[Sigia-l] is there a word

[Erik Dahl]

I can't speak to what Pabini meant by his distinction between icon and 
symbol, but I find it interesting to look to the field of semiotics for 
clarification.

An icon correlates with its object because the sign's qualities are 
similar to the object's characteristics. An icon represents a likeness 
to the object it is representing.  According to C.S.Peirce, an icon 
represents "by virtue of characters which belong to it in itself as a 
sensible object, and which it would possess just the same were there no 
object in nature that it resembled, and though it never were interreted 
as a sign (CP 2.447).  In other words, an icon is a sign in which the 
signifier has a direct (read non-arbitrary), simulative connection to 
its signified or referent.

Conversely, a symbol is a sign that represents a refereent through 
cultural convention, indirect, arbitrary means. Symbols need to be 
learned. A symbol "is a sign which would lose the character which 
renders it a sign if there were no interpretant" (CP 2.304). A symbol 
can only act through law, habit, or convention.

fun with semiotics,
Erik

Richard Wiggins wrote:
> You say:
> 
>   These are symbols rather than icons
> 
> 'Splain please?
> 
> In school I was taught that a symbol is something that stands for
> something much larger.  The flag is a symbol of the country, etc.
> 
> Pre-computer-era, the word "icon" was mostly used as a term for a
> symbol used in religion; in the computer realm, it seems to mean a
> clickable symbolic graphic -- ie it conveys meaning as to what a
> particular graphic represents, eg "send email".  An icon is a symbol
> whose meaning you can intuitively understand; you (hopefully) know
> what will happen when you click on it.
> 
> Can you elaborate on the distinction you draw?


-- 
Erik Dahl, MSI
eXperience Designer - Information Architect

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