Regrettably, I opened up the box and surveyed its contents. Inside was everything Ikea claimed I needed to build a chest of drawers with an unpronounceable Scandinavian name. I thumbed through the 40 pages of instructions, dumbfounded by one thing: the immense void of text. In its place were occasionally humorous diagrams and symbols guiding the way to home-built furniture.
Ikea isn’t alone. It seems everywhere you look, symbols are replacing words. My recycling bin no longer says “Recycle” on it anywhere. Computer operating systems and apps feature less text with each update. And at 2A, we use countless symbols to accentuate key information for our clients.
The greatest example of symbol encroachment is the emoji. Basic emoticons made with punctuation marks gave way to more pictorial and vibrant emojis. Originating on Japanese cell phones in the 1990s, emojis exploded after their inclusion on Apple and Android smart phones. But they’re not just for text messages. Chevrolet wrote a real press release only in emojis, and an online bank developed an emoji-only passcode system. There’s even an upcoming animated film called The Emoji Movie with Patrick Stewart voicing everybody’s favorite. Symbols like emojis change how we communicate, but are they killing language?
Before cursing the proliferation of symbols, it’s important to consider their value. In the case of Ikea and many other uses, symbols transcend written languages. They explain concepts without the need for painstaking translation. Their universality is their key strength.
Fixated on the possibility of universally intelligible written communication, people throughout history have tried to make written languages out of pictogram symbols. These forms of communication, called pasigraphies, were often meant to facilitate communication across traditional language barriers. 17th century British philosopher John Wilkins introduced a pasigraphy called Real Character, which was considered brilliant yet hopeless and never became more than theory. Impressed by the symbols used in the periodic table, chemical engineer Charles Bliss developed a symbol-based writing system called Blissymbols in the 1940s. While Blissymbols became a method to teach disabled people to communicate, it never enjoyed widespread usage.
Pasigraphies never caught on in part because as constructed languages, they did not evolve in practice like natural languages. Natural languages evolve to become relatively easy to use and learn. Further, their written forms benefit from the flexibility and distinction of their verbal roots. In contrast, symbols may hold very different meanings. A lightbulb icon may represent an invention, a good idea, intelligence, or just brightness. Unfortunately for pasigraphies, ambiguity is not a good trait for a written language.
Yes, symbols have growing value in a shrinking world, but English majors shouldn’t fret. They can help you assemble furniture or Legos, but they aren’t built to merge together to create complex ideas the way the written word can. They play an increasingly important role in visual communication, but remain dependent on language for context and detail. When you’re telling your next story, make sure language retains the starring role.