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Warning Signs: The Semiotics of Danger
Warning signs are all around us. In ancient Egypt, tombs were lavishly adorned with signs and symbols warning of the dire consequences that would befall any robbers and thieves. And yet these signs were often read as provocations and challenges. Why was this? And how could we more effectively communicate dangers from our world, such as toxic waste, to future civilizations?
This book examines and evaluates the kinds of signs, symbols, narratives and other semiotic strategies humans have used across time to communicate the sense of danger. From paleolithic cave art and ancient monuments to the dangers of nuclear waste, carbon emissions and other pollution, Marcel Danesi explores how danger has been encoded in language, discourse, and symbolism. At the same time, the book puts forward a plan for a more effective 'semiotising' of risk and peril, calling on linguists, semioticians and agencies to face up our collective responsibilities, and work together to more clearly communicate vitally important warnings about the dangers we've left behind to civilizations beyond the semiotic gap.
This book examines and evaluates the kinds of signs, symbols, narratives and other semiotic strategies humans have used across time to communicate the sense of danger. From paleolithic cave art and ancient monuments to the dangers of nuclear waste, carbon emissions and other pollution, Marcel Danesi explores how danger has been encoded in language, discourse, and symbolism. At the same time, the book puts forward a plan for a more effective 'semiotising' of risk and peril, calling on linguists, semioticians and agencies to face up our collective responsibilities, and work together to more clearly communicate vitally important warnings about the dangers we've left behind to civilizations beyond the semiotic gap.
194 pages, Hardcover
Published January 13, 2022
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About the author
Marcel Danesi
276 books33 followersMarcel Danesi (b. Marcello Danesi, 1946) is a current Professor of Semiotics and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He is known for his work in language, communications, and semiotics; being Director of the Program in Semiotics and Communication Theory.
He has also held positions at Rutgers University (1972), The University of Rome "La Sapienza" (1988), the Catholic University of Milan (1990), and the University of Lugano.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies and is a past-president of the Semiotic Society of America.
He has also held positions at Rutgers University (1972), The University of Rome "La Sapienza" (1988), the Catholic University of Milan (1990), and the University of Lugano.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies and is a past-president of the Semiotic Society of America.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 14, 2025
I watched the excellent documentary Into Eternity a few years ago and have been looking for a book about its subject (nuclear semiotics) ever since – found it!
The field of nuclear semiotics was effectively created by a report commissioned of semiotician Thomas Sebeok by the US Department of Energy in 1981. Sebeok’s mission was to come up with a set of recommendations for designing effective warning signage at nuclear waste storage sites which would still be understood by people 10,000 years from now – who wouldn’t likely have any record of modern languages.
Sebeok’s report was published (“Communication Measures to Bridge Ten Millennia”) but as a field, nuclear semiotics has been somewhat dead in the water since then.
The author of this book lays out his goal upfront: “The objective of this book is to extend the reach of nuclear semiotics, applying it to the general study of danger and warning signage, in the hope that it can provide relevant insights on current crises, such as climate change nd the rise of infectious diseases, from the angle of how they are perceived and represented. Nuclear semiotics could be a means to suggest a course of action that will hopefully be beneficial to enhancing human survival.”
The book examines how depictions of danger is perceived by the human brain – and how, evidenced in ancient cave art, humans have been trying to warn each other of danger since our beginnings.
It’s a really interesting problem when you think about it – “The problem of trying to devise a relay warning system that would not decay in meaning over a long stretch of time” as the author puts it – or more precisely, to devise such a warning that would not decay in meaning before the nuclear waste decays in reality.
10,000 years from now, if we haven’t totally gutted the earth and died out, it’s very likely that no modern languages will have survived. How, then, can you relay a complex message to future humans (or other intelligent life even)? Even cross-cultures in the modern world, it’s difficult.
For example, a common warning sign in the Western world is an exclamation mark in a red triangle. Research shows triangles and the colour red and exclamation marks elicit negative associations in Western participants. But in China, for example, people don’t have much negative association with triangles, the “!” is not a symbol in Chinese languages, and the colour red is lucky, not a sign of danger. How much more difficult will it be to communicate across time!
There are some very interesting propositions, though, like:
1. Folklore. Interesting, stories are passed on through generations, even as languages and cultures change. If we made up fairytales and children’s stories that somehow communicated the location of nuclear waste storage facilities, we might just have a chance of keeping that message across time. Indeed, a frequent trope in folklore is that of respecting the earth and the ways that human actions can impact their natural surroundings, and these stories have endured long past their original languages.
2. The slightly bizarre “atomic priesthood.” Sebeok himself suggested the idea, noting the ways religions have survived far past most other cultural elements, passed down mostly unchanged through millennia. His idea is appointing a caste of religious-adjacent figures to remind us of the dangers of nuclear waste and its locations: in other words, “to protect future generations from nuclear fallout, but also to account for evolving languages and social mores, establish a religion whose ‘priests’ pass down knowledge of how to avoid radiation zones. Knowledge, and a healthy bit of fear, zhuzhing the truth to make nuclear fallout akin to a supernatural danger – putting the fear of God, as it were, in our descendents.”
