Saussure argued that the arbitrariness of symbolic signs shows that language draws from a mental capacity separate from speech since, as he believed, symbols appear in other modalities as in writing and sign languages. This mentalist concept had a broad impact which reflects in current hypotheses of the origin of symbolic language. A review of research shows that, contrary to a mentalist concept, non-human primates have the mental resources serving to learn, use, and combine given symbolic signs, but do not develop symbols in the wild. On the other hand, comparative physiology reveals a human-specific ability to control intonation and oral modulations, and evidence shows that this ability links to the development of inherently symbolic signs in speech, contrary to gestural sign languages which develop from non-arbitrary iconic signs.

The chapter discusses how cultural institutions and artefacts affect the shared workspace framework. We first consider the integration of linguistic and non-linguistic information in the shared workspace when interlocutors do such things as jointly constructing flat-pack furniture. We show how the framework is ideally suited for such integration of signs and non-signs as part of the activity. We then consider how different activity types serve to refine dialogue games. Finally we consider how cultural artefacts augment the shared workspace to support alignment. We consider the role of illustration, recording and other communication technologies.