Mee Family in Semiotic

Additional information after read the post - :

The index/icon/symbol is a tool of analysis at the core of semiotics that related to the studies of signs and their meanings.

Anything which focuses the attention is an index. After i had research about index, I noticed that index has 3 types. There are tracks, symptoms, and designations. For example, legs prints that left by human are tracks. Temperature increasing is a symptom of global warning. However proper names example of designations.

We can found that classical paintings and photographs are icons because they visually resemble their objects. For example, when you view Mona Lisa painting and you will get the meaning from the painting. Based on reading about semiotic articles, Peirce had creates three subcategories of icon into image, metaphor and diagram.

Symbols can be used to determine meaning. For example when student want to cheat in exam, they will devise a secret code like pointing their face parts which representing A B C D, that are one of the symbolic sign. From the post, every alphanumeric character on a computer keyboard is a symbol, as are those things not specifically alphabetic or numeric: $, %, &, #, @, etc and they still determine their own meaning like $ = money , % = percentage, & = and.

:) that all are my understanding of the post and the topic ^^

An icon is a sign that stands for an object by resembling it. Included in this category of sign are obvious examples like pictures, maps, and diagrams while the not so obvious one are like algebraic expression in metaphor. The essential aspect of the relation of an icon towards object is one of the similarities.

Index is referred to the object, not the virtue of any similarity relation but rather by an actual cause between a sign and an object. Smoke is an index of fire. Meanwhile, ever thermometer is the index of body temperature. The relation between the science and its object is about the science and object which has something in common that the object really affects the science.

Finally, symbol refers to the object by virtue of a law, rule, convention, words, proposition of text. It has no logical meaning between it and the object. Examples of symbols are something like a homepage icon which is a house for example. Other off screen symbols which may help explain the different are flags. Flags are symbols which represent countries or organizations.

From the research i have found which is according to Peirce, his ideas about semiotics distinguished between three types of signs: icon, index and symbol. Whether a sign belongs in one category or another is dependent upon the nature of its relationship between the sign itself (which he called the referent) and the actual mening. An icon is a meaning which is based upon similarity or appearance (for example, similarity in shape).

i) Indexes - a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred.

ex : If we see thunder on a cloudy day, we soon it will rain soon.

ii) Icons - a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities:

ex: a portrait, a cartoon.

ii) Symbol - a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt:

ex: language in general (plus specific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks, words, phrases and sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flags.