Cultural Symbols

This article provides an overview of the meaning of symbols in U.S. culture, as well as in other social systems. It discusses how culture is learned through the process of socialization and the importance of symbols, including language, within a culture to identify and communicate the values and expectations of its members. From the various sociological perspectives - symbolic interactionist, functionalist, and conflict - culture and its symbols are reviewed as part of both non-material and material culture. Cultural relativism, or the understanding that the basis by which one measures the behaviors and customs of another culture are done so through the lens of one’s own cultural standards, is also discussed, as well as notions of the accumulation of cultural capital by those members of a culture who may experience enhanced opportunities for themselves because of the body of cultural capital to which they may lay claim. Finally, the article's focus turns to how cultural symbols and the values, beliefs and attitudes connected to the symbols can be used in many and varied ways.

Keywords Culture; Cultural Capital; Cultural Relativism; Cultural Symbol; Language; Non Material Culture; Material Culture; Socialization

Cultural Symbols

Culture > Cultural Symbols

Overview

What things are important to a group of people? A flag of specific colors and shapes, a coat of arms, a lapel pin, a specific word, two fingers held in a V-shape, a place, an identity, a type of behavior, such as drinking alcohol? In and of themselves, these things have no meaning. But meaning can be assigned to them by a group of people who share the ability to communicate those meanings to one another. Through a process called socialization, we teach one another the symbols that have significance to the group. This process begins at birth and continues throughout our lives. Those who are not yet part of a culture may sense a different view about the same objects. Or they may see no meaning at all in something that is very significant to a culture. Creating and understanding cultural symbols helps us to communicate not only the embedded meaning within the symbols, but also our feelings of belonging to the group, to our culture. We use the same symbols to identify with one another and to keep outsiders away, or to demonstrate our position within a society by our possession of cultural capital: the more knowledge of a culture and ability to communicate using the symbols and language of that culture, the more cultural capital we possess. Cultural capital can be used for social and cultural exclusion as well as for a sense of "habitus," or belonging (Wise, Watts & Harris, 2005).

Culture is Learned

Culture is everything that we learn and do. We can define culture as the knowledge, language, values, customs (also known as non-material culture) and material objects, or material culture, such as computers, books, cars, houses, appliances, toys, cell phones that remain a part of the society through generations. By its very nature, culture is central and essential to the survival of the individual and of the society to which that individual belongs. Culture then, can be thought of as a complete set of understandings - assumptions, values, procedures, ideas, etc. - associated with a particular group of people (Howe, 2004).

The concept of culture began sometime in the 19th century when scholars tried to identify how people thought and behaved, often as a way to distinguish or even distance themselves from the "others," sometimes to merely understand them. Prior to notions of culture, people were categorized by what is known as "environmental determinism." For example, people from the northern climes were believed to be hardy and brave. Or, some believed northerners talked less and used a predominance of consonants in their language because they didn't want to open their mouths too much to let cold air in! On the other hand, people from the southern areas were considered inferior, slow to think, slow to act (Howe, 2004).

Another early concept about behavior was the notion of "human nature." Why do people behave a certain way? Some would say, because of some innate, biological trait, or reason. If one blames human nature, how humans behave is believed to be somehow established by genes. Through biology, a group of people can be expected to "be" a certain way and there is nothing that can be done about changing those expectations. A contemporary example might be the explanations of male and female behavior in books like, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus .

By the 19th century, anthropologists began to notice in their research on groups, that there were behaviors common across diverse boundaries such as race, ethnicity, and religion, where people otherwise had nothing in common biologically except their humanness. For example, in the U.S., people from these various backgrounds knew, understood and contributed to a uniquely American culture and its symbols. Despite the boundaries between them, people shared customs, ways of life, ideas, even though they were different physically. The term "culture" was adopted to refer to the things that people passed on for the most part, through an intellectual process, rather than through a biological one (Howe, 2004). In other words, culture is learned, not predetermined.

