Symbol
A symbol is a person or a concept that represents, stands for or
suggests another idea, visual image, belief, action or material entity. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures,
ideas or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs. For
example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a blue
line might represent a river. Numerals are symbols for numbers. Alphabetic letters may be symbols for
sounds. Personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose may
symbolize love and compassion. The variable x in a mathematical equation may
symbolize the position of a particle in space. In cartography, an organized collection of symbols forms a legend for a map.
Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who studied archetypes, proposed an alternative definition of symbol,
distinguishing it from the term sign. In Jung's view,
a sign stands for something known, as a word stands for its referent. He
contrasted this with symbol, which he used to stand for something that
is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise. An example of a symbol in
this sense is Christ as a symbol of the archetype called self. For
example, written languages are composed of a variety of different symbols that
create words. Through these written words humans communicate with each other. Kenneth Burke described Homo sapiens as a "symbol-using, symbol making, and symbol misusing animal"
to suggest that a person creates symbols as well as misuses them. One example
he uses to indicate what he means by the misuse of symbol is the story of a man
who, when told that a particular food item was whale blubber, could barely keep
from throwing it up. Later, his friend discovered it was actually just a
dumpling. But the man's reaction was a direct consequence of the symbol of
"blubber" representing something inedible in his mind. In addition,
the symbol of "blubber" was created by the man through various kinds
of learning.Burke goes on to describe symbols as also being derived from Sigmund Freud's work on condensation and displacement, further stating that symbols are not just relevant to the theory of dreams but also to "normal symbol systems". He says they[clarification needed] are related through "substitution", where one word, phrase, or symbol is substituted for another in order to change the meaning[clarification needed]. In other words, if one person does not understand a certain word or phrase, another person may substitute a synonym or symbol in order to get the meaning across. However, upon learning the new way of interpreting a specific symbol, the person may change his or her already-formed ideas to incorporate the new information
Jean Dalby Clift says that people not only add their own interpretations to symbols, they also create personal symbols that represent their own understanding of their lives: what she calls "core images" of the person. She argues that symbolic work with these personal symbols or core images can be as useful as working with dream symbols in psychoanalysis or counseling.
William Indick suggests that the symbols that are commonly found in myth, legend, and fantasy fulfill psychological functions and hence are why archetypes such as "the hero," "the princess" and "the witch" have remained popular for centuries.
Referent
A referent /ˈrɛfərənt/ is a person or thing
to which a linguistic expression or other symbol refers. For example, in the sentence Mary saw me, the
referent of the word Mary is the particular person called Mary who is
being spoken of, while the referent of the word me is the person
uttering the sentence.
Two expressions which have the same referent are said to be co-referential. In the sentence John had his dog with him,
for instance, the noun John and the pronoun him are co-referential, since they both refer
to the same person (John).
In fields such as semantics and semiotics, a distinction is made between a
referent and a reference. Reference is a relationship in
which a symbol or sign (a word, for example) signifies something;
the referent is the thing signified. The referent may be an actual person or
object, or may be something more abstract, such as a set of actions.[3][4]Reference and referents were considered at length in the 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning by the Cambridge scholars C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. Ogden has pointed out that reference is a psychological process, and that referents themselves may be psychological – existing in the imagination of the referrer, and not necessarily in the real world.[5] For further ideas related to this observation, see absent referent and failure to refer.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referent
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