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Essay 1.2

ESL-21A

367 words

Symbol is possibly natural that these should be mainly concerned with the parts which it may play a significant role in the life of every individual; it should be largely preoccupied with problems of interpretation. Symbols must be distinguished from simple signs. Anything that stands for something else is a sign, but a symbol must possess at one and the same time a double or multiple meanings or functions. Further, the whole of this double or multiple meanings or functions must be effective, when the symbol is used.

There is a fact that all symbols have both a "face" and a "hidden" value, and each value may have different function. A flag, for example, is a very common symbol. A flag could stand for an enterprise or group, could stand for a country, even could stand for an individual. Whenever we see a national flag we probably know which nation it stands for, this is its part of face value. However, it's more valuable. When I was a child, my primary school teacher always tells us that our national flag is incarnadined by our warriors who liberate our country; it makes me feel brave whenever I see the national flag and makes the flag itself more meaningful. Therefore, this is its part of hidden value.

From textbook, it mentions different functions of symbols. First of all, the symbol in a village in northeastern Thailand is used in arrangement of space. Space in a house is divided to symbolize rules about marriage. More distant relatives, whom one may marry, are not allowed to enter the sleeping room and must remain in the guest room. Second of all, if authority is represented by a series of symbol, opposition to that authority is symbolically represented by an inversion of those symbols. In the 1960s in the United States, all men in authority had short hair. Young men created a symbol of opposition when they allowed their hair to grow long. If authorities have short hair, then long hair is a symbol of opposition to that authority.

There is no doubt that symbols is widely affecting people's daily life in nowadays, we have to clearly recognize its different value and functions.