As this is the fifth reflection and failing the hourly (17/30) was a little disappointing, but still I’ll try and make this reflection a good one. As I haven’t received the presentation yet, I’ll still try to write a good one using my notes. The reflection would be short this time as the lecture has shown me a path out of confusion.

The human entity on this earth has its own perception thus everything existing on this earth is given its own meaning, if a girl and a boy mingles 99% of the majority thinks them as a boyfriend and a girlfriend relation, this is because we have set our own meanings, 1% of the total population would rate them as brother and sister or put them in any other relationship. I would like to link my this example with Semiotics. Semiotics has to do with symbols and signs. Red rose is a sign of love while white is for friendship, these are human symbols which a man uses to express his/her emotions. A white rose given to a guy living in a tribal area of Thailand may not interpret its meaning because he is not used to the symbol. A man associates the commands given to him with the image. “An apple” means one apple, the apple is red in color, it is round and it is something edible, while a person not familiar to English may not understand the object. We usually imagine the thing, the picture of it and thus react upon it.

Signs are purely psychological as they are human made creations. RED a sign of danger. Fire is dangerous therefore it is colored as red. Every person on this earth has a language. Pakistani’s prefer Urdu while a deaf and dumb may use sign language, but every person has some way or the other to express what he wants or to express his/her feelings.

Pierce sub divides Sign into interpretive and object. “STOP” written on a triangular board, the board it the object while stop can be labeled as a sign. It has general meaning, every literate person would think of the same way that is to stop his vehicle.

The IIS theory,

Indexes, Icons and symbols are three things which I think can be found in everything that is tangible. Anything you can touch automatically become your index because you can feel the object, while Icon is a picture that associates the object while symbols can be icons or signs which may be historical or something that is understandable by the citizens of that particular country like in the case of a 50 rupee note. I would put this think into consideration, like a Formica table, the table is an index, can the design be counted as Icon so what is the symbol on it then?

Concluding the reflection I would like to include Semiotics is related to psychology, the theories are derived from human mind and its thinking, the way this human animal thinks, reacts and interprets. A sound of “BOOM” is always associated with a blast or a hazard, because human perception says and a loud sound could be cause by a hazard only. We create interpretations and thus the world moves around these interpretations, assumptions, perceptions and thinking.