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Symbols And The Things They Carried

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Symbols has for a millennial been used as a way to convey and transmit meaning to our everyday lives. It has been used by humans to express an idea and a meaning to that person or the culture. Because of the constant evolution of meanings, language is formed and how a context in language is unique from other languages. We will look on how symbols are assigned meaning, the significance it has to culture, and how it has shaped language. Symbols has influenced our ideas and language as we view our world differently. People have been attaching meaning to events and objects they have encountered to understand what it is. They assign meanings by naming such events and objects in association of how they have emotional attachment when identified. O’Brien (2016) state that, “Humans name things and then respond according to the implications carried by the name. We can say that human behavior involves not just a response to a stimulus but a process that mediates between stimulus and responses” (p. 77). Attached feelings to an object or event is labelled for others to …show more content…

Because of humans associating names and feelings, it holds significance to one’s culture. The significances to culture is based on symbolic representation to the individual. They can range from events, buildings, the environment, or special objects. These kinds of symbolic representation are abstract to the individual. O’Brien (2016) would explain that abstractions allow us to remember, fantasize, plan, and have vicarious experiences and that imagining something, we formulate an image that is not present in the immediate state of nature (p. 79). What can be a random object, holds symbolic meaning to a person. One example would be a national flag. While it is a piece of cloth, it symbolizes the people as a nation and what it represents to other countries. With its significant meaning to one’s culture, this too will play a role in one’s

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