Arrows can be dangerous

Abstract

Arrow signs find use in professional fields and are a part of everyday practices. The application of arrow signs in scientific literature is briefly explored. A fragment of the arrow's cultural history is outlined and identification of a family of arrow shapes confirms that arrow signs do not have a unique form. The broad arrow is introduced as a sign that has been used in disparate practices, illustrating that signs are embedded in social networks and showing a sign cannot be said to have a unique meaning and is informative or meaningful only when it has a role in a socio-technological system. Within a system a sign acts as a catalyst for a variety of relationships. To unravel some of those relationships an analytical frame-work proposed by Jakobson is applied to a variety of arrow signs. Jakobson's functional categories show that practices incorporating signs are not under the control of the sign maker and occasionally a change in a sign's use can transform an acceptable sign into one that provokes anger or brings ignominy. Such negative effects draw attention to the ethical dimen-sion of signs, or rather the ethics of the practices that encompass signs.