Rather than viewing words as having meaning in themselves,
he saw them as entirely relative to their context, where they
both communicate conventions and organize behavior. Like
all symbols (of which they are the prototype), words modify
the human organism in order to transform physiological
drives into cultural values. Although Malinowski confused
speech with language, and so was driven to generalizations
that contemporary linguistic theory no longer accepts, his
main concern was in classifying and interpreting symbolic
forms to show how the process of symbolization affects the
formation and function of culture. He succeeded in undoing
the generalized symbolic interpretations of myths that some
anthropologists had inherited from the Romantics.
R. R. Marett (1866–1943) attempted to trace the ori-
gins of religion to pre-animist beliefs in superhuman forces,
but these efforts were armchair investigations from a scholar
who preferred common sense to actual work in the field. De-
spite their limitations, however, his reports had high literary
value and considerable influence on many other theoreticians
working in symbolic theory. Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1857–
1939), most often remembered for his attempt to relate the
origins of religion to a “prelogical” primitive mind that
shared in the realities of nature by means of what he called
participation mystique—a position that he retracted later in
life—also deserves credit for highlighting the need to study
symbolic thought and behavior.
Although the contributions of these pioneers continue
to be recognized and supported by field studies, scholars hold
many diverse opinions as a result of increased sensitivity to
the complexities of symbol theory. Social scientists have be-
come increasingly aware of the methodological assumptions
underlying their own behavior and of the effects of psycho-
logical factors, the critical apparatus of philosophical herme-
neutics, and advances in linguistic theory.
Victor Turner (1920–1983) developed an important
theory of symbolism from his studies on ritual in the late
twentieth century. Particular symbols can be understood, he
argued, only by setting them in their wide “action-field con-
text,” considering their immediate role in ritual, and observ-
ing the particular patterns of behavior associated with them.
Turner saw this series of expanding contexts as giving mean-
ing to the symbol; furthermore, he focused attention on the
context of the interpreter. His approach helped to clarify the
distinctions between exegetical meaning (given by indige-
nous informants), operational meaning (derived from obser-
vation of a symbol’s use), and positional meaning (deduced
from its place in the totality of symbols). The psychological
functions that Turner accorded symbols—to guard against
excessive emotion and to serve as a catharsis to express feel-
ings—initially were controversial but now have become
commonplace.
Ever since Durkheim, anthropologists have emphasized
the pivotal role of social structure (as both matrix and off-
spring) in the symbolic process, but the concrete forms of
many symbols have caused scholars to investigate the ways
that these symbols reflect the visible world of nature. In his
researches on Semitic religions, Robertson Smith suggested
that symbols of divinity, even those clearly wrought by
human hands, were originally drawn from earth symbols.
Mary Douglas has taken a more developed and inventive ap-
proach to natural symbols,, linking the origins of symboliza-
tion to the structure and processes of the human body. She
reminds her colleagues that the modern study of symbols
needs to consider symbols generated by social structures that
may alienate people from themselves, from one another, and
from the earth.
Modern anthropological theory owes much to Claude
Lévi-Strauss and his research in linguistics and depth psy-
chology, particularly in the realm of myth and symbol. In-
stead of the functional approach championed by Malinow-
ski, or the more traditional symbolic approach that described
symbols primarily in terms of their meanings, Lévi-Strauss’s
structuralism resurrected interest in myths and symbols as
phenomena more basic than the meanings they convey, the
social functions they fulfill, or the social systems that give
them shape. Symbols belong to their own systems, he assert-
ed, within which they are subject to certain basic relation-
ships and patterns of transformation. His attempt to locate
a universal human nature in some common, relatively stable
mental structures underlying all variations in behavioral ex-
pression has helped to revive the Romantics’ quest for a gen-
eralized theory and to preserve sensitivity to insights in sym-
bolic theory developed in other disciplines.
DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY. Although some Romantics and others
developed psychological theories of the symbol in the nine-
teenth century, these theories did not gain prominence until
the twentieth century, notably in the work of Freud and
Jung.Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) founded his psychoana-
lytic movement on a theory of symbols whose refinement he
pursued throughout his life. Freud used the dream symbols
of the neurotically disturbed as fundamental data for his the-
ories of how one’s perception of the past is distorted, dis-
placed, condensed, and filtered according to the internal
conscious and unconscious dynamics of the psyche. So star-
tling and compelling were his ideas that by the early years
of the twentieth century they had become essential lessons
for students of symbolism. W. H. R. Rivers (1864–1922)
and Charles Seligman (1873–1940), both British, were
among the first anthropologists to incorporate his ideas into
their ethnographic work. In 1935, Jackson Lincoln made a
daring application of Freud’s method of dream interpreta-
tion to primitive culture; after him, Géza Róheim (1891–
1953) used Freud’s ideas in his studies of myth and folklore.
Freud’s concept of condensation, applied early on by Edward
Sapir (1894–1939), has appeared in the work of such con-
temporaries as Victor Turner and Mary Douglas. Even those
who, like Malinowski, were repelled by Freud’s neglect of so-
cial factors, or who, like Lévi-Strauss, rejected the primacy
Freud gave to the sexual meaning and etiology of symbols,SYMBOL AND SYMBOLISM 8911