Basic Properties and Functions of Symbols

At the dawn of that history, intellectual revolutions and the creation of production tools appeared one after another along with the birth of language. That rapidly promoted the transition from apes to humans in social life. Humans have transcended their animal nature to become “social humans”.

Thanks to language activities, humans can communicate with each other and pass on to each other the experiences that have been summarized in labor, in combat as well as in intellectual activities. In primitive society, it is thanks to this intellectual activity that the strength of the group, the community and each individual living in that community increases exponentially. That is the basis for ensuring the victory of humans in the struggle for survival and in the labor to conquer nature.

However, at that historical dawn, before the advent of writing, human speech activities were still limited and confined within a finite space and time. Therefore, in addition to speech, they also used extra-linguistic means, which were “non-verbal languages” including: drawings, engravings, gestures, signs and other simple or complex symbols.

Since primitive times, when speech was still very poor, human gestures, movements, and facial expressions have played a very important role in the process of communication between people, especially in situations where speech was not fully formed and in conditions of language differences. They are prototype forms copied from real life, highly “stylized”, almost “artistic symbols”, to be used in all activities of primitive people with the purpose of creating “information signals” in their communication activities.

Some of the “nouns” of this “special language” can be read from the dictionary pages of prehistoric “picture symbols”:

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- “The bow” : one hand gestures to hold an invisible bow, the other hand gestures to hold the bowstring with imagination.

- “Shack”: raise your hands and clasp them together, imagining a pointed A-shaped roof.

- “Wolf”: a hand holding up two fingers to represent the two ears of a wolf.

- "Fish": the fish is placed vertically, wriggling back and forth.

- “Black clouds”: two fists placed above the head, depicting clouds hanging overhead.

- “Snow”: two fists raised high above the head, then slowly opened and lowered in a zigzag pattern like falling snowflakes.

- “Star”: two fingers, sometimes clasped together, sometimes spread out, hovering above the head, representing a sparkling star. [27, p. 29]

Thus, each “sound” is a hand-drawn image in the air. Just as ancient writings were drawings (Chinese and Egyptian hieroglyphs), so perhaps primitive gestures were the first “symbolic” language of mankind – a type of “gestural language”.

Those natural gestures are all “symbols”, operating according to predetermined conventions whose meanings can change depending on each community. That “silent language” still exists over time and in human life. Because, in each certain activity of human life (such as in behavior, communication, in exchanging and predicting information, or in religious ceremonies…), symbols have brought about significant effects and advantages. Sometimes just a few movements can also announce an important news.

In addition to gesture language and speech, which were the main languages that primitive people used to perceive and communicate, they also used “substitutes” to send messages from one place to another. These were wooden “messaging cards” with symbols on them.

The engraved lines form a “symbolic code” that the messenger will rely on to convey information. This is a form of “symbol” of primitive people.

Direct information on the spot is like announcing: this place is a dangerous area, that place is a place with wild animals, that place is a good hunting ground, where hunting is possible. Instead of having to give direct instructions, they use real objects as “substitutes” for words, such as: the image of a skull hanging on the edge of the forest, a snake carcass placed on a rock by the roadside or a deer antlers placed on the bank of a stream will have the value of a warning “symbol”, reminding everyone in the community to know where there are many wild animals, poisonous snakes to stay away from, or that place has many deer, is an ideal hunting ground…

According to Professor Dang Duc Sieu, "this originates from the specificity in the way of thinking of ancient people, evidence of which can still be found in their linguistic activities" [27, p.31]

According to archaeological and ethnographic documents, drawings and signs – non-verbal language, also appeared in prehistoric times, in the late Paleolithic period (40,000 to 9000 BC) with cave wall carvings. Most researchers consider them “magical hunting symbols”, but in any case, the creators of those murals can be called “artists”, not only because they knew how to illustrate animals in nature, but because of the amazing sophistication and perfection of their “works”.

In addition to the paintings that are intended to inform and have a “magical” ritual nature, there are also many strange and mysterious lines appearing on cave walls, rocks, and bone fragments. These lines are probably not random because they are depicted quite meticulously and are repeated with high precision in hundreds of different images, in a conventional or abstract style with “symbolic” characteristics.

Thus, all gestures, facial expressions, objects, drawings, symbols and spoken language, if viewed from the perspective of “information”, are “symbols” that were born long ago, along with the formation of human “consciousness”. Those “symbolic” systems have existed and developed more and more complexly and completely along with the cognitive development of primitive people.

However, with the perspective and evaluation according to modern science, people often think that the way of thinking of primitive people is a "mythical way of thinking" in the form of associative thinking in the imaginary world, extremely vague, speculative and difficult to explain. That is an issue that needs to be seriously raised in the research on the type of "symbol", as well as to learn about the "psychological process" of prehistoric people on their cognitive and creative path to create systems of "primitive symbols" (pre-symbols - level I symbols).

The concept of primitive people is that, people born into this world not only have to hunt and earn a living, but they also have to follow the world around them and be governed by that world with countless changes and difficulties. Ancient people always asked questions and wanted to be able to answer what belongs to the nature of existence or destruction of themselves and their fellow human beings.

On the way to the awareness of the objective world, due to their immature thinking, they always believe that nature is a mysterious, mystical force that directly affects and determines their fate. Anxiety, fear and longing are still the things that haunt the psychological life of primitive people, when humans have not yet completely separated from the natural world, the nature that they themselves - a creature, have just entered the human world.

