For some years now Simon Garrod and Nicolas Fay, among others, have been looking at the emergence of symbolic graphical symbols out of iconic ones using communication experiments which simulate repeated use of a symbol.
Garrod et al. (2007) use a ‘pictionary’ style paradigm where participants are to graphically depict one of 16 concepts without using words, so that their partner can identify it. This process is repeated to see if repeated usage would take advantage of the shared memory of the representation rather than the representation itself to the point where a iconic depiction of an item could become an arbitrary, symbolic one.
Garrod et al. (2007) showed that simple repetition is not enough to allow an arbitrary system to emerge and that feedback and interaction are required between communicators. The amount of interaction afforded to participants was shown to affect the emergence of signs due to a process of grounding. The signs that emerged from this process of interaction were shown to be arbitrary as participants not involved directly in the interaction were shown to have trouble interpreting the outcome signs.
The experimental evidence then shows that icons do indeed evolve into symbols as a consequence of the shared memory of the representation rather than the representation itself. Which is all well and good, but can this process be seen in the real world? YES!
I was talking to a friend on skype and he started typing repeated right round brackets:
))))))))
At first I just thought he had some problem with keys sticking on his keyboard, but after he did it two or three times I finally asked. To which he alluded that that they were smilies. Upon further questioning, it seems that this has become a norm for Russian internet chat that their emoticons have lost their eyes – presumably in the same process as Garrod et al. (2007) showed above.
They have also created an intensification system based on this slightly more arbitrary symbol, where by the more brackets repeated the happier or sadder you are. Among those in the UK and America, the need to intensify an emoticon has stayed well within the rhealms of iconicity with : D meaning “very happy” and D: meaning “oh God, WHHHHHYYYYY”. Japan have a completely different emoticon system altogether which focusses on the eyes: ^_^ meaning happy and u_u meaning sad. Some of argued that this is because in Japan people tend to look to the eyes for emotional cues, whereas Americans tend to look to the mouth, as backed up by SCIENCE.
I’d be interested to see if norms have been established in other countries, either iconic or not.
Refs
Garrod S, Fay N, Lee J, Oberlander J, & Macleod T (2007). Foundations of representation: where might graphical symbol systems come from? Cognitive science, 31 (6), 961-87 PMID: 21635324
Yuki, M., Maddux, W., & Masuda, T. (2007). Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and West? Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and the United States Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43 (2), 303-311 DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2006.02.004
Cool post. It actually reminds me of one over at A Rare Bite of Linguistics: Eroding semiotics – the time smileys lost noses and eyes .
Actually, having re-read that post again, you’ve got spookily similar stories: “It was during some frequent email correspondence that I noticed that my correspondent ‘must have had a fawlty keyboard’”.
I feel so unoriginal.
I’ve just stumbled across yet another blog post. Seems like this is a vogue topic.
With every comment you’re destroying my hipster soul. None of these posts are as good as mine though because a) they don’t mention the symbolic emergence experiment stuff and b) my title’s better, I mean, come one, that’s a great title, isn’t it?
I remember a time when emoticons had noses. I guess I have been on the internet way too long 🙁
Thats ^ not what I typed )-:
I know this is anecdotal and all, but I (American) and many people I chat with from America and the UK do use extra “mouths” for intensification, even on an already “intensified” emote, like so: :DDD No loss of eyes yet though.
This dude is doing work on linguistic resources used to express emotion, and he had a cool presentation on emoticons on twitter, complete with lots of statistical data, if anyone’s interested: http://www.stanford.edu/~tylers/emotions.shtml
It is not a good title, both items are icons, it could just as well be, Putting the Icon into Icon, and mean the same for your point. Also your cheap explanation of Japanese text “icons” has nothing to do with the topic. 🙂
Brackets on their own are less iconic than a whole emoticon, so they become symbols rather than icons. I think I’m using a narrower definition of icon than you are, but I did make that point in the post.
As for the Japanese emoticons, it was just an interesting side comment tagged on to the end. I know it has nothing to do with the emergence of arbitrary signs, but I wondered if anyone had any anecdata where Japanese emoticons have lost their iconicity a bit. As it is, I’m not sure whether you want me to give them more room with a less “cheap” explanation, or maintain my brevity due to their apparent irrelevance, so I’ll just leave it.