The Interpretation of Signs by the Illiterate and Uneducated | Signifier Versus Interpretant

Explaining Semiotics

“The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation”. This is the definition of semiotics by the Oxford Dictionary.

Philosophers, scientists, psychologists, linguists, designers, and many other experts can participate in the field of semiotics. This is mostly due to the study of signs being the study of humanity itself.

Signs are used all over the world in one form or another. For years signs were considered as physical integrations into our world. In the last decades, they have evolved and they can be found everywhere, from parks to medical labels.

Their main purpose is to transmit information.

Ferdinand de Saussure, founder of semiotics, defined a sign as composed of: the signified; the concept it represents, and the signifier; the form the sign takes.

Derived from this, we understand that the signified is the content or information a sign tries to transmit to the viewer and the signifier is the final form of the object that is a sign.

Pierce added a third; the interpretant; the effect of a sign on someone who comprehends it.

Hence, a sign can take the form of a symbol made of type that spells “STOP” in capitalized characters accompanied by an icon or pictogram of a hand.

An alarm that goes off is also a sign — an auditive one — that we have been accustomed to understand as a warning.

A sign, nowadays, can take the form of many mediums. Most exist in a physical form, accompanied by symbols, icons, and pictograms. These words are used interchangeably yet their definitions stand for different things. A word is a symbol when present physically as type. Type is an assembly of characters, which we define as symbols, forged into a word.

The complexity of the field is the reason why designers need to take extra care when tasked with designing a sign. Be it when designing a road sign, or any public information sign, or be it when designing a warning or danger sign. Their job is to create a signifier with the hope of transmitting an accurate interpretant of the signified. When this is successful a community of people can be better coordinated and harmonious, yet when unsuccessful it can lead to loss of lives.

For a sign to fulfill its purpose, it should be impactful and it also should be memorable. Apart from that, it has to stand the test of time.

All signs start with a specific definition, but many end up losing all meaning. That is because signs mean different things to different people. Not all people are alike, not all can interpret the same. Not all have the same racial background, not all are educated and not all are literate. And it is illiteracy and noneducation that make the creation of signs so complicated. They are also the reason for which signs end up losing all meaning.

Illiteracy & Noneducation of the Interpreter

Humanity can be split in two: the educated and the uneducated. Education might be a vague word to define the knowledge of a human being, in this context. A better way to define someone who is educated, in this instance, would be: a person who has acquired a minimum necessary knowledge that he or she can adaptively use in a scenario of which he or she has said knowledge about. Consider the signs in Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2 below:

Figure 1.1 indicates that the left lane ends and has to merge into the right lane. This sign is designed using a visual communication system classified as a pictogram or icon. It uses an illustration that mimics a real-life situation; in this case a lane merge.

To a literate person, the sign in Figure 1.2 is more than enough for them to understand the meaning of the signified, in this case, “lane ends merge right”.

In this example, type filled with words is used instead. As previously stated, this sign is a mixture of symbols for which literate people are more than capable of understanding. Symbols that humanity has, in time, adapted to their understanding.

To a literate person, this sign is all they need. To an illiterate person, this sign means nothing, rendering the sign useless.

Between these two signs, an educated person will understand both signs, if he or she has been educated in road and traffic signs. A literate person will understand the sign in Figure 1.2 if they are capable of deciphering the meaning of each word, yet he or she will not understand the sign in Figure 1.1 if they are not educated on the subject of roads.

As a result, we can further split down the educated and the uneducated. An educated person must be literate. An uneducated person can be literate or illiterate. The traditional definition of literacy for many years, in fact, is considered to be the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. Today, the word refers to reading and writing at a level adequate for communication.

In 1750, Poland’s literacy rate was at 5 percent. In 2015 it was at 100 percent. Fascinating how in 265 years a country with 19 illiterate people out of 20 has been through an educational system to reach 100 percent. As of 2017 Poland has a 95.78 percent net enrolment rate for primary school education. According to these statistics, we can derive to the conclusion that designers can afford many mistakes when designing signage systems aimed to be used in Poland. Their choice of visual communication with the interpreter is not as high of a risk as it would be in an undeveloped country such as India.

