English Literature And Theory This blog contains the explanation of various critical theories that provide a new insight to view literature and interpretation of various literary texts.

We know that language is symbolic. What exactly does it mean? First of all, it means that language involves sign. In language, the signs are sequences of sound, though these can be transferred to visual signs, as in writing or the gestural sign language of the deaf. According to one theory,the relationship between and object, whether real or imaginary, and the sign which stands for it can be of three types. If two are associated by a physical resemblance, like an object or photograph of it, the sign is called an icon. If the relation is one of the physical proximity, as between smoke and fire, thunder and lightening, spots and measles, then the sign(smoke, thunder, spots) is called an index. If the relationship is one of convention, that is, one has to be learned as part of the culture, like the relationship between black armband and mourning, then the sign is called a symbol.

No one knows how the symbolic linguistic code of humans came into being. Some have argued that the origin of language lies in onomatopoeia, that the people began talking by creating iconic signs to imitate the sounds heard around them in nature. This theory, sometimes called the bow-bow theory, is unlikely to be right, because language in fact makes very little use of iconic words.(Bow-wow itself is conventional. In French, dogs bark with oua-oua, pronounced "wa-wa.") Another theory is that language was originally indexical, arising out of cries of fear, pleasure, and so forth. This theory leaves signs came to be. We do not know that at this point in our biological history our ability to use symbols and learn language is genetically built in, an innate capacity of the human brain. But we know practically nothing about language over ten millennium ago, and very little indeed about language over five millennium ago. That is a tiny fraction of the biological history of man, and until we know far more about the neurophysiological aspects of language, we can only speculate about the origins of signs as symbols.