Int erpreting the Signs I don't know about you, but when I was a child (this would have been maybe 3rd grade) I often tried to figure out how my language was created. I have a particularly vivid memory of sitting in a snow cave I had built on a cold carved reclining seat with my flashlight on a little shelf. I was talking out loud and my knitted mittens were soaked through wet, and my puffy blue snow suit zipped up to my chin. I was saying something to the effect of "I will call this an 'arm'... wait first I need the concept of I, (here I grunt and point to myself) so I will call me 'I', now I need a concept of labeling so I will call this 'call', now I need a concept of the future..." and here I start getting brain freeze and start all over again. Language, and this includes the interpretation of visual coding, seemed a huge mystery, and it continues to be that way. In its absolute most basic form social semiotics is the idea that there is a