Signs/Significance: Fill in the Picture at L3

Function and Name

Sign is the 3rd Level element in the Primary Hierarchy of Communication, above Signal and Stimulus.

Sign is the THEE-name for: «things that are used to signify (i.e. indicate or suggest) something else within the same domain of discourse.». To get fix on this element, focus on its effect: significance.

The receiver may view certain things as significant (i.e. as signifying something in the same manner.

ClosedChoice of Formal Name

Properties

  • The sender of a sign-L3 must provide, possibly non-verbally or via a known context, an indication of the relevant topic (or domain) where significance is to be recognized. Otherwise, its meaning cannot be properly understood by the intended recipient.
  • The recipient must notice the sign-L3, and value it as a significant pointer to something else within the indicated topic. The recipient needs sufficient knowledge and reasonable judgement. If those conditions apply, the phenomenon then signifies something, and an appropriate response may be made.

e.g. you show your doctor a rash. This rash signifies-L3 that something is wrong both to you and to the doctor. It starts a process of diagnosis in the mind of the doctor using his expertise, experience, and knowledge about you and your activities. You will have your own thoughts as well.
Medical Note:Closed Doctors use the word «sign» differently—to refer to what is elicited as distinct from the symptom that is presented—but that does not matter here.

How Signifying Goes Right

A husband notices his wife is somewhat silent over dinner. 

In trying to determine whether this is a communication (i.e. a communicative event), many thoughts go through his mind. He reviews silences in the past. He recalls recent discussions and episodes of disagreement. He thinks about their plans for the coming days, and more.  

At last, he concludes that the silence is (say) a response to her hearing that their son is about to travel abroad and she is worrying about it.

Assuming he is correct, in this situation she has communicated her worry to him by a sign (silence) and its significance has been grasped. He understood what the silence signified because the 'silence' and the 'worry' are all part of the sphere of family life that the husband knows intimately.

How Signifying Goes Wrong

However, the wife's silence might be viewed as an unembroidered signal-L2 meaning «something is not quite right».  That could be enough to resolve the communicative impasse. The husband might ask "is something bothering you?" and the wife then responds genuinely: "I'm worried about our boy's trip abroad."

But the wife may respond defensively to the husband's failure to recognize the sign-L3 . So she says: "Everything is fine for me, dear—but it seems to me you haven't been saying much tonight either—did you have trouble at work, dear?"

Errors & Failure

All the errors that apply for Stimulating-L1 and Signaling-L2 also apply to Signifying-L3.

Problems can be specific to this level. The sender may not know that the recipient lacks requisite knowledge or is unwilling to use that knowledge. The recipient may also make mistakes: in judging, or through insufficient knowledge, or by misattribution of the sign to another field of discourse that is irrelevant.

In all THEE Primary Hierarchies: At L3, the form taken by the entity places phenomena within some sort of system.

In Communication, Signs-L3 enable meanings to translate (or be translated) and transfer (or be transferred) within a domain of knowledge or arena of discourse that is relevant and easy to distinguish.

Hierarchy: As in the example, Signs-L3 include and imply Signals-L2. It is just that signaling, seemingly so precise and useful, turns out to be too limited in coverage to be workable for complex situations or when the response involves complexity.

Originally posted: 10-Apr-2011; Last updated 25-Sep-2011.