it, embraces all types of logical connections except similarity. It includes, among others, synecdoche and hypo-hyperonymic transposition. Metaphor and metonymy form up peculiar associative rows of meanings, which possess certain logic, so the resultant symbols are semantically and conceptually consistent.
Metaphoric and metonymic connections in symbols will be discussed at length in the parts of this paper where the distinction is drawn between symbols and tropes and where the classification of symbols is presented. Below I will dwell on some other important types of interaction between meanings or between form and meanings in symbol, or mechanisms of symbolization for that matter.
Irrational Symbols Based on Synaesthesia and Primitive Syncretism of Meanings, on Connections between Form and Meaning and on Accidental Coincidence of Forms of Words
Some symbols have no logical links between their designata. They may result from synaesthesia, from primitive syncretism of notions, from connections between form and meaning (sound symbolism) and from erroneous association of notions owing to accidental coincidence of forms of words (paronymous, homonymous or polysemous symbols).
Synaesthesia is association of primary perceptions of different modalities (hearing, sight, sense of touch, sense of smell and sense of taste) on the basis of their intensity, emotional coloring and evaluation. In terms of traditional linguistics synaesthesia is transposition of a name of a characteristic to another characteristic on the basis of similar connotations - intensity, emotional coloring and evaluation (e.g. mild cheese, mild light, mild voice; loud voice, loud color; rough food, rough country, rough sound; a rotten egg, apple, rotten weather, he is a rotten driver, to feel rotten etc.). Besides, there often occurs synaesthesic transposition of physical perceptions to mental and emotional phenomena (loose hair, loose behavior; strong man, strong criticism; an open house, open contempt, an open man; to seize a hand, to seize an idea, to seize power).
In symbols synaesthesia appears as a transposition of a name of an object onto a concept on the basis of similarity or contiguity of connotations of the immediate and secondary designata. A few examples of synaesthesic symbols: ‘rose – love, happiness’; ‘day – life, joy, God’; ‘night – mystery, death, danger, evil’. Synaesthesia is seldom the only link between meanings in symbols, more often, it co-occurs with other connections.
Synaesthesia may be metaphoric, based on similarity of connotations of notions, which do not directly imply each other, e.g. in the symbols ‘the rose-garden – love; paradise’ (similarity of evaluation), ‘the rising lotos – growth of spirit’ (similarity of evaluation) from ‘Burnt Norton’ by T. S. Eliot, ‘night – death’ (similarity of emotion) from ‘Ode to the Confederate Dead’ by Allen Tate and ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ by Dylan Thomas.
