Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (

semiosis Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign ...

) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, usually called a meaning, to the sign's interpreter. The meaning can be intentional such as a word uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, such as a symptom being a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can also communicate feelings (which are usually not considered meanings) and may communicate internally (through thought itself) or through any of the senses:

visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight ...

, auditory,

tactile Tactile may refer to: * Tactile, related to the sense of touch * Haptics (disambiguation) * Tactile (device), a text-to-braille translation device See also * Tangibility, in law * Somatosensory system In physiology, the somatosensory system ...

olfactory The sense of smell, or olfaction, is the special sense through which smells (or odors) are perceived. The sense of smell has many functions, including detecting desirable foods, hazards, and pheromones, and plays a role in taste. In humans, ...

, or

gustatory The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...

(taste). Contemporary semiotics is a branch of science that studies meaning-making and various types of knowledge. The semiotic tradition explores the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communications. Unlike

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

, semiotics also studies non-linguistic

sign system A sign system is a key concept in semiotics and is used to refer to any system of signs and relations between signs. The term ''language'' is frequently used as a synonym for a sign-system. However, the term ''sign-system'' is considered preferab ...

s. Semiotics includes the study of signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness,

analogy Analogy (from Greek ''analogia'', "proportion", from ''ana-'' "upon, according to" lso "against", "anew"+ ''logos'' "ratio" lso "word, speech, reckoning" is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject ...

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...

metonymy Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Etymology The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name ...

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...

ism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is frequently seen as having important

anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

and

sociological Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

dimensions; for example the Italian semiotician and novelist

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of th ...

proposed that every cultural phenomenon may be studied as communication. Some semioticians focus on the

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...

al dimensions of the science, however. They examine areas also belonging to the

life sciences This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, th ...

—such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic

niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development * Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ecology, the ...

in the world (see

). Fundamental semiotic theories take ''signs'' or sign systems as their object of study; applied semiotics analyzes cultures and cultural artifacts according to the ways they construct meaning through their being signs. The communication of information in living organisms is covered in

biosemiotics Biosemiotics (from the Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, p ...

(including

zoosemiotics Zoosemiotics is the semiotic study of the use of signs among animals, more precisely the study of semiosis among animals, i.e. the study of how something comes to function as a sign to some animal. It is the study of animal forms of knowing. Consi ...

and

phytosemiotics Phytosemiotics is a branch of biosemiotics that studies the sign processes in plants, or more broadly, the vegetative semiosis. Vegetative semiosis is a type of sign processes that occurs at cellular and tissue level, including cellular recognition ...

). Semiotics is not to be confused with the

Saussurean Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...

tradition called

semiology Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, ...

, which is a subset of semiotics.

History and terminology

The importance of signs and signification has been recognized throughout much of the history of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

and

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

. The term derives (). For the Greeks, 'signs' occurred in the world of nature and 'symbols' in the world of culture. As such,

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

and

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...

explored the relationship between signs and the world. It would not be until

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

that the nature of the sign would be considered within a conventional system. Augustine introduced a thematic proposal for uniting the two under the notion of 'sign' (''signum'') as transcending the nature-culture divide and identifying symbols as no more than a species (or sub-species) of ''signum''. A monograph study on this question would be done by Manetti (1987).See als
Andrew LaVelle's discussion of Romeo on Peirce-l
These theories have had a lasting effect in

Western philosophy Western philosophy encompasses the philosophy, philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the Pre-Socratic p ...

, especially through scholastic philosophy. The general study of signs that began in Latin with Augustine culminated with the 1632 ''Tractatus de Signis'' of John Poinsot and then began anew in late modernity with the attempt in 1867 by

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for ...

to draw up a "new list of categories". More recently

, in his '' Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language'', has argued that semiotic theories are implicit in the work of most, perhaps all, major thinkers.

John Locke

John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of ...

(1690), himself a man of

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

, was familiar with this 'semeiotics' as naming a specialized branch within medical science. In his personal library were two editions of Scapula's 1579 abridgement of

Henricus Stephanus Henri Estienne (; ; 1528 or 15311598), also known as Henricus Stephanus (), was a French printer and classical scholar. He was the eldest son of Robert Estienne. He was instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by his father and would eventually tak ...

' ''Thesaurus Graecae Linguae'', which listed "σημειωτική" as the name for 'diagnostics', the branch of medicine concerned with interpreting symptoms of disease ("

symptomatology Signs and symptoms are the observed or detectable signs, and experienced symptoms of an illness, injury, or condition. A sign for example may be a higher or lower temperature than normal, raised or lowered blood pressure or an abnormality showin ...

"). Indeed, physician and scholar

Henry Stubbe Henry Stubbe or Stubbes (1632–12 July, 1676) was an English Royal physician, Latinist, Historian, Dissident, Writer and Scholar. Life He was born in Partney, Lincolnshire, and educated at Westminster School. Given patronage as a child by the ...

(1670) had transliterated this term of specialized science into English precisely as "''semeiotics''," marking the first use of the term in English:Locke would use the term ''sem(e)iotike'' in ''

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' is a work by John Locke concerning the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It first appeared in 1689 (although dated 1690) with the printed title ''An Essay Concerning Humane Understan ...

'' (book IV, chap. 21),Locke (1700) uses the Greek word in th
4th edition
of his ''Essay concerning Human Understanding'' (p. 437). He notably writes both (a) "σημιωτικὴ" and (b) "Σημιωτική": when term (a) is followed by any kind of punctuation mark, it takes the form (b). In Chapter XX, titled "Division of the Sciences," which concludes the 1st edition of Locke's ''Essay'' (1689/1690), Locke introduces "σημιωτική" in § 4 as his proposed name synonymous with "''the Doctrine of Signs''" for the development of the future study of the ubiquitous role of signs within human awareness. In the 4th edition of Locke's ''Essay'' (1700), a new Chapter XIX, titled "Of Enthusiasm," is inserted into Book IV. As result, Chapter XX of the 1st edition becomes Chapter XXI for all subsequent editions. It is an important fact that Locke's proposal for the development of semiotics, with three passing exceptions as "asides" in the writings of Berkeley,

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ma ...

, and Condillac, "is met with a resounding silence that lasts as long as modernity itself. Even Locke's devoted late modern editor,

Alexander Campbell Fraser Alexander Campbell Fraser (3 September 1819 – 2 December 1914) was a Scottish theologian and philosopher. Life He was born in the manse at Ardchattan, Argyll, the son of the parish minister, Rev Hugh Fraser, and his wife, Maria Helen Camp ...

, dismisses out of hand 'this crude and superficial scheme of Locke'" Deely adds "Locke's modest proposal subversive of the way of ideas, its reception, and its bearing on the resolution of an ancient and a modern controversy in logic." In the Oxford University Press critical edition (1975), prepared and introduced by Peter Harold Nidditch, Nidditch tells us, in his "Foreword," that he presents us with "a complete, critically established, and unmodernized text that aims at being historically faithful to Locke's final intentions"; that "the present text is based on the original fourth edition of the ''Essay''; and that "readings in the other early authorized editions are adopted, in appropriate form, where necessary, and recorded otherwise in the textual notes." The term "σημιωτική" appears in that 4th edition (1700), the last published (but not the last prepared) within Locke's lifetime, with exactly the spelling and final accent found in the 1st edition. Yet if we turn to (the final) chapter XXI of the Oxford edition (1975, p. 720), we find not "σημιωτικὴ" but rather do we find substituted the "σημειωτικὴ" spelling (and with final accent reversed). Note that in

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...

and in some systems for pronouncing classical Greek, "σημιωτική" and "σημειωτική" are pronounced the same. in which he explains how science may be divided into three parts: Locke, John. 1963

823 __NOTOC__ Year 823 ( DCCCXXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Emperor Michael II defeats the rebel forces under Thomas the Sla ...