In today's era, with the strong development of modern science, people today are no longer confused by natural phenomena that primitive people used to worry about, fear and spend a lot of effort to explain. Constant questions such as: why does the sun rise and set, why does day and night occur, why do tides exist, why does wind, rain, storms occur...? All of these things have been thoroughly explained by modern science, in accordance with natural laws and have become familiar to us. But for primitive people, it is completely the opposite. They believe in the existence of the "supernatural" in the way of "primitive thinking" (mythology) with their own arguments. Primitive people imagined as follows:

According to Greek mythology, “the universe was born from a vast, empty, and shapeless abyss, a region of endless chaos and darkness. It was Chaos, the origin of all things. From this place were born all the forms of the ancient universe: gods, monsters, earth, and humans” [88, p. 18].

Such “primitive thinking” explanations, no matter how chaotic and irrational, still represent the primitive man's grasp of the world through pure, honest, and primitive thinking in the primitive form of the “primitive symbol” type.

Through the above observations, we can see the difference between the two forms of thinking. If the form of “scientific thinking” is causal and empirical, mainly creating a one-word connection between a number of “causes” and a number of “results”, then “primitive thinking” has a completely free choice of causes. With this way of thinking, everything can be born from everything, and can also have connections with everything, in all dimensions of space and time. Thus, if scientific thinking focuses on logical “rules”, then primitive thinking only deals with simple transformations.

the sudden, random change of a specific, individual thing into something else without following any rules.

French ethnologist Lucien Lévy Bruhl in his work “Mystical Experience and Symbols in Primitive Man” also argued that the reality in which primitive people lived and acted had two aspects. One aspect included phenomena in the real world that could be seen, grasped and perceived (the visible world). The other aspect was invisible and intangible. They were more interested in the second aspect, because this aspect was always mysterious, difficult to understand and it was difficult to predict what those “supernatural” forces would do, because they often appeared suddenly. These two realities did not form two separate, separate domains, but they were mixed together in their consciousness.

According to the author, the invisible reality is brought to primitive people by “mystical experiences”. In fact, it is a discovery that always has a psychological element, it has the “divine” nature of “mythical” thinking and not by logical knowledge. It is a direct feeling through the perception of a mysterious invisible world that, according to them, cannot be denied.

For “primitive thinking”, there is no establishment of “causal relationship” but only by the perception of “mythical” elements. Primitive people always stand on the side of the invisible world to find a way to grasp and explore it. Facing the reality that has just been discovered as an “existence” and also as a “hidden” of the “mysterious world”, it has aroused the curiosity in the minds of primitive people, forcing them to find a way to grasp and explain it. That is one of the reasons leading to the birth and existence of “primitive symbols”.

Lévy – Bruhl has a question with the following original way of thinking:

“The Igorote Islanders (in the Philippine islands) say that every individual has an invisible life as well as a visible life. Thus,

Should we say that the visible animal or tree is a symbol of the invisible animal or tree?” [52,p215 ]

He answered himself: impossible. Because according to the Igorote people's thinking, the two "invisible" and "visible" creatures are only one. The duality of things here, although real, is not opposed to unity, because the "visible animal" before their eyes is not a symbol of any "invisible animal", but it is the animal itself. Thus, being the same single creature, it exists both in one place and in another. That is difficult to accept for scientific thinking, but for the Igorote people it is obvious and it must be so. He also explained that, it seems that for them, there is only "feeling" rather than imagining them according to rational perception. Here there is a very close participation between the two elements with each other, because if something affects one, it also affects the other in the same way. They think that is appropriate, because the two entities have "similarity" to each other.

Through the above analysis, it can be said that the "primitive symbols" were born from the time of the clan commune - the origin of human history. It was not based on the relationship, grasped or established by the mind, between the "symbol" and what it represents, but based on "participation" and often led to "homogeneity" between the elements. The symbols in this period were perceived by primitive people in a very special way - "sympathetic magic" with all the manifestations of the objects here being real, that is, making it seem as if it were "currently present". From such a primitive way of thinking, it led to the actions of "magic induction" affecting the "primitive symbols". Prehistoric people believed that if they affected the symbol of a person or an object, it also meant affecting that person or object itself. Based on this firm belief, there were

Many forms of witchcraft - "magic" were born and widely popularized in the lives of primitive clans at that time.

In short, the concept of a symbol for primitive man had a completely different meaning than it does for us. In the most general way, according to the modern concept, a symbol first of all implies a relationship grasped or established by the intellect. For primitive man, a symbol actually participates in a specific object. It does not express a correlation, at least from the very beginning, when it first appears, and it usually always leads to "homogeneity".

The main problem is that the system of “primitive symbols” has fulfilled its role as a kind of mental tool of thinking, helping the perception of primitive people to develop to a higher level. It is this process that separates humans from animal life to become HUMAN in its full meaning - people with the ability to “symbolize”, an ability that no other species can have - “the ability of human nature” - the ability to create a “symbolic world”.

1.2. Basic properties and functions of symbols

1.2.1. Properties of symbols

* The ambiguous nature of symbols

Symbols are ambiguous because each symbol has a form of expression but many implied contents. On the contrary, symbols become polysemous in terms of their form of expression, and are very diverse in their expression of a certain content. The polysemous and diverse nature of the expression of symbols is a characteristic that only exists in the type of "implied signs". Polysemy and diversity of expressions have created the "ambiguity" of symbols.

In general, symbols indirectly express metaphorically, which is difficult to directly perceive, about a certain issue such as desire, passion or conflict. Symbols are mediators - unified links.

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