In 2015, only 72 percent of Indians were literate and only 28.04 percent sought tertiary education.

This is a problem that designers have to face when designing signs that are to be installed in India.

Apart from this, there is a wide disparity in the literacy rates of different states. In 2001 Kerala had a 90.92 percent literacy rate while Bihar had nearly half of that at 47.53 percent.

India’s problem is colossal and complex. The country is amongst the biggest in the world, with a soaring population, in addition to regional and gender disparities. It faces problems of economic growth, poverty, and nationalism at a regional level.

With over 400 languages, deciphering is difficult from one region to the next, even at a neighboring level. Visual communication in India is an ambiguous problem that has to be tackled for a stronger and just community.

Signs Versus Illiteracy

One of the most important advantages of signs is the speed at which information can be communicated. They can transmit information to the viewer that can be interpreted in emotional ways as well as affect the viewer’s decisions, the cause and effect of the interpretant.

This is vital, especially in situations of danger. As an example, a pedestrian crossing has markings of stripped white lines painted on the road. This is a sign for both pedestrians and drivers of all vehicle kinds to give priority to pedestrians when not accompanied by a traffic light. The stripped while lines have become a symbol and humans have learned the sign’s meaning throughout its use in time. It has no words; it is simply a symbol and we have learned its meaning.

There are many cases, especially in India, where traffic becomes unbearable. No rules are respected and therefore signs have lost their meaning. An uneducated driver who does not interpret the sign correctly can end up killing a pedestrian.

In 2008, the Central Road Research Institute suggested that 9 out of 10 pedestrians felt unsafe while crossing the roads. As of today, 20 pedestrian deaths per year are registered and traffic accidents are the cause. Noneducation is partially to blame. Uneducated drivers do not comprehend the pedestrian crossing signs.

The largest segment of the world’s illiterates is in India and since the command of a (natural) language is necessary for easy comprehension of visual communication systems, these potential users are being left out of the information society.

Being able to read is a skill, which is difficult to define. The dictionary meaning is: “to look at so as to understand the meaning of (something written, printed, etc.)” and “to recognize and understand the meaning of (gestures, symbols, signals or other communication)”.

Persons who are illiterate are certainly part of the group, which has been referred to as the information poor.

Orientation, warnings, information about facilities, hospitals, police, bus stations, and so on, are all difficult to access because of the incorrectly designed signs in India.

Access to basic human rights points such as water fountains and toilets is not indicated correctly through signs. Signs follow no standards, therefor people cannot be culturally trained to comprehend them.

In many cases, signs are made up only of text, written in the specific language of the region they are placed in. Anyone who comes from outside that region and the illiterate will not understand the signified of the signifier.

Breakdown of Visual Communication Signifiers

Although literacy does not stand for education, it may help in interpreting a sign correctly. In visual communication, a physical sign can use the aid of different media and communication systems to achieve its goal.

Images, icons and pictograms, symbols, drawings, indexes, and illustrations are mostly used as signifiers, by themselves or simultaneously in visual media. Nowadays, videos and gifs are also used as signifiers.

According to semiotics data, signs accompanied by a form of pictorial communication are considered the easiest way of correctly-interpreted visual communication.

Illiteracy may impair a correct understanding of a signifier’s signified. According to the situation, a signifier can take many forms and be used in any kind of medium. As their main purpose is to provide clear instructions about different concepts such as routing, warning, danger, designation, and accessibility information, they are highly dependent on the signifier attracting the viewer’s attention.

According to the importance and urgency of the signified, certain measures are to be taken into consideration, including the size of the signifier, body size, typeface, colors, contrast, clarity, and, most important of all, be interpreted similarly by all viewers. No matter their racial or regional background.

Color is also an important property of a sign. A sign can never be colorless, but it can be unseeable and that is mostly due to lack of luminosity.

An unseeable signifier is not a sign and a signifier that is colorless is not a sign. To prevent a sign from being unseen, light has to be present in all conditions and situations, otherwise signs that aim to warn people can be rendered suspects of a disaster.

