Index means its connected with the object in a very real way. For example a sun-dial, or clock indicates the time of day, and nothing else. An index is like a fragment torn away from the object. Anything that focuses the attention is an indexer sign. Photographs are iconic and indexical especially when they are candid. For this reason photographs and video are often used as ‘evidence’. Photographs and film footage may also be symbolic when it is posed, rehearsed, and standing for something else.
An ‘icon’ represents mainly by it similarity. Icons have qualities that resemble the object they signify. A picture is actually a symbol, not a duplicate of what it represents, no matter how realistically it has been rendered. Because pictures resemble what they represent only in some respects, you will rarely mistake a picture for the real thing.
In symbol meaning, many theorists may say that language is a symbolic sign system. But Saussure prefers not to refer to language as ‘symbols’. He feels other things like the scales of justice are symbols, because the signifier has some connection with the signified. It is not wholly arbitrary. Some others argue that symbols become so only because we associate that idea with them constantly.
Example:-
All have a signal aspect, some physical pattern and a meaning by the signal.
ReplyDeleteIcons have qualities that resemble the object they signify.
ReplyDeleteSymbol is thing that is regarded as representing or standing for another.
ReplyDeleteAn Index signs is a sign where there is a direct link between the sign and the object. The majority of traffic signs are Index signs as they represent information which relates to a location (eg, a ‘slippery road surface’ sign placed on a road which is prone to flooding)
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