In 1969, a resourceful book for communication students appeared in English as translated from a Russian source. The original author of the work is A Kondratov rather unfamiliar name in the field of communication studies as known at the time by many an English reader. The title of the English work is Sounds and Signs as translated by George Yankovsky.
The Russian Research scholar’s intention as a reader may find is to introduce the subject of semiotics from various known and unknown dimensions, tracing topics such as language, codes, symbols, signs, words, numbers, formats, information etc providing varying types of examples drawing from several disciplines of literature, science, anthropology and technology. The expression, as recorded, is simple and extends to gradual depths.
Speech naturalness
The original author introduces the subject of semiotics in the following manner:
We talk just as naturally as we eat, or walk, or sleep. But as a rule, we do not give thought to the fact that the naturalness of our speech is only apparent. Human language is not at all inborn; it was taught to us, it was taught by the society we live in. This basic expression is gradually developed by raising the question as to what an individual learns from his or her surroundings. It is nothing but a series of signs, sounds, codes and symbols.
The subject called semiotics lies basically in the area of human speech. For over the ages, man has wondered what language means. How is it constructed? How one’s mother tongue differs from the languages of other peoples. He also raises the question of how the language humans differ. From the signal cries of animals, and how everyday speech of humans differ from other communication media in society.
Kondratov tries to interpret how the thinking on these aspects give birth to the subject areas of linguistics, the science of the laws and theories of language and the relevant method of investigating the use of language culminating in the access to knowledge in various forms. Followed by these data, Kondratov embarks on the subject of mathematical statistics, an area that most of us consider tedious.
Probability theory’
Kondratov lays down the theory of information as a mathematical formula in the simplest form possible taking into account the theory of facts behind the figures and vice versa. He uses the terms ‘probability theory’ and ‘mathematical logic’, ‘computation’ and ‘sign theory’ as essential terms that should not be excluded in the teaching of communication studies.
To make the reader feel sensitive towards the subject of semiotics, the author Kondratov makes use of simple questions and responds in simple narrative forms. If the trees converse is one such question. The response that the reader gets go as follows in several sentences. The humans seem to believe that there is a language in trees, the grass, the clouds and the forests, mountains and waters. So say the poets.
But is there a language of nature?
Do the trees and grass and cloud talk to us in some way?
The response is that primitive man thought so. In his view, nature spoke to man, warning or threatening, frightening or encouraging him. Furthermore, the sun would give a friendly wink from behind the clouds releasing a ray of light. Similarly, the thunder, as a living force would speak in terrible tones to anyone who failed to obey the god.
Fantasy and make-believe
In the background, Kondratov tries to extend the theory of learning via the natural objects that enable humans to express poetical thoughts that lurk in fantasy and make-believe. The expressions lead to a subject known by the Greeks as ‘Semion’ meaning ‘sign’. This area later widened into a spectrum that enveloped the studies the language of the animals and the numerous and diversified non-language systems of signs and symbols.
These are now known as verbal and non-verbal by the communication scholars. Visually, they are known by the terms ‘road signals’, ‘light symbols’, ‘window displays’, ‘colour codes’ and ‘diagrams’. Kondratov is of the view that semiotics treats any system of signs and any language used by entities of any nature, whatsoever that include human beings, animals, and, of late manmade automatic devices called thinking machines that are included in technology studies.
As such, a conclusion is drawn when semiotics is closely linked to the other disciplines known by the term ‘cybernetics’, the subject on machines. The man has reached the point where he commands the machines to get his work done.
Perhaps, in turn, the machines or devices the man had made, may command the man the creator. Kondratov maintains the view that the primitive man endowed nature with a soul. This, he believes, is a remarkable starting point to the study of the human and non-human forms of communication. He draws examples of signs and behaviour and created by dolphins, monkeys, cats, bees, elephants, birds and ants.
Human gestures
According to Kondratov, sounds and signs play a vital role in communication in all human and animal societies. He says that though human gestures are simple, they are mostly the symbolic representation of one’s cultural values and acceptances and rejections. They are more known as sign languages. He says that the natives of Australia have a developed sign language. It is used in a variety of cases. Quite a number of fascinating episodes are drawn from human groups around the world. This paves the background for the creation of awareness on the language of signals, the language of whispers and the language of whistles according to Kondratov semiotics is a composite scientific discipline that embraces quite a number of other subject areas, where the mathematicians and linguists intermix.
Giving an example, he says that to find out what the English language means, one has to compare it with the other languages of the world such as German, Chinese, Bulgarian, Eskimo and discern what it has in common on what differences they are.
In this resourceful work, the scholar Kondratov takes the reader to a wide spectrum where he delves into the need for the understanding of a language in order to ascertain areas such as information, culture, education, structures, terms and technology. The work may be considered a variant to most other accepted works in the field of communication.
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