.'' Locke then elaborates on the nature of this third category, naming it "Σημειωτική" (''Semeiotike''), and explaining it as "the doctrine of signs" in the following terms:

Juri Lotman Juri Lotman (russian: Ю́рий Миха́йлович Ло́тман; 28 February 1922 – 28 October 1993) was a prominent Russian-Estonian literary scholar, semiotician, and historian of Russian culture, who worked at the University of Tart ...

would introduce Eastern Europe to semiotics and adopt Locke's coinage ("Σημειωτική") as the name to subtitle his founding at the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...

in 1964 of the first semiotics journal, ''

Sign Systems Studies ''Sign Systems Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal on semiotics edited at the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu and published by the University of Tartu Press. It is the oldest periodical in the field. It was initially ...

''.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wide ...

founded his semiotics, which he called

, in the social sciences: Thomas SebeokThe whole anthology, ''Frontiers in Semiotics'', was devoted to the documentation of this ''pars pro toto'' move of Sebeok would assimilate "semiology" to "semiotics" as a part to a whole, and was involved in choosing the name '' Semiotica'' for the first international journal devoted to the study of signs. Saussurean semiotics have exercised a great deal of influence on the schools of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism.

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed th ...

, for example, takes as his object the Saussurean relationship of signifier and signified, asserting that signifier and signified are not fixed, coining the expression ''différance'', relating to the endless deferral of meaning, and to the absence of a 'transcendent signified'.

Charles Sanders Peirce

In the nineteenth century,

defined what he termed "semiotic" (which he would sometimes spell as "semeiotic") as the "quasi-necessary, or formal doctrine of signs," which abstracts "what must be the characters of all signs used by…an intelligence capable of learning by experience," and which is philosophical logic pursued in terms of signs and sign processes. Peirce's perspective is considered as philosophical logic studied in terms of signs that are not always linguistic or artificial, and sign processes, modes of inference, and the inquiry process in general. The Peircean semiotic addresses not only the external communication mechanism, as per Saussure, but the internal representation machine, investigating sign processes, and modes of inference, as well as the whole inquiry process in general. Peircean semiotic is triadic, including sign, object, interpretant, as opposed to the dyadic Saussurian tradition (signifier, signified). Peircean semiotics further subdivides each of the three triadic elements into three sub-types, positing the existence of signs that are symbols; semblances ("icons"); and "indices," i.e., signs that are such through a factual connection to their objects. Peircean scholar and editor Max H. Fisch (1978)Max Fisch has compiled Peirce-related bibliographical supplements in 1952, 1964, 1966, 1974; was consulting editor on the 1977 microfilm of Peirce's published works and on the ''Comprehensive Bibliography'' associated with it; was among the main editors of the first five volumes of ''Writings of Charles S. Peirce'' (1981–1993); and wrote a number of published articles on Peirce, many collected in 1986 in ''Peirce, Semeiotic, and Pragmatism.'' See also

Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography This Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography consolidates numerous references to the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, including letters, manuscripts, publications, and . For an extensive chronological list of Peirce's works (titled in English), se ...

. would claim that "semeiotic" was Peirce's own preferred rendering of Locke's σημιωτική. Charles W. Morris followed Peirce in using the term "semiotic" and in extending the discipline beyond human communication to animal learning and use of signals. While the Saussurean semiotic is dyadic (sign/syntax, signal/semantics), the Peircean semiotic is triadic (sign, object, interpretant), being conceived as philosophical logic studied in terms of signs that are not always linguistic or artificial.

Peirce's list of categories

Peirce would aim to base his new list directly upon experience precisely as constituted by action of signs, in contrast with the list of Aristotle's categories which aimed to articulate within experience the dimension of being that is independent of experience and knowable as such, through human understanding. The estimative powers of animals interpret the environment as sensed to form a "meaningful world" of objects, but the objects of this world (or "Umwelt", in

Jakob von Uexküll Jakob may refer to: People * Jakob (given name), including a list of people with the name * Jakob (surname), including a list of people with the name Other * Jakob (band), a New Zealand band, and the title of their 1999 EP * Max Jakob Memorial Aw ...

's term) consist exclusively of objects related to the animal as desirable (+), undesirable (–), or "safe to ignore" (0). In contrast to this, human understanding adds to the animal "Umwelt" a relation of self-identity within objects which transforms objects experienced into ''things'' as well as +, –, 0 objects. Heidegger, Martin. 1962

927 Year 927 ( CMXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * May 27 – Simeon I, emperor ('' tsar'') of the Bulgarian Empire, dies of heart fai ...

Being and Time ''Being and Time'' (german: Sein und Zeit) is the 1927 '' magnum opus'' of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and a key document of existentialism. ''Being and Time'' had a notable impact on subsequent philosophy, literary theory and many oth ...

'', translated by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. New York:

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

. p. 487."The distinction between the being of existing Dasein and the Being of entities, such as Reality, which do not have the character of Dasein...is nothing with which philosophy may tranquilize itself. It has long been known that ancient ontology works with 'Thing-concepts' and that there is a danger of 'reifying consciousness'. But what does this 'reifying' signify? Where does it arise? Why does Being get 'conceived' 'proximally' in terms of the present-at-hand ''and not'' in terms of the ready-to-hand, which indeed lies ''closer'' to us? ''Why'' does reifying always keep coming back to exercise its dominion?" This is the question that the Umwelt/Lebenswelt distinction as here drawn answers to." (

Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

1962/1927:486) Thus, the generically animal objective world as "Umwelt", becomes a species-specifically human objective world or "Lebenswelt" (life-world), wherein linguistic communication, rooted in the biologically underdetermined "Innenwelt" (inner-world) of humans, makes possible the further dimension of cultural organization within the otherwise merely social organization of non-human animals whose powers of observation may deal only with directly sensible instances of objectivity. This further point, that human culture depends upon language understood first of all not as communication, but as the biologically underdetermined aspect or feature of the human animal's "Innenwelt", was originally clearly identified by

Thomas A. Sebeok Thomas Albert Sebeok ( hu, Sebők Tamás, ; 1920–2001) was a Hungarian-born American polymath,Cobley, Paul; Deely, John; Kull, Kalevi; Petrilli, Susan (eds.) (2011). Semiotics Continues to Astonish: Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs'. ...

. Sebeok also played the central role in bringing Peirce's work to the center of the semiotic stage in the twentieth century,Detailed demonstration of Sebeok's role of the global emergence of semiotics is recorded in at least three recent volumes: (1) ''Semiotics Seen Synchronically. The View from 2010'' (Ottawa: Legas, 2010). (2) ''Semiotics Continues To Astonish. Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs'' (Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 2011)—a 526-page assemblage of essays, vignettes, letters, pictures attesting to the depth and extent of Sebeok's promotion of semiotic understanding around the world, including his involvement with Juri Lotman and the Tartu University graduate program in semiotics (currently directed by P. Torop, M. Lotman and K. Kull). (3) Sebeok's ''Semiotic Prologues'' (Ottawa: Legas, 2012)—a volume which gathers together in Part I all the "prologues" (i.e., introductions, prefaces, forewords, etc.) that Sebeok wrote for other peoples' books, then in Part 2 all the "prologues" that other people wrote for Sebeok. first with his expansion of the human use of signs ("''anthroposemiosis''") to include also the generically animal sign-usage ("''zoösemiosis''"),See Sebeok, Thomas A. "Communication in Animals and Men." A review article that covers three books: Martin Lindauer, ''Communication among Social Bees'' (Harvard Books in Biology, No. 2; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961, pp. ix + 143); Winthrop N. Kellogg, Porpoises and Sonar (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1961, pp. xiv + 177); and John C. Lilly, ''Man and Dolphin'' (Garden City, New York: Doubleday), in ''Language'' 39 (1963), 448–466. then with his further expansion of semiosis to include the vegetative world ("''phytosemiosis''"). Such would initially be based on the work of

Martin Krampen Martin Krampen (March 9, 1928 in Siegen – June 18, 2015 in Ulm) was a leading German semiotician, semiotics Professor in Göttingen. Biography The son of a Protestant pastor, Krampen was born on March 9, 1928 in Siegen and was raised in Wupper ...