3. Atomic flowers have also been proposed! The idea of using mathematics to encode relevant information about the radiation in the DNA of flowers, which would be planted near radiation zones.
4. The increasingly bizarre – “ray cats” – the idea of creating a breed of cats who would be genetically altered to have their fur change colour when in radiation zones.
5. Good old fashioned pictograms. This is the current idea for most modern nuclear waste storage facilities (like the Okalo facility in Finland that was the subject of Into Eternity) but it’s quite difficult coming up with symbols that aren’t just culturally-mediated and that have true universal resonance and comprehensibility. Also, offensive-looking architecture (like big dark spikes) and reproductions of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream have been proposed.
→ Slightly unrelated, but I loved seeing a reference to Pablo Picasso’s Guernica painting, because I recently finished a book about the Basque people where it also came up, and I love to see random crossovers in my reading!
On the whole – I love the subject of nuclear semiotics and this book did a pretty decent job of laying out the problems and some possible solutions.
The field of nuclear semiotics was effectively created by a report commissioned of semiotician Thomas Sebeok by the US Department of Energy in 1981. Sebeok’s mission was to come up with a set of recommendations for designing effective warning signage at nuclear waste storage sites which would still be understood by people 10,000 years from now – who wouldn’t likely have any record of modern languages.
Sebeok’s report was published (“Communication Measures to Bridge Ten Millennia”) but as a field, nuclear semiotics has been somewhat dead in the water since then.
The author of this book lays out his goal upfront: “The objective of this book is to extend the reach of nuclear semiotics, applying it to the general study of danger and warning signage, in the hope that it can provide relevant insights on current crises, such as climate change nd the rise of infectious diseases, from the angle of how they are perceived and represented. Nuclear semiotics could be a means to suggest a course of action that will hopefully be beneficial to enhancing human survival.”
The book examines how depictions of danger is perceived by the human brain – and how, evidenced in ancient cave art, humans have been trying to warn each other of danger since our beginnings.
It’s a really interesting problem when you think about it – “The problem of trying to devise a relay warning system that would not decay in meaning over a long stretch of time” as the author puts it – or more precisely, to devise such a warning that would not decay in meaning before the nuclear waste decays in reality.
10,000 years from now, if we haven’t totally gutted the earth and died out, it’s very likely that no modern languages will have survived. How, then, can you relay a complex message to future humans (or other intelligent life even)? Even cross-cultures in the modern world, it’s difficult.
For example, a common warning sign in the Western world is an exclamation mark in a red triangle. Research shows triangles and the colour red and exclamation marks elicit negative associations in Western participants. But in China, for example, people don’t have much negative association with triangles, the “!” is not a symbol in Chinese languages, and the colour red is lucky, not a sign of danger. How much more difficult will it be to communicate across time!
There are some very interesting propositions, though, like:
1. Folklore. Interesting, stories are passed on through generations, even as languages and cultures change. If we made up fairytales and children’s stories that somehow communicated the location of nuclear waste storage facilities, we might just have a chance of keeping that message across time. Indeed, a frequent trope in folklore is that of respecting the earth and the ways that human actions can impact their natural surroundings, and these stories have endured long past their original languages.
2. The slightly bizarre “atomic priesthood.” Sebeok himself suggested the idea, noting the ways religions have survived far past most other cultural elements, passed down mostly unchanged through millennia. His idea is appointing a caste of religious-adjacent figures to remind us of the dangers of nuclear waste and its locations: in other words, “to protect future generations from nuclear fallout, but also to account for evolving languages and social mores, establish a religion whose ‘priests’ pass down knowledge of how to avoid radiation zones. Knowledge, and a healthy bit of fear, zhuzhing the truth to make nuclear fallout akin to a supernatural danger – putting the fear of God, as it were, in our descendents.”
3. Atomic flowers have also been proposed! The idea of using mathematics to encode relevant information about the radiation in the DNA of flowers, which would be planted near radiation zones.
4. The increasingly bizarre – “ray cats” – the idea of creating a breed of cats who would be genetically altered to have their fur change colour when in radiation zones.
5. Good old fashioned pictograms. This is the current idea for most modern nuclear waste storage facilities (like the Okalo facility in Finland that was the subject of Into Eternity) but it’s quite difficult coming up with symbols that aren’t just culturally-mediated and that have true universal resonance and comprehensibility. Also, offensive-looking architecture (like big dark spikes) and reproductions of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream have been proposed.
→ Slightly unrelated, but I loved seeing a reference to Pablo Picasso’s Guernica painting, because I recently finished a book about the Basque people where it also came up, and I love to see random crossovers in my reading!
On the whole – I love the subject of nuclear semiotics and this book did a pretty decent job of laying out the problems and some possible solutions.
September 4, 2023
A short and pleasant book about a vast and unpleasant phenomenon...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews