>>547514
Good thing connotations aren't what determine if two words are synonyms or not. Denotations are.
Now, I'm from the Anglosphere. Scots-Canadian. Born and raised. I speak English. I've studied English. I know semiotics. These are terms I'm familiar with through studying English literary exegesis.
I have a subtler knowledge of the technical use of these words than you do. I have a fuller set of denotations and connotations for the words "symbol" and "image" than you do. I'm comfortable in not reifying them down to single denotational words, which they aren't, so I don't get petulant when someone acknowledges the overlapping denotations of these words. You've mistaken my sophistication for ignorance because you yourself are ignorant.
An image is one thing made in the likeness of another. It doesn't have to be a physical object. It doesn't have to be a visual representation. There are mental images. There are literary images. An image can be made to various levels of abstraction. An image can be made out of words. A figure of speech, for example, is an image, and is routinely called an image in literary criticism.
Now, a symbol is one thing that stands for another. Oh look! An image is a symbol. Something made in the likeness of another, that is to say, an image, is used to stand for the thing it is made in the image of, and is thus a symbol. Wow, the same thing, both an image and a symbol. It's like the words are synonyms.
And so the words are synonymous. There is an important conceptual distinction between them, which is why they're different words, but there is overlap in their meaning, and a single thing can be and often is both, so you can see why someone saying, "That's not an image, that's a symbol," is demonstrating a weak grasp on the terms.
A cross is very much an image. It's an object made in the likeness of the cross that Jesus was crucified on. It is also a symbol. A very heavily loaded symbol, representing not just the cross that Jesus was crucified on, but other things as well.
Now, I'm happy to acknowledge you as a fellow native English speaker. An uneducated one, but a fellow Anglophone nonetheless.