, but takes advantage of Peirce's point that an interpretant, as the third item within a sign relation, "need not be mental." Peirce distinguished between the interpretant and the interpreter. The interpretant is the internal, mental representation that mediates between the object and its sign. The interpreter is the human who is creating the interpretant. Peirce's "interpretant" notion opened the way to understanding an action of signs beyond the realm of animal life (study of "phytosemiosis" + "zoösemiosis" + "anthroposemiosis" = ''biosemiotics''), which was his first advance beyond Latin Age semiotics.For a summary of Peirce's contributions to semiotics, see Liszka (1996) or Atkin (2006). Other early theorists in the field of semiotics include Charles W. Morris. Writing in 1951,

Jozef Maria Bochenski Jozef or Józef is a Dutch, Breton, Polish and Slovak version of masculine given name Joseph. A selection of people with that name follows. For a comprehensive list see and .. * Józef Beck (1894–1944), Polish foreign minister in the 1930s ...

surveyed the field in this way: "Closely related to mathematical logic is the so-called semiotics (Charles Morris) which is now commonly employed by mathematical logicians. Semiotics is the theory of symbols and falls in three parts, (1) logical syntax, the theory of the mutual relations of symbols, (2) logical semantics, the theory of the relations between the symbol and what the symbol stands for, and (3) logical pragmatics, the relations between symbols, their meanings and the users of the symbols."

Max Black Max Black (24 February 1909 – 27 August 1988) was an Azerbaijani-born British-American philosopher who was a leading figure in analytic philosophy in the years after World War II. He made contributions to the philosophy of language, the philo ...

argued that the work of

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

was seminal in the field.

Formulations and subfields

Semioticians classify signs or sign systems in relation to the way they are transmitted (see

modality Modality may refer to: Humanities * Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations * Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales * Modaliti ...

). This process of carrying meaning depends on the use of

codes In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

that may be the individual sounds or letters that humans use to form words, the body movements they make to show attitude or emotion, or even something as general as the clothes they wear. To

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order ...

a word to refer to a ''thing'' (see lexical words), the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, t ...

must agree on a simple meaning (a

denotative In linguistics and philosophy, the denotation of an expression is its literal meaning. For instance, the English language, English word "warm" denotes the Property_(philosophy), property of being warm. Denotation is contrasted with other aspects of ...

meaning) within their language, but that word can transmit that meaning only within the language's grammatical structures and codes (see

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...

and

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

). Codes also represent the

values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...

of the

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

, and are able to add new shades of

connotation A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation. A connotation is frequently described as either positive ...

to every aspect of life. To explain the relationship between semiotics and

communication studies Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in different ...

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

is defined as the process of transferring data and-or meaning from a source to a receiver. Hence, communication theorists construct models based on codes, media, and contexts to explain the

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

, and

mechanics Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to objec ...

involved. Both disciplines recognize that the technical process cannot be separated from the fact that the receiver must

decode Decoding or decode may refer to: is the process of converting code into plain text or any format that is useful for subsequent processes. Science and technology * Decoding, the reverse of encoding * Parsing, in computer science * Digital-to-analog ...

the data, i.e., be able to distinguish the data as salient, and make meaning out of it. This implies that there is a necessary overlap between semiotics and communication. Indeed, many of the concepts are shared, although in each field the emphasis is different. In ''Messages and Meanings: An Introduction to Semiotics'',

Marcel Danesi Marcel Danesi (born 1946) is Professor of Semiotics and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He is known for his work in language, communications and semiotics and is Director of the program in semiotics and communication theory. H ...

(1994) suggested that semioticians' priorities were to study signification first, and communication second. A more extreme view is offered by

Jean-Jacques Nattiez Jean-Jacques Nattiez (; born December 30, 1945 in Amiens, France) is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of musicology at the Université de Montréal. He studied semiology with Georges Mounin and Jean Molino and music semiolog ...

who, as a

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...

, considered the theoretical study of communication irrelevant to his application of semiotics.

Syntactics

Semiotics differs from

in that it generalizes the definition of a sign to encompass signs in any medium or sensory modality. Thus it broadens the range of sign systems and sign relations, and extends the definition of language in what amounts to its widest analogical or metaphorical sense. The branch of semiotics that deals with such formal relations between signs or expressions in abstraction from their signification and their interpreters, or—more generally—with formal properties of symbol systems (specifically, with reference to linguistic signs,

) is referred to as syntactics. Peirce's definition of the term "semiotic" as the study of necessary features of signs also has the effect of distinguishing the discipline from linguistics as the study of contingent features that the world's languages happen to have acquired in the course of their evolutions. From a subjective standpoint, perhaps more difficult is the distinction between semiotics and the

philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy of language), meanin ...

. In a sense, the difference lies between separate traditions rather than subjects. Different authors have called themselves "philosopher of language" or "semiotician." This difference does ''not'' match the separation between

analytic Generally speaking, analytic (from el, ἀναλυτικός, ''analytikos'') refers to the "having the ability to analyze" or "division into elements or principles". Analytic or analytical can also have the following meanings: Chemistry * ...

and

continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Pri ...

. On a closer look, there may be found some differences regarding subjects. Philosophy of language pays more attention to

natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...

s or to languages in general, while semiotics is deeply concerned with non-linguistic signification. Philosophy of language also bears connections to linguistics, while semiotics might appear closer to some of the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at t ...

(including

literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mor ...

) and to

cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...

Cognitive semiotics

Semiosis or ''semeiosis'' is the process that forms meaning from any organism's apprehension of the world through signs. Scholars who have talked about semiosis in their subtheories of semiotics include C. S. Peirce,

John Deely John Deely (April 26, 1942 – January 7, 2017) was an American philosopher and semiotician. He was a professor of philosophy at Saint Vincent College and Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Prior to this, he held the Rudman Chair of Gra ...

, and

. Cognitive semiotics is combining methods and theories developed in the disciplines of semiotics and the humanities, with providing new information into human signification and its manifestation in cultural practices. The research on cognitive semiotics brings together semiotics from linguistics, cognitive science, and related disciplines on a common meta-theoretical platform of concepts, methods, and shared data.

Cognitive semiotics Cognitive semiotics is the study model of meaning-making, applying methods and theories from semiotics, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, computational modeling, anthropology, philosophy and other sciences. Contrary to classical cognit ...

may also be seen as the study of

meaning-making In psychology, meaning-making is the process of how people construe, understand, or make sense of life events, relationships, and the self. The term is widely used in constructivist approaches to counseling psychology and psychotherapy, especial ...

by employing and integrating methods and theories developed in the cognitive sciences. This involves conceptual and textual analysis as well as experimental investigations. Cognitive semiotics initially was developed at the Center for Semiotics at

Aarhus University Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...

(

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

), with an important connection with the Center of Functionally Integrated Neuroscience (CFIN) at Aarhus Hospital. Amongst the prominent cognitive semioticians are

Per Aage Brandt Per Aage Brandt (; 26 April 1944 – 11 November 2021) was a Danish writer, poet, linguist and musician, born in Buenos Aires. He got his Master of Arts in Romance Philology from the University of Copenhagen (1971) & held a Doctorate of Semiotics ...

, Svend Østergaard, Peer Bundgård,

Frederik Stjernfelt Frederik Stjernfelt (born July 6, 1957) is a Danish professor and writer. As a professor, he lectures in science studies, history of ideas, and semiotics, at Aalborg University's Copenhagen department. Career Stjernfelt has been working ...

, Mikkel Wallentin, Kristian Tylén, Riccardo Fusaroli, and Jordan Zlatev. Zlatev later in co-operation with Göran Sonesson established CCS (Center for Cognitive Semiotics) at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Baudrillardian Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...

world of ubiquitous technology. Its central move is to place the finiteness of thought at the root of semiotics and the sign as a secondary but fundamental analytical construct. The theory contends that the levels of reproduction that technology is bringing to human environments demands this reprioritisation if semiotics is to remain relevant in the face of effectively infinite signs. The shift in emphasis allows practical definitions of many core constructs in semiotics which Shackell has applied to areas such as

human computer interaction Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

creativity Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed lit ...

theory, and a

computational semiotics Computational semiotics is an interdisciplinary field that applies, conducts, and draws on research in logic, mathematics, the theory and practice of computation, formal and natural language studies, the cognitive sciences generally, and semio ...

method for generating semiotic squares from digital texts.

Pictorial semiotics

Pictorial semiotics is intimately connected to art history and theory. It goes beyond them both in at least one fundamental way, however. While

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

has limited its visual analysis to a small number of pictures that qualify as "works of art", pictorial semiotics focuses on the properties of pictures in a general sense, and on how the artistic conventions of images can be interpreted through pictorial codes. Pictorial codes are the way in which viewers of pictorial representations seem automatically to decipher the artistic conventions of images by being unconsciously familiar with them. According to Göran Sonesson, a Swedish semiotician, pictures can be analyzed by three models: (a) the narrative model, which concentrates on the relationship between pictures and time in a chronological manner as in a comic strip; (b) the rhetoric model, which compares pictures with different devices as in a metaphor; and (c) the Laokoon model, which considers the limits and constraints of pictorial expressions by comparing textual mediums that utilize time with visual mediums that utilize space. The break from traditional art history and theory—as well as from other major streams of semiotic analysis—leaves open a wide variety of possibilities for pictorial semiotics. Some influences have been drawn from phenomenological analysis, cognitive psychology, structuralist, and cognitivist linguistics, and visual anthropology and sociology.

Globalization

Studies have shown that semiotics may be used to make or break a

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

Culture code Cultural code refers to several related concepts about the body of shared practices, expectations and conventions specific to a given domain of a culture. Under one interpretation, a cultural code is seen as defining a set of images that are ass ...

s strongly influence whether a population likes or dislikes a brand's marketing, especially internationally. If the company is unaware of a culture's codes, it runs the risk of failing in its marketing.

Globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

has caused the development of a global consumer culture where products have similar associations, whether positive or negative, across numerous markets. Mistranslations may lead to instances of "

Engrish ''Engrish'' is a slang term for the inaccurate, nonsensical or ungrammatical use of the English language by native speakers of Japanese, as well as Chinese and other Asian languages. The word itself relates to Japanese speakers' tendency to ...

" or "

Chinglish Chinglish is slang for spoken or written English language that is either influenced by a Chinese language, or is poorly translated. In Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong and Guangxi, the term "Chinglish" refers mainly to Cantonese-influenced English. ...

", terms for unintentionally humorous cross-cultural slogans intended to be understood in English. This may be caused by a sign that, in Peirce's terms, mistakenly indexes or symbolizes something in one culture, that it does not in another. In other words, it creates a connotation that is culturally-bound, and that violates some culture code. Theorists who have studied humor (such as

Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the pr ...

) suggest that contradiction or incongruity creates absurdity and therefore, humor. Violating a culture code creates this construct of ridiculousness for the culture that owns the code. Intentional humor also may fail cross-culturally because jokes are not on code for the receiving culture. A good example of branding according to cultural code is

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

's international

theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

business. Disney fits well with

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

's cultural code because the Japanese value "cuteness", politeness, and gift giving as part of their culture code;

Tokyo Disneyland (local nickname ''TDL'') is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo. Its main gate is directly adjacent to both Maihama Station and Tokyo Disneyland Station. It was the first Disney park to ...

sells the most souvenirs of any Disney theme park. In contrast,

Disneyland Paris Disneyland Paris is an entertainment resort in Chessy, Seine-et-Marne, Chessy, France, east of Paris. It encompasses two theme parks, resort hotels, Disney Nature Resorts, a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, and a golf course. Disney ...

failed when it launched as Euro Disney because the company did not research the codes underlying European culture. Its storybook retelling of European folktales was taken as

elitist Elitism is the belief or notion that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people perceived as having an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, power, notability, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be constr ...

and insulting, and the strict appearance standards that it had for employees resulted in discrimination lawsuits in France. Disney souvenirs were perceived as cheap trinkets. The park was a financial failure because its code violated the expectations of European culture in ways that were offensive. On the other hand, some researchers have suggested that it is possible to successfully pass a sign perceived as a cultural icon, such as the

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance bar, temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pembe ...

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...

s, from one culture to another. This may be accomplished if the sign is migrated from a more economically-developed to a less developed culture. The intentional association of a product with another culture has been called Foreign Consumer Culture Positioning (FCCP). Products also may be marketed using global trends or culture codes, for example, saving time in a busy world; but even these may be fine-tuned for specific cultures. Research also found that, as airline industry brandings grow and become more international, their logos become more symbolic and less iconic. The iconicity and symbolism of a sign depends on the cultural convention and, are on that ground in relation with each other. If the cultural convention has greater influence on the sign, the signs get more symbolic value.

Semiotics of dreaming

The flexibility of human semiotics is well demonstrated in dreams.

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

spelled out how meaning in dreams rests on a blend of images, effects, sounds, words, and kinesthetic sensations. In his chapter on "The Means of Representation," he showed how the most abstract sorts of meaning and logical relations can be represented by spatial relations. Two images in sequence may indicate "if this, then that" or "despite this, that." Freud thought the dream started with "dream thoughts" which were like logical, verbal sentences. He believed that the dream thought was in the nature of a taboo wish that would awaken the dreamer. In order to safeguard sleep, the midbrain converts and disguises the verbal dream thought into an imagistic form, through processes he called the "dream-work."

List of subfields

Subfields that have sprouted out of semiotics include, but are not limited to, the following: *

Biosemiotics Biosemiotics (from the Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, p ...

: the study of semiotic processes at all levels of biology, or a semiotic study of living systems (e.g., Copenhagen–Tartu School). Annual meetings ("Gatherings in Biosemiotics") have been held since 2001. *

Semiotic anthropology The phrase "semiotic anthropology" was first used by Milton Singer (1978). Singer's work brought together the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce and Roman Jakobson with theoretical streams that had long been flowing in and around the University o ...

and

anthropological semantics Contextualism, also known as epistemic contextualism, is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the ''context'' in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the a ...

