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Essay 1.2

ESL 21 A

463 words

Different functions of symbol.

Symbol is a sign or object that represents something else. We can find a lot of kind of symbols in our life. They used many different reasons and different meanings. They have many different functions such as social meanings of space, authority, politics, and so on. I want to introduce about these kinds of symbols.

First of all, the symbolism of food is the one of the functions of symbolsAwkward. Even though people enjoy the food everyday with somebody in somewhere, most of them don't know about that that food has some symbols. There are different meanings or rules in symbols each country. For example, usually when people eating food, they think family is the unit of group that eating together. However, in some New Guinea societies, which have unique traditional symbolism of food, eat food separately. The men eat food in men's house, and their wife and children eat their own house. Man can eat with other guys and woman can eat with other girls, but they cannot eat together with husband and wife. There are some other symbols of food that they make some cultural rules or taboos on the certain food. In some societies, they cannot eat the animal or bird because that is their rules. These kinds of rule are different as they live in different country.

The other function of symbols, social meaning of space, represents personal social statements or their social relationships. People, who were in high social ranks, made a special places for themselves in the past. Plank houses, which are one of these kinds of space, made for high rank people groups in the 19th century in Canada. They were occupied by highest ranking in society. Differently, in northeastern Thailand, they did not divide their house by person's ranking. They were occupied by rules of marriage. There were many other different ways that people used space for social relationships or ethnic identity.

In addition, symbols can be used for represent authority and politics. Most of people, especially person who have a high position, appear their politics and authority by using the symbols in many ways. They used wearing certain things for appear their prohibitions such as a crown, or imperial regalia. Authority symbols were also represented to office. Pharaoh is the popular symbol of office that was in the pictures of King Tutankhamen in Egypt. In the United States, even hair length could be representing the authority. However, nowadays, hair length is no longer having a meaning.

In conclusion, symbols are used many different reasons by human. People include some meaning in the symbols that they want to represent. That's why symbols can be had a lot of different meanings and functions. Symbols are very familiar and useful in our life.