Color is a strong property that can transmit a message that can be interpreted by the viewer in ways of experiencing a feeling, be it of danger or guidance.

Red can warn you of danger and is easily noticed as it pops out. Green transmits feelings of safety and right of way. Blue is the color you can look after for guidance. White and black are mostly used as additional foreground and background elements.

Memorable, Meaningless, and Standardization

For decades, signs have warned us of danger. Pictograms of fire, rocks falling from hills and mountains, and even aggressive dogs and symbols of stickmen slipping on wet floors have been widely used.

Certain concepts are hard to communicate through visual signifiers. Likewise, they have to stand the test of time.

The Jolly Roger, a symbol that transmitted fear as it symbolized death, pirates, and poison, is now a symbol used in toys for children for treasure hunts, cartoons, and movies. A once menacing and intimidating symbol is now dead. Might have been a ridiculous thought at the time of its use, yet now its purpose is no more.

Another sign that is slowly dying is that of the famous “biohazard” symbol, see Figure 3.1. It was designed to signify “the actual or potential presence of a biohazard and shall identify equipment, containers, rooms, materials, experimental animals, or combinations thereof which contain or are contaminated with viable hazardous agents”.

Now it is used in energizer drinks, t-shirt designs, and even bedsheets. Though still preserved as the standard symbol for its intended signified, it is not as fierce and intimidating as it once was.

An educated person should understand that when placed in locations of potential biohazard use, he or she should respect its true meaning and purpose. On the other hand, an uneducated person who has mostly met this symbol on forms that do not represent the purpose the sign aims to transmit will end up ignoring the sign that aims to notify the viewer of real danger.

The biohazard symbol has quite a long and interesting past. Its final design was derived from a series of tests, performed by a group of designers, engineers, and scientists, in 1966. This took place in a developed country, by formally educated experts. The task was to design a symbol to warn people of the presence of nearby biohazard existence. They decided to follow the following basis:

These criteria, in order of their importance, are that the symbol be (i) striking in form in order to draw immediate attention; (ii) unique and unambiguous, in order not to be confused with symbols used for other purposes; (iii) quickly recognizable and easily recalled; (iv) easily stenciled; (iv) symmetrical, in order to appear identical from all angles of approach; and (vi) acceptable to groups of varying ethnic backgrounds.

They concluded that the best way to achieve this was by designing a symbol that was memorable but meaningless so that they could attach the desired significance to it. The symbol has been revised and accepted by the “Standard Specifications for Industrial Accident Prevention Signs” at The United States of America Standards Institute.

The European Union has also accepted and standardized the symbol, according to DIN Standards, as seen in Figure 3.1. The symbol, Biogefährdung – Biohazard in German, is classified with serial code W009 under DIN EN ISO 7010. The DIN standard modifies and updates signs according to their loss of meaning or usage.

The Design and Usage of a Signifier and the Interpreter According to DIN EN ISO 7010, the European standard for Rauchen Verboten – No Smoking in German, takes the form of the symbol in Figure 3.2, with serial code P002.

Thousands of variations and recreations of this sign exist today. In most cases, at least in the European Union, other non-standardized signs are used instead of their standard counterpart.

The problem starts with uneducated business owners and designers in the field. Other problems arise such as more complex research that has to be conducted by the user who wishes to search and locate the specific sign for which they are in need of.

Even though death by cigarette smoking might seem unlikely to some, it can be a dangerous action to perform in certain locations that have explosive matter nearby.

So, what happens when a sign installed does not meet the standard, approved, and already widely recognized sign? The signifier can include a type mention of “No Smoking”, which can lead to clear interpretation by a literate person living in Poland but what happens when the interpreter is illiterate and uneducated?

Who is to be blamed; the one who installed the sign without recognizing the incorrect use of it; the designer who chose to re-create a non-standardized symbol or use one that is not standardized; or the illiterate person who lacked education and smoked a cigarette without interpreting the sign’s signified correctly?