. *

: the study of meaning-making by employing and integrating methods and theories developed in the cognitive sciences. This involves conceptual and textual analysis as well as experimental investigations. Cognitive semiotics initially was developed at the Center for Semiotics at

(Denmark), with an important connection with the Center of Functionally Integrated Neuroscience (CFIN) at Aarhus Hospital. Amongst the prominent cognitive semioticians are

, Svend Østergaard, Peer Bundgård, Frederik Stjernfelt, Mikkel Wallentin, Kristian Tylén, Riccardo Fusaroli, and Jordan Zlatev. Zlatev later in co-operation with Göran Sonesson established the Center for Cognitive Semiotics (CCS) at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion Comics semiotics Comics studies (also comic art studies, sequential art studies or graphic narrative studies) is an academic field that focuses on comics and sequential art. Although comics and graphic novels have been generally dismissed as less relevant pop cul ...

: the study of the various codes and signs of comics and how they are understood. *

Computational semiotics Computational semiotics is an interdisciplinary field that applies, conducts, and draws on research in logic, mathematics, the theory and practice of computation, formal and natural language studies, the cognitive sciences generally, and semio ...

: attempts to engineer the process of semiosis, in the study of and design for

human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design te ...

or to mimic aspects of human

cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, though ...

through

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...

and

knowledge representation Knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, KR²) is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to representing information about the world in a form that a computer system can use to solve complex tasks such as diagnosing a medic ...

. See also ''cybercognition''. *

Cultural Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.T ...

and

literary semiotics Semiotic literary criticism, also called literary semiotics, is the approach to literary criticism informed by the theory of signs or semiotics. Semiotics, tied closely to the structuralism pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, was extremely influent ...

: examines the literary world, the visual media, the mass media, and advertising in the work of writers such as

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western pop ...

, and

(e.g.,

Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School The Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School is a scientific school of thought in the field of semiotics that was formed in 1964 and led by Juri Lotman. Among the other members of this school were Boris Uspensky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Vladimir Toporov, Mikh ...

). *: built on two already-generated interdisciplinary approaches: cybernetics and systems theory, including

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

and science; and Peircean semiotics, including phenomenology and pragmatic aspects of linguistics, attempts to make the two interdisciplinary paradigms—both going beyond mechanistic and pure constructivist ideas—complement each other in a common framework. *Design semiotics or product semiotics: the study of the use of signs in the design of physical products; introduced by

and in a practitioner-oriented version by Rune Monö while teaching

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufactu ...

at the Institute of Design,

Umeå University Umeå University ( sv, Umeå universitet; Ume Sami: ) is a public research university located in Umeå, in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present borders. As of ...

, Sweden. * Ethnosemiotics: a disciplinary perspective which links semiotics concepts to ethnographic methods. * Film semiotics: the study of the various codes and signs of film and how they are understood. Key figures include Christian Metz. * Finite semiotics: an approach to the semiotics of technology developed by Cameron Shackell. It is used to both trace the effects of technology on human thought and to develop computational methods for performing semiotic analysis. * Gregorian chant semiology: a current avenue of palaeographical research in

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe dur ...

which is revising the Solesmes school of interpretation. *Law and semiotics: one of the more accomplished publications in this field is the ''International Journal for the Semiotics of Law'', published by

International Association for the Semiotics of Law International Association for the Semiotics of Law is a philosophical society founded in 1987 whose purpose is to promote semiotic analysis of the law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental i ...

. *Marketing semiotics (or commercial semiotics): an application of semiotic methods and semiotic thinking to the analysis and development of advertising and brand communications in cultural context. Key figures include Virginia Valentine, Malcolm Evans, Greg Rowland, Georgios Rossolatos. International annual conferences ( Semiofest) have been held since 2012. *

Music semiology Music semiology ( semiotics) is the study of signs as they pertain to music on a variety of levels. Overview Following Roman Jakobson, Kofi Agawu adopts the idea of musical semiosis being introversive or extroversive—that is, musical signs wit ...

: the study of signs as they pertain to music on a variety of levels. * Organisational semiotics: the study of semiotic processes in organizations (with strong ties to

and human–computer interaction). * Pictorial semiotics: an application of semiotic methods and semiotic thinking to art history. *

Semiotics of music videos Semiotics of music videos is the observation of symbolism used within music videos. Overview Semiotics in popular music, or mesomusica, is different from semiotics in other musical forms, because pop music denotes a cultural object (Matusitz, 2004 ...

: semiotics in popular music. *

Social semiotics Social semiotics (also social semantics) is a branch of the field of semiotics which investigates human signifying practices in specific social and cultural circumstances, and which tries to explain meaning-making as a social practice. Semiotics ...

: expands the interpretable semiotic landscape to include all cultural codes, such as in

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gr ...

, fashion, tattoos, and advertising. Key figures include

Michael Halliday Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (often M. A. K. Halliday; 13 April 1925 – 15 April 2018) was a British linguist who developed the internationally influential systemic functional linguistics (SFL) model of language. His grammatical descr ...

, Bob Hodge,

Chris William Martin Christopher William Martin (born January 17, 1975), also known as Corky Martin or Chris Martin, is a Canadian actor.Glen Schaefer, "Felicity's hair-raiser: Vancouver actor Chris Martin's job was to stir the pot and divert attention from star Keri ...

and Christian Metz. *

Structuralism In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader s ...

and

post-structuralism Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...

in the work of

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

Louis Hjelmslev Louis Trolle Hjelmslev (; 3 October 189930 May 1965) was a Danish linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Copenhagen School of linguistics. Born into an academic family (his father was the mathematician Johannes Hjelmslev), Hjelmslev studie ...

Roman Jakobson Roman Osipovich Jakobson (russian: Рома́н О́сипович Якобсо́н; October 11, 1896Kucera, Henry. 1983. "Roman Jakobson." ''Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America'' 59(4): 871–883. – July 18,Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and ...

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthr ...

, etc. *: an application of semiotic methods and semiotic thinking to

theatre studies Theatre studies (sometimes referred to as theatrology or dramatics) is the study of theatrical performance in relation to its literary, physical, psychobiological, sociological, and historical contexts. It is an interdisciplinary field which also e ...

. Key figures include Keir Elam. *

Urban semiotics Urban semiotics is the study of meaning in urban form as generated by signs, symbols, and their social connotations. Overview Most urban semiotic theory is based on social semiotics, which considers social connotations, including meanings related ...

: the study of meaning in urban form as generated by signs, symbols, and their social connotations. *

Visual semiotics Visual semiotics is a sub-domain of semiotics that analyses the way visual images communicate a message. Studies of meaning evolve from semiotics, a philosophical approach that seeks to interpret messages in terms of signs and patterns of symboli ...

: analyses visual signs; prominent modern founders to this branch are

Groupe µ A group is a military unit or a military formation that is most often associated with military aviation. Air and aviation groups The terms group and wing differ significantly from one country to another, as well as between different branches o ...

and Göran Sonesson (see also

visual rhetoric Visual rhetoric is the art of effective communication through visual elements such as images, typography, and texts. Visual rhetoric encompasses the skill of visual literacy and the ability to analyze images for their form and meaning. Drawing on ...

). *

Semiotics of photography Semiotics is the study of meaning-making on the basis of signs. Semiotics of photography is the observation of symbolism used within photography or "reading" the picture. This article refers to realistic, unedited photographs not those that have b ...

: is the observation of symbolism used within photography. *

Artificial Intelligence Semiotics Artificiality (the state of being artificial or manmade) is the state of being the product of intentional human manufacture, rather than occurring naturally through processes not involving or requiring human activity. Connotations Artificiality ...

: is the observation of visual symbols and such symbols recognition by machine learning systems. The phrase was coined by Daniel Hoeg in Semiotics Mobility's design process for autonomous recognition and perception. The phrase also refers to machine learning and neural nets application of semiotic methods and semiotic machine learning to the analysis and development of robotics commands and instructions with subsystem communications in autonomous systems context. * Semiotics of Mathematics: the study of signs, symbols, sign systems and their structure, meaning and use in mathematics and mathematics education.

Notable semioticians

Exemple de signalement visuel du statut social chez un Cichlidé

(1839–1914), a noted logician who founded philosophical

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

, defined ''semiosis'' as an irreducibly triadic process wherein something, as an object, logically determines or influences something as a sign to determine or influence something as an interpretation or ''interpretant'', itself a sign, thus leading to further interpretants. Semiosis is logically structured to perpetuate itself. The object may be quality, fact, rule, or even fictional (

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

), and may be "immediate" to the sign, the object as represented in the sign, or "dynamic", the object as it really is, on which the immediate object is founded. The interpretant may be "immediate" to the sign, all that the sign immediately expresses, such as a word's usual meaning; or "dynamic", such as a state of agitation; or "final" or "normal", the ultimate ramifications of the sign about its object, to which inquiry taken far enough would be destined and with which any interpretant, at most, may coincide. His ''semiotic'' covered not only artificial, linguistic, and symbolic signs, but also semblances such as kindred sensible qualities, and indices such as reactions. He came c. 1903 to classify any sign by three interdependent trichotomies, intersecting to form ten (rather than 27) classes of sign. Signs also enter into various kinds of meaningful combinations; Peirce covered both semantic and syntactical issues in his speculative grammar. He regarded formal semiotic as logic ''per se'' and part of philosophy; as also encompassing study of arguments (

hypothetical A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obser ...

deductive Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be fals ...

, and inductive) and inquiry's methods including pragmatism; and as allied to, but distinct from logic's pure mathematics. In addition to pragmatism, Peirce provided a definition of "sign" as a ''representamen'', in order to bring out the fact that a sign is something that "represents" something else in order to suggest it (that is, "re-present" it) in some way:

(1857–1913), the "father" of modern

, proposed a dualistic notion of signs, relating the ''signifier'' as the form of the word or phrase uttered, to the ''signified'' as the mental concept. According to Saussure, the sign is completely arbitrary—i.e., there is no necessary connection between the sign and its meaning. This sets him apart from previous philosophers, such as

or the

scholastics Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translate ...

, who thought that there must be some connection between a signifier and the object it signifies. In his ''

Course in General Linguistics ''Course in General Linguistics'' (french: Cours de linguistique générale) is a book compiled by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye from notes on lectures given by historical-comparative linguist Ferdinand de Saussure at the University of Gen ...

'', Saussure credits the American linguist

William Dwight Whitney William Dwight Whitney (February 9, 1827June 7, 1894) was an American linguist, philologist, and lexicographer known for his work on Sanskrit grammar and Vedic philology as well as his influential view of language as a social institution. He was ...

(1827–1894) with insisting on the arbitrary nature of the sign. Saussure's insistence on the arbitrariness of the sign also has influenced later philosophers and theorists such as

, and

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as ...

. Ferdinand de Saussure coined the term ''sémiologie'' while teaching his landmark "Course on General Linguistics" at the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...

from 1906 to 1911. Saussure posited that no word is inherently meaningful. Rather a word is only a "signifier." i.e., the representation of something, and it must be combined in the brain with the "signified", or the thing itself, in order to form a meaning-imbued "sign." Saussure believed that dismantling signs was a real science, for in doing so we come to an empirical understanding of how humans synthesize physical stimuli into words and other abstract concepts.

(1864–1944) studied the

sign process Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign ...

es in animals. He used the German word ''

umwelt In the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok, ''umwelt'' (plural: umwelten; from the German '' Umwelt'' meaning "environment" or "surroundings") is the "biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the stu ...

'', "environment," to describe the individual's subjective world, and he invented the concept of functional circle (''funktionskreis'') as a general model of sign processes. In his ''Theory of Meaning'' (''Bedeutungslehre'', 1940), he described the semiotic approach to

, thus establishing the field that now is called

. Valentin Voloshinov (1895–1936) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

-Russian linguist, whose work has been influential in the field of

and

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

theory of ideology. Written in the late 1920s in the USSR, Voloshinov's ''Marxism and the Philosophy of Language'' () developed a counter-Saussurean linguistics, which situated language use in social process rather than in an entirely decontextualized Saussurean ''langue''.

(1899–1965) developed a formalist approach to Saussure's structuralist theories. His best known work is ''Prolegomena to a Theory of Language'', which was expanded in ''Résumé of the Theory of Language'', a formal development of ''glossematics'', his scientific calculus of language. Charles W. Morris (1901–1979): Unlike his mentor

George Herbert Mead George Herbert Mead (February 27, 1863 – April 26, 1931) was an American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded a ...

, Morris was a behaviorist and sympathetic to the

Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, ch ...

positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...

of his colleague,

Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. ...

. Morris was accused by

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the fi ...

of misreading Peirce. In his 1938 ''Foundations of the Theory of Signs'', he defined semiotics as grouped into three branches: # ''Syntactics''/''syntax'': deals with the formal properties and interrelation of signs and symbols, without regard to meaning. # ''Semantics'': deals with the formal structures of signs, particularly the relation between signs and the objects to which they apply (i.e. signs to their designata, and the objects that they may or do denote). # ''Pragmatics'': deals with the biotic aspects of semiosis, including all the psychological, biological, and sociological phenomena that occur in the functioning of signs. Pragmatics is concerned with the relation between the sign system and sign-using agents or interpreters (i.e., the human or animal users).

Thure von Uexküll Karl Kuno Thure Freiherr von Uexküll (March 15, 1908, Heidelberg – September 29, 2004, Freiburg) was a German scholar of psychosomatic medicine and biosemiotics. He developed the approach of his father, Jakob von Uexküll, in the study of livi ...

(1908–2004), the "father" of modern

psychosomatic medicine Psychosomatic medicine is an interdisciplinary medical field exploring the relationships among social, psychological, behavioral factors on bodily processes and quality of life in humans and animals. The academic forebear of the modern field o ...

, developed a diagnostic method based on semiotic and biosemiotic analyses.

(1915–1980) was a French literary theorist and semiotician. He often would critique pieces of cultural material to expose how bourgeois society used them to impose its values upon others. For instance, the portrayal of wine drinking in French society as a robust and healthy habit would be a bourgeois ideal perception contradicted by certain realities (i.e. that wine can be unhealthy and inebriating). He found semiotics useful in conducting these critiques. Barthes explained that these bourgeois cultural myths were second-order signs, or connotations. A picture of a full, dark bottle is a sign, a signifier relating to a signified: a fermented, alcoholic beverage—wine. However, the bourgeois take this signified and apply their own emphasis to it, making "wine" a new signifier, this time relating to a new signified: the idea of healthy, robust, relaxing wine. Motivations for such manipulations vary from a desire to sell products to a simple desire to maintain the status quo. These insights brought Barthes very much in line with similar Marxist theory. Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917–1992) developed a structural version of semiotics named, "generative semiotics", trying to shift the focus of discipline from signs to systems of signification. His theories develop the ideas of Saussure, Hjelmslev,

, and

Maurice Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest an ...

(1920–2001), a student of Charles W. Morris, was a prolific and wide-ranging American semiotician. Although he insisted that animals are not capable of language, he expanded the purview of semiotics to include non-human signaling and communication systems, thus raising some of the issues addressed by

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are add ...

and coining the term

. Sebeok insisted that all communication was made possible by the relationship between an organism and the environment in which it lives. He also posed the equation between ''semiosis'' (the activity of interpreting signs) and ''life''—a view that the Copenhagen-Tartu biosemiotic school has further developed.

(1922–1993) was the founding member of the

Tartu Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of ...

(or Tartu-Moscow) Semiotic School. He developed a semiotic approach to the study of culture—

semiotics of culture Semiotics of culture is a research field within semiotics that attempts to define culture from semiotic perspective and as a type of human symbolic activity, creation of signs and a way of giving meaning to everything around. Therefore, here cult ...

—and established a communication model for the study of text semiotics. He also introduced the concept of the

semiosphere The semiosphere is an idea in biosemiotic theory proposing that, contrary to ideas of nature determining sense and experience, the phenomenal world is a creative and logical structure of processes of semiosis where signs operate together to pr ...

. Among his Moscow colleagues were

Vladimir Toporov Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Топоро́в; 5 July 1928 in Moscow5 December 2005 in Moscow) was a leading Russian philologist associated with the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. His wife was ...

, Vyacheslav Ivanov and

Boris Uspensky Boris Andreevich Uspenskij (russian: Бори́с Андре́евич Успе́нский) (born 1 March 1937, in Moscow) is a Russian linguist, philologist, semiotician, historian of culture. Biography Uspenskij graduated from Moscow Univ ...

. Christian Metz (1931–1993) pioneered the application of Saussurean semiotics to

film theory Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the academic discipline of film or cinema studies that began in the 1920s by questioning the formal essential attributes of motion pictures; and that now provides conceptual frameworks for u ...

, applying

syntagmatic analysis In semiotics, syntagmatic analysis is analysis of syntax or surface structure (syntagmatic structure) as opposed to paradigms ( paradigmatic analysis). This is often achieved using commutation tests. "Syntagmatic" means that one element selects t ...

to scenes of films and grounding film semiotics in greater context.

Eliseo Verón Eliseo Verón (June 12, 1935 – April 15, 2014) was an Argentine sociologist, anthropologist and semiotician, and professor of communication sciences at Universidad de San Andrés. His work is known mainly in Spanish and French-speaking countri ...

(1935–2014) developed his "Social Discourse Theory" inspired in the Peircian conception of "Semiosis."

(founded 1967) developed a structural version of

rhetorics Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate pa ...

, and the

visual semiotics Visual semiotics is a sub-domain of semiotics that analyses the way visual images communicate a message. Studies of meaning evolve from semiotics, a philosophical approach that seeks to interpret messages in terms of signs and patterns of symboli ...

(1932–2016) was an Italian novelist, semiotician and academic. He made a wider audience aware of semiotics by various publications, most notably ''A Theory of Semiotics'' and his novel, ''

The Name of the Rose ''The Name of the Rose'' ( it, Il nome della rosa ) is the 1980 debut novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, and an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in ficti ...

'', which includes (second to its plot) applied semiotic operations. His most important contributions to the field bear on interpretation, encyclopedia, and model reader. He also criticized in several works (''A theory of semiotics'', ''La struttura assente'', ''Le signe'', ''La production de signes'') the "iconism" or "iconic signs" (taken from Peirce's most famous triadic relation, based on indexes, icons, and symbols), to which he proposed four modes of sign production: recognition, ostension, replica, and invention.

Julia Kristeva Julia Kristeva (; born Yuliya Stoyanova Krasteva, bg, Юлия Стоянова Кръстева; on 24 June 1941) is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who ha ...

(born 1941), a student of

Lucien Goldmann Lucien Goldmann (; 20 July 1913 – 8 October 1970) was a French philosopher and sociologist of Jewish-Romanian origin. A professor at the EHESS in Paris, he was a Marxist theorist. His wife was sociologist Annie Goldmann. Biography Goldmann w ...

and

, Bulgarian-French semiotician,

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. ...

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

, and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire ...

. She uses psychoanalytical concepts together with the semiotics, distinguishing the two components in the signification, the symbolic and the semiotic''.'' Kristeva also studies the representation of women and women's bodies in popular culture, such as horror films and has had a remarkable influence on feminism and feminist literary studies.

Michael Silverstein Michael Silverstein (12 September 1945 – 17 July 2020) was an American linguist. He was the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of anthropology, linguistics, and psychology at the University of Chicago. He was a theoretician of se ...

(1945–2020), a theoretician of semiotics and linguistic anthropology. Over the course of his career he created an original synthesis of research on the semiotics of communication, the sociology of interaction, Russian formalist literary theory, linguistic pragmatics, sociolinguistics, early anthropological linguistics and structuralist grammatical theory, together with his own theoretical contributions, yielding a comprehensive account of the semiotics of human communication and its relation to culture. His main influence was

, and

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for br ...

for the analysis of "texts" regardless of the medium in which it is presented. For these purposes, "text" is any message preserved in a form whose existence is independent of both sender and receiver; *By scholars and professional researchers as a method to interpret meanings behind symbols and how the meanings are created; *Potential improvement of

ergonomic Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...

design in situations where it is important to ensure that human beings are able to interact more effectively with their environments, whether it be on a large scale, as in

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

, or on a small scale, such as the configuration of instrumentation for human use; and *

Marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

: Epure, Eisenstat, and Dinu (2014) express that "semiotics allows for the practical distinction of persuasion from manipulation in marketing communication." Semiotics are used in marketing as a persuasive device to influence buyers to change their attitudes and behaviors in the market place. There are two ways that Epure, Eisenstat, and Dinu (2014), building on the works of

, state in which semiotics are used in marketing: ''Surface'': signs are used to create personality for the product, creativity plays its foremost role at this level; ''Underlying'': the concealed meaning of the text, imagery, sounds, etc. Semiotics can also be used to analyze advertising effectiveness and meaning. Cian (2020), for instance, analyzed a specific printed advertisement from two different semiotic points of view. He applied the interpretative instruments provided by the

Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

' school of thinking (focused on the description of explicit signs taken in isolation). He then analyzed the same advertising using

Greimas Algirdas Julien Greimas (; born ''Algirdas Julius Greimas''; 9 March 1917 – 27 February 1992) was a Lithuanian literary scientist who wrote most of his body of work in French while living in France. Greimas is known among other things for t ...

' structural semiotics (where a sign has meaning only when it is interpreted as part of a system). In some countries, the role of semiotics is limited to

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. ...

and an appreciation of audio and visual media. This narrow focus may inhibit a more general study of the social and political forces shaping how different media are used and their dynamic status within modern culture. Issues of technological

determinism Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and cons ...

in the choice of media and the design of communication strategies assume new importance in this age of mass media.

Main institutions

A world organisation of semioticians, the

International Association for Semiotic Studies International Association for Semiotic Studies (''Association Internationale de Sémiotique'', IASS-AIS) is the major world organisation of semioticians, established in 1969. Members of the association include Algirdas Julien Greimas, Roman Jakob ...

, and its journal '' Semiotica'', was established in 1969. The larger research centers together with teaching program include the semiotics departments at the

University of Limoges The University of Limoges (''Université de Limoges'') is a French public university, based in Limoges. Its chancellor is the rector of the Academy of Limoges (an administrative district in France for education and research). It counts more than ...

, and Bologna University.

Publications

Publication of research is both in dedicated journals such as ''

'', established by

and published by

Tartu University Press University of Tartu Press ( et, Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus) is a university press and publishing house owned by the University of Tartu, Estonia. Tartu University Press dates its history back to 1632, when University of Tartu was founded. It is ...

; '' Semiotica'', founded by

and published by

Mouton de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

; ''Zeitschrift für Semiotik''; ''European Journal of Semiotics''; '' Versus'' (founded and directed by

), et al.; '' The American Journal of Semiotics''; and as articles accepted in periodicals of other disciplines, especially journals oriented toward philosophy and cultural criticism. The major semiotic book series ''Semiotics, Communication, Cognition'', published by

De Gruyter Mouton Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

(series editors Paul Cobley and Kalevi Kull) replaces the former "Approaches to Semiotics" (more than 120 volumes) and "Approaches to Applied Semiotics" (series editor

). Since 1980 the Semiotic Society of America has produced an annual conference series: '' Semiotics: The Proceedings of the Semiotic Society of America''.

References

Footnotes

Citations

Bibliography

* Atkin, Albert. (2006).
Peirce's Theory of Signs
, ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. *

Barthes, Roland Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

. (

957 Year 957 ( CMLVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * September 6 – Liudolf, the eldest son of King Otto I, dies of a violent fever ne ...

1987). ''Mythologies''. New York: Hill & Wang. * Barthes, Roland ( 9641967). ''Elements of Semiology''. (Translated by Annette Lavers & Colin Smith). London: Jonathan Cape. * Chandler, Daniel. (2001/2007). ''Semiotics: The Basics''. London: Routledge. * Clarke, D. S. (1987). ''Principles of Semiotic''. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. * Clarke, D. S. (2003). ''Sign Levels''. Dordrecht: Kluwer. * Culler, Jonathan (1975). ''Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature''. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. * Danesi, Marcel & Perron, Paul. (1999). ''Analyzing Cultures: An Introduction and Handbook''. Bloomington: Indiana UP. * Danesi, Marcel. (1994). ''Messages and Meanings: An Introduction to Semiotics''. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press. * Danesi, Marcel. (2002). ''Understanding Media Semiotics''. London: Arnold; New York: Oxford UP. * Danesi, Marcel. (2007). ''The Quest for Meaning: A Guide to Semiotic Theory and Practice''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. *Decadt, Yves. 2000. ''On the Origin and Impact of Information in the Average Evolution: From Bit to Attractor, Atom and Ecosystem'' utch Summary in English available a
The Information Philosopher
* Deely, John. (2005

990 Year 990 ( CMXC) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Al-Mansur, ''de facto'' ruler of Al-Andalus, conquers the Castle of Montemor-o-Velho (mode ...

. ''Basics of Semiotics''. 4th ed. Tartu: Tartu University Press. * Deely, John. (2000), ''The Red Book: The Beginning of Postmodern Times or: Charles Sanders Peirce and the Recovery of'' Signum. Sonesson, Göran, 1989, Pictorial concepts. Inquiries into the semiotic heritage and its relevance for the analysis of the visual world, Lund: Lund University Press.Pictorial concepts. Inquiries into the semiotic heritage and its relevance for the analysis of the visual world . * Deely, John. (2001). ''Four Ages of Understanding''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. * Deely, John. (2003), "On the Word Semiotics, Formation and Origins", ''Semiotica'' 146.1/4, 1–50. * Deely, John. (2003). ''The Impact on Philosophy of Semiotics''. South Bend: St. Augustine Press. * Deely, John. (2004), "'Σημειον' to 'Sign' by Way of 'Signum': On the Interplay of Translation and Interpretation in the Establishment of Semiotics", ''Semiotica'' 148–1/4, 187–227. * Deely, John. (2006), "On 'Semiotics' as Naming the Doctrine of Signs", ''Semiotica'' 158.1/4 (2006), 1–33. * Derrida, Jacques (1981). ''Positions''. (Translated by Alan Bass). London: Athlone Press. *

Eagleton, Terry Terence Francis Eagleton (born 22 February 1943) is an English literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University. Eagleton has published over forty book ...

. (1983). '' Literary Theory: An Introduction''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. *

Eco, Umberto Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the ...

. (1976). ''A Theory of Semiotics''. London: Macmillan. * Eco, Umberto. (1986) ''Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. * Eco, Umberto. (2000) ''Kant and the Platypus''. New York, Harcourt Brace & Company. * Eco, Umberto. (1976) ''A Theory of Semiotics''. Indiana, Indiana University Press. * Emmeche, Claus;

Kull, Kalevi Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms o ...

(eds.) (2011) ''Towards a Semiotic Biology: Life is the Action of Signs''. London: Imperial College Press
pdf
* Foucault, Michel. (1970). ''The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences''. London: Tavistock. * Greimas, Algirdas. (1987). ''On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory''. (Translated by Paul J Perron & Frank H Collins). London: Frances Pinter. * Herlihy, David. 1988–present. "2nd year class of semiotics". CIT. * Hjelmslev, Louis (1961). ''Prolegomena to a Theory of Language''. (Translated by Francis J. Whitfield). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press * Hodge, Robert & Kress, Gunther. (1988). ''Social Semiotics''. Ithaca: Cornell UP. * Lacan, Jacques. (1977) ''Écrits: A Selection''. (Translated by

Alan Sheridan Alan Sheridan (1934 - 2015) was an English author and translator. Life Born Alan Mark Sheridan-Smith, Sheridan studied English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge before spending 5 years in Paris as English assistant at Lycée Henri IV and Lyc� ...

). New York: Norton. * Lidov, David (1999) ''Elements of Semiotics''. New York: St. Martin's Press. * Liszka, J. J. (1996) ''A General Introduction to the Semeiotic of C.S. Peirce.'' Indiana University Press. * Locke, John, ''The Works of John Locke, A New Edition, Corrected, In Ten Volumes, Vol.III'', T. Tegg, (London), 1823. (facsimile reprint by Scientia, (Aalen), 1963.) * Lotman, Yuri M. (1990). ''Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture''. (Translated by Ann Shukman). London: I.B. Tauris. * Morris, Charles W. (1971). ''Writings on the general theory of signs''. The Hague: Mouton. * *

Nattiez, Jean-Jacques Jean-Jacques Nattiez (; born December 30, 1945 in Amiens, France) is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of musicology at the Université de Montréal. He studied semiology with Georges Mounin and Jean Molino and music semiology ...

. (1990). ''Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music''. Translated by

Carolyn Abbate Carolyn Abbate (born November 20, 1956) is an American musicologist, described by the '' Harvard Gazette'' as "one of the world’s most accomplished and admired music historians". She is currently Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Profess ...

. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Translation of: ''Musicologie générale et sémiologue''. Collection Musique/Passé/Présent 13. Paris: C. Bourgois, 1987). * Peirce, Charles S. (1934). ''Collected papers: Volume V. Pragmatism and pragmaticism''. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press. * * Ponzio, Augusto & S. Petrilli (2007) ''Semiotics Today. From Global Semiotics to Semioethics, a Dialogic Response.'' New York, Ottawa, Toronto: Legas. 84 pp. * Romeo, Luigi (1977), "The Derivation of 'Semiotics' through the History of the Discipline", ''Semiosis'', v. 6 pp. 37–50. * Sebeok, T.A. (1976), ''Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs'', Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN. * Sebeok, Thomas A. (Editor) (1977). ''A Perfusion of Signs''. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. * ''Signs and Meaning: 5 Questions'', edited by Peer Bundgaard and Frederik Stjernfelt, 2009 ( Automatic Press / VIP). (Includes interviews with 29 leading semioticians of the world.) * Short, T.L. (2007), ''Peirce's Theory of Signs'', Cambridge University Press. * Stubbe, Henry (

), ''The Plus Ultra reduced to a Non Plus: Or, A Specimen of some Animadversions upon the Plus Ultra of Mr. Glanvill, wherein sundry Errