What is a good synonym for "sememe" that sounds less like academia jargon?

What is a good synonym for "sememe" that sounds less like academia jargon?

We're using this term to mean, a "unit of meaning" that a UI element of an iOS app should try to communicate.

For example, when the border of a text field is red, and when there is a red (!) symbol next to it, then the color and icon are trying to communicate that there is an error associated with that text field. Thus "error" is a sememe that the UI is trying to communicate.

This doesn't mean "error" is the only sememe being communicated however. In addition, the lack of a blinking insertion point inside the field communicates the field is inactive. Hence, "inactive" is another sememe being communicated by some aspect of the visual appearance of the UI.

We call the cumulative set of all sememes being communicated by some component made up of UI subcomponents (like border, icon, text field, etc.), the "semantic context" of that component. I.e., a set of "sememes" define the "semantic context".

However some of our developers have argued we should not use the term, "sememe", because they say it's an unfamiliar term. Admittedly, unless you have a background in linguistics or semiotics, you're very unlikely to know this word.

So we've begun a bit of a quest to find a synonym of "sememe" that also means "unit of meaning." Please help, thanks.

Suggestions that have already been ruled out:

- "token"

So far the only suggestion that's been made has been "token", however I don't feel "token" is really a synonym of "sememe."

"Token" typically refers to the actual thing that a sememe is associated with. For example the icon (!), is a token, but tokens don't inherently have any meaning, as meaning tends to be imbued to a token differently depending on the culture.

We track meaning separately from tokens in case we need to use a different token depending on the language and region of the user. The process of "localization" in iOS software means, translating tokens in such a way that they can accurately communicate your intended message for the user based on their locale preferences.

In linguistics terms, "token" is a synonym of "morpheme," not of "sememe." Right?

- "definition"

Someone might say, "definition," however, I would typically say that a "sememe" has a definition, not that it is a definition. All of the current sememes in our codebase are represented as single words, for which we provide strict definitions in documentation comments.

Solution 1:

Here are a few ideas:

• semantic feature
• the smallest unit of meaning
• basic / primitive / fundamental / foundational unit of meaning
• semantic prime / primitive
• simple / basic / universal human concept