Components of Culture

Material Culture

The tangible products of a culture, or those objects with some dimension used by a culture, such as computers, cell phones, clothing and much more, make up what sociologists call material culture. Within these objects, which by the frequency of their use indicates their importance to a culture, one can also find symbolism

Non-Material Culture

The non-material components of culture, those things that are intangible, or cannot be touched, including values, norms, folkways, language, symbols and mores.

Values are a society's beliefs about things that are important such as achievement and success, equality, or individualism. Norms are rules. Some rules are informal such as folkways. Folkways are everyday customs such as wearing a raincoat when it is raining, or using deodorant. If one violates a folkway, the sanctions are mild. There are no serious consequences. Mores, on the other hand, are more important norms that have serious consequences.

The process by which culture is passed from person to person and generation to generation is called socialization. There are a number of socialization agents, beginning foremost with the family. Other social institutions that carry on the job of socialization include the educational system, religion, the workplace, politics, sports, and the military. Each of these social institutions takes on the task of teaching the important things of a culture, including its symbols, to other members. The group, then, collectively participates in and cares about the social teachings. Something is not cultural unless it is shared.

The Importance of Symbols & Language

The two main ways of expressing, understanding and communicating all the other non-material components of culture are through symbol and language. Symbols, however, have no meaning in and of themselves, until humans do two things: first, attach meaning to the symbol and second, communicate that meaning to someone else. Other information transmitted between humans is biological or instinctual, rather than social, or cultural (Bartle, 2008). A symbol is anything that represents a particular meaning. Language is a set of symbols that people use to express their ideas (and those of the culture) and to communicate with other members of the same society. Having knowledge of more than one language allows people to be able to communicate ideas with people from other cultures and societies, thus enhancing understanding and perhaps tolerance among people of differing societies.

Besides being vehicles for communication within a frame of reference, symbols convey powerful meanings based on a set of shared values, expectations and philosophies. They can cause us to think and behave in certain ways. Symbols can also draw us together via encoded information, or they can create barriers separating us. Our emotions, cognitions, and behaviors are influenced by these shared codes.

Sapir-Whorf Theory

It makes sense that language, therefore, is a most common and basic set of symbols available to a culture so that it can pass on the non-material portions of culture: its values, beliefs, and rules. But because language influences and sways our thoughts, people who speak different languages may conceptualize differently, as well. This is what helps constitute notions of culture and what makes cultural symbolism relative to a particular culture and its language. One of the best known and referenced theories about language among sociologists is the Sapir-Whorf theory. This theory states that our thinking is determined by language and that people who speak different languages, view the world and think it about it relative to their own language. As one speaks a different language, one experiences a different world map. This simple theory has strong implications for notions of culture, cultural relativism and cultural symbolism. As Sapir (1958) noted,

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached… We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation (Sapir, 1958, p. 69).

Human Cultures & Symbolism

Humankind can communicate with one another because they have the ability to symbolize, or to represent an idea with something else. This is probably because a symbol is a relationship between two things (Howe, 2004). Language associates and connects ideas. The mental link made between the symbol and the idea (meaning) is culturally determined. When we touch a hot element on the stove, we feel the burn. In the U.S. culture, the American flag is a symbol of patriotism. But in other parts of the world, that same piece of colored cloth might be a symbol of oppression. Cultural symbols are couched within a particular frame of reference.

Applications

How Cultural Symbols are Used

Cultural symbols are used not only to define a particular cultural group, they also can be used in a variety of ways to preserve, alter, reinforce, and negate culture. The following discussion includes some examples of cultural symbols as they determine cultural place; as they preserve cultures that might otherwise disappear; as they create heroes and the beliefs and expectations that surround them; as they create boundaries or inclusionary codes to keep people in, or out of a culture; as they stratify and discriminate. Keep in mind that symbols can do none of this on their own. It is only by instilling the symbols with human notions, beliefs, ideas, emotions, that symbols have any value.

Cultural Symbols & the Characteristics of Place

Monuments, recreational areas, and public structures form part of the cultural landscapes of regions ranging in size from small local regions to large world regions. Such cultural symbols provide valuable information about a peoples’ values, activities and resources.

Consider Disney World in Florida, the Empire State Building in New York, the Alamo in Texas, and the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Now consider some international icons such as the pyramids of Egypt, or the Taj Mahal in India. What do these monuments and places represent, or symbolize to their respective cultures? How did such symbolic meaning become attached to them?

Cultural symbols exist around the world because people attach meaning to structures, making them icons to represent a place, a region, or a historical period. People's perceptions of the same symbol depend on their individual or collective mental and emotional associations. For example, people interested in U.S. history may place great importance on the fight for American independence. Yet Mexicans and Texans may have quite different views of the Alamo ("Cultural Symbols," 2008). Those who passionately opposed the war in Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s may experience the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., very differently from those who served in the military with deep beliefs in their mission.

Cultural Symbols as Preservation of Culture

Preserving vestiges of a culture, particularly one that is on the fringe of the dominant culture, can be accomplished by identifying those symbols of that culture which maintain and record its history, its activities and its way of life.

An example of using an object as a cultural symbol to preserve an ancient culture is the practice of "tree shaping," used by the indigenous peoples of British Columbia, in Canada. These Cultural Modified Trees (CMTs), or shaped trees, are living cultural symbols - trees that were utilized by the indigenous peoples of British Columbia as a source of fiber, bark, wood, food, or medicine and serve as a testament to those activities as they display marks, which are characteristic of harvesting. The red and yellow cedar, spruce and hemlock continue to remain healthy despite generations of harvesting bark for food and even of entire planks, which were pried from living trees to make canoes, totem poles and houses. These trees, because of their cultural importance, became symbols of conflicting cultures between the indigenous peoples and timber, mining and oil-drilling companies. When a large logging corporation began to clear-cut the forests where the Kwakintl had lived for generations, that campaign stalled the company's logging operations in the area (Garrick, 2002).

Cultural Symbols as "Heroes"

Most everyone of a particular generation has his or her rock and roll hero: a person, or group of persons who embody in their on-stage image, some values or beliefs. These rock and roll stars are another form of cultural symbolism. The Rolling Stones symbolized notions of "bad boy behavior," of a refusal to obey the rules and lately, a refusal to obey the laws of nature by growing old. Elvis Presley, in his day, symbolized sexuality and freedom of expression. When out of the spotlight, these people probably possessed little of the symbolism endowed upon them by the media. Yet according to Dotter (1987) these rock and rollers today have not only embodied the traditional hero symbolism, they have become emblems of social consciousness. Bands come together for social efforts such as "USA for Africa," "Live Aid," or "Farm Aid," calling attention to the plight of people in all parts of the world. The Norwegian Parliament even honored the musician/organizer of "Live Aid" with a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Dotter (1987) explains,

There are two primary reasons that rock and roll stars represent prominent cultural symbols. The first relates to commercial considerations, and the second to the larger sociocultural context of rock music…rock has always been a form of protest art…the institutionalization of protest has been a sociocultural process. In general there was a gradual extension of the youth culture to include more and more elements of American social life. This cultural extension includes a prominent position for rock and roll music and its creators (Dotter, 1987, p. 35).

Cultural Symbols as Marketing Tools

Drinking alcohol is often viewed as a national pastime in the U.S. Most persons enjoy their favorite brand of beer, depending certainly on taste, but also on what that brand symbolizes. Especially around March 17, you will find people will drink Guinness wanting to identify themselves as, or with, the Irish. Football fans might prefer Budweiser, and so on. Brewing companies have attempted to capitalize on symbolic identification with various brands, sometimes with negative results. Alaniz and Wilkes (1998) studied the marketing of alcohol using familiar cultural symbols from three different ethnic groups as advertising tools: African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans. Images of macho gangs were used to entice African American youth to buy and drink malt liquor while flags and maps of Mexico and Central America attracted Latino youth. The attempt apparently backfired, however, when an image of Chief Crazy Horse, a 19th century Lakota hero, was planned for use to appeal to Native Americans, who did not want their cultural icon used to sell the beer, especially when the problem of alcoholism among Native Americans was already a difficult issue to address and correct (Alaniz & Wilkes, 1998).

Cultural Symbols Create Community Cohesion

Through her case study of the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, NY, Stacey Sutton discusses how traditional cultural symbols, which can define and limit ethnic and racial neighborhoods, can also enliven a community. Traditional cultural symbols which define ethnic and racial neighborhoods can tend to limit their growth and success. Yet Sutton shows in her research that a community can control cultural symbols of a neighborhood, such as broken and vacant lots filled with weeds and debris indicating poverty and "inner cityness" by turning them into a "quaint urban oasis…complete with sounds of a babbling brook" thus creating a new neighborhood identity (Sutton, 2004).

Cultural Symbols as Social Stratification & Discrimination

Coffee Houses (Starbucks) as Social Stratification

based on their control over basic resources (Kendall, 2006). Anyone who has frequented a Starbucks coffee shop in one of thousands of American cities has partaken of a cultural symbol that indicates an affluent social class. Sociologist Max Weber's class definition of social class goes beyond mere notions of income to determine social position. Weber includes indexes of power, wealth and prestige to determine social class. A certain type of person frequents coffee houses such as Starbucks - one who is young, an urbanite, affluent, and educated. Yet a coffee house like Starbucks as a cultural symbol is nothing new. In the 18th century, coffee houses were places where people of class met not only to drink coffee, but to consume other scarce and pricey commodities such as sugar, tea, tobacco and to read newspapers, thus gaining a world view to which many others outside the class were not privy. The coffee houses then and the coffee houses of today, such as Starbucks, become cultural symbols of wealth, leisure, intellectualism and fashion among their clients (Doyle, 2004).

Welfare "Finger-imaging" as Discrimination

When we think of the cultural word welfare, several images may come to mind: poverty, humiliation, perhaps even laziness and other negative labels. Public assistance recipients once used food stamps that were very noticeable because they looked nothing like brightly colored play money. Today, the Medicaid card used at the pharmacy or doctor's office, is at once noticeable and recognizable. With those cultural symbols, the food stamps and the Medicaid card, comes a connected negativity that can serve to embarrass and even degrade their users. Notice how a person is treated at the grocery line check out when he or she produces the food stamp plastic card, or the WIC check. Harry Murray (2000) states, "Deniable degradation involves the use of procedures that can be legitimated in instrumental terms, but that also evoke cultural symbols of humiliation and degradation. Poverty has long been viewed as a sign of moral failure, with welfare recipients singled out for special scorn" (Murray, 2000, Abstract).

Murray's article specifically discusses a procedure called "finger imaging" which had been used by some jurisdictions, whereby each welfare applicant or recipient was required to place an index finger in a machine that literally digitized their finger, sending an electronic finger-image to a data bank. Welfare recipients have very little ability to protest the action if they want the help they seek. They must succumb to the humiliation of "finger imaging," and submit to the cultural symbolism of all that finger imaging implies. According to Murray, all human action is symbolic and symbols are subject to a variety of interpretations based on the culture from which they are derived (Murray, 2000).

Cultural Symbols as Globalized Symbols of War & Peace

The years of conflict in Northern Ireland between Republicans (those who wanted an independent Republic of Ireland) and Loyalists (those who wished to remain part of the United Kingdom) had religious overtones, as well. The Republicans tended to be Catholic and the Loyalists tended to be Protestant. The symbols of the political divisions in Northern Ireland were also global symbols of each religious persuasion. These cultural symbols tended to unite people, as well as to divide them.

Universal, or global symbols of conflict, those that can be found in any ethnic conflict around the world, included the colors of their respective flags, barbed wire, and of course, the weapons used against one another. In Northern Ireland, the flag colors also became territorial markers. The orange, white and green combination of colors were painted along street curbs to indicate the loyalties of that neighborhood, while the red, white and blue of the UK flags marked other streets (Smala, 2003).

Similarly, global religious symbols were used as lines of demarcation. Statues of the Virgin Mary indicated a Catholic house or neighborhood, while Bible verses on a billboard marked a Protestant enclave. To identify with one side or the other became the stuff of songs, t-shirts, dance, even the attendance or non-attendance at parades that had moved from being entertaining to becoming political symbols.

As global symbols of oppression, one might call to mind the Nazi swastika, a symbol of barbarism of the Nazi regime toward a particular group, or groups of people. Few except perhaps for Neo-Nazis, would relish any association with the meaning of that symbol. According to Smala, barbed wire can be a symbol of repression, or of the ideal of freedom. When we think of barbed wire, we might think of a prison. And yet the universal symbol of barbed wire and a candle represents the human rights organization, Amnesty International, working globally for the release of political prisoners (Smala, 2003).

Symbols in Organizational Culture: Branding

The golden arches of McDonald's restaurants, the red cross of the American Red Cross, the brown and gold United Parcel Service logo, are all physical manifestations of those organizations. When we see the symbols, we acknowledge codified information about their layout, their behavior, the uniform of those who work there and much more. To "brand" a corporation is to create meaning from the symbols and this is the stuff of advertising and marketing. McDonald's restaurants look very much the same. Their menu is displayed behind a long counter with several cash registers. Workers take orders and assemble them on ubiquitous brown plastic trays. At McDonald's, one knows that the napkins and straws are probably on a separate counter near the check out. The customer also knows what employees of McDonald's are required to do as part of their job definition and about how much they earn for their performance.

Similarly, when we see the UPS logo, especially if it pulls onto a street, we know that parcels are being delivered and we have expectations of promptness, safe and secure packaging, courtesy on the part of the driver. Someone has purchased or ordered an item; consumerism is taking place.

The American Red Cross symbol elicits emotions of hope and comfort to people in emergency situations such as accidents, house fires and natural catastrophes.

These meanings become reinforced by the organizations themselves and those meanings serve to "brand" the organization with its symbolic mission, purpose, layout and more (Rafaeli & Worline, 1999).

It could be said that changing an organization's cultural symbols would require an entirely new and unique branding effort that may or may not be successful both within and outside of the organization. Imagine if McDonald's began serving Chinese food, or UPS began selling and delivering its own line of goods, or if the Red Cross moved out of the realm of humanitarian aid to something more commercial. The cultural symbolism associated with their images and icons would require a complete shift in expectations and beliefs on the part of members of the organization, as well as non-members.

Viewpoints

Sociological Perspectives on Culture & Its Symbols

There are three primary sociological theories based on perspectives about human social behavior:

• Symbolic interactionist,

• Functional and

• Conflict.

The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

As its name implies, the symbolic interactionist perspective focuses at a "micro level," on symbols and their meanings as people interact with each other and make subjective interpretations of meanings for themselves. Symbols, including language, are not static. Their meanings can be interpreted differently in a variety of contexts. Symbolic interactionism studies how individuals interpret their own actions and symbols, as well as those of others. Within a particular culture, subculture, or counterculture, the meaning should have the same or a similar meaning for both people during the communication. Music is a good example of this exchange: one person writes a song with the musical symbols as composed by the writer. The performer reads the symbols and plays the musical notes, but adds his or her own interpretation to them.

The Functionalist Perspective

One of two primary macro level perspectives in sociology is the functionalist perspective, which focuses on those aspects of society that contribute to its smooth functioning. All the parts of society should contribute to its order and stability. Because consensus among members of a society is necessary for its ability to function well, people generally tend to agree on the values, beliefs, and rules of that society. Using the example of the symbolism of the American flag and patriotism, a functionalist would view that symbolism as an important element of the dominant culture, one that everyone would be expected to align with as members of that society. There is little room in the functionalist perspective for "dysfunction," except to define boundaries. Therefore, if someone does not view the flag as a symbol of loyal patriotism, he may be cast into the "other" category of being unpatriotic. This either-or distinction helps other members of society define notions of patriotism more clearly and succinctly. One must honor the American flag to be considered patriotic.

The Conflict Perspective

A second macro level perspective in sociology is the conflict perspective, which focuses on the struggle for control of the wealth, power, and prestige of a society. Karl Marx was perhaps the first conflict theorist when he identified the class struggle between the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production) and thus, the more powerful members of society, and the proletariat (everyone else who sold their labor for a paycheck, enjoying a much weaker social position). In order to maintain the status quo and their privileged position, the bourgeoisie ruling class, or the elite would tend to define culture in terms that allows them to maintain their power. Using once again the symbol of the American flag and patriotism, those who stand to gain in power, prestige and wealth from a war might, according to the conflict perspective, insist on notions of patriotism and freedom, as symbolized by the flag, as reasons for the war. Conflict theorists, therefore, contend that people with ascribed characteristics as race, gender, and age, as well as other identifying features such as religion, politics, and social class usually have these types of struggles over unequal life chances.

Conclusion

In this article we have provided an overview of the components of culture and how they are learned. Within the components of culture, we have explored the meaning of symbols, as both part of non-material, including language, and non-material culture in the U.S. as well as in other social systems. We have explored the complexity of cultural symbols and the ideas and emotions connected to them. Finally, we have touched on a sampling of the many uses of cultural symbolism, from characterizing place to preserving culture. Cultural symbols can take the form of rock and roll stars, or perhaps even trees. Organizational icons take on cultural symbolic meaning. And all cultural symbols can create boundaries, solidifying through their codes, those on the outside of a culture and those on the inside. Cultural symbols have deep significance and meaning, but generally, only within the context of the culture in which they exist. Some cultural symbols can have no meaning outside of their culture, or they can even have different meanings. But the operative word is "meaning." Cultural symbols are nothing more than a piece of cloth, a word, a behavior until people bestow upon them the values, beliefs, and attitudes of cultural meaning.

Terms & Concepts

Culture: The collection of knowledge, language, values, customs and material objects that a group of humans (or society) passes on through the generations.

Cultural Capital: Refers to a society’s assets; includes values, beliefs, language and culture.

Cultural Relativism: the understanding that the basis by which one measures the behaviors and customs of another culture are done so through the lens of one’s own cultural standards

Cultural Symbol: Anything that meaningfully represents something else with shared meaning among a group of people in a culture.

Cultural Universals: Common elements (including customs and practices) which occur within all societies.

Ethnocentrism: A belief that all other cultures are inferior to one’s own culture.

Language: Method of communication and thought among peoples; the expression of ideas through symbols.

Material Culture: Physical creations that are a used and shared part of a culture; includes clothing, shelter, and art.

Non-material Culture: Intangible creations that influence a culture’s behavior; includes attitudes, beliefs and values.

Social Institution: Allows a society to meet its basic social needs through an established set of beliefs and rules.

Socialization: The lifelong acquisition of skills (physical, mental and social) that contribute to one’s self-identity and ultimately one’s success in a society.

Social Stratification: The arrangement of social groups in a society based upon the amount of control each exerts on the society’s basic resources.

Subculture: Within a larger society, a group that exists and shares a different set of cultural beliefs and behaviors than the main group.

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Suggested Reading

Ashley, K., & Sheingorn, P. (Ed.). (1991). Interpreting cultural symbols: Saint Anne in late medieval society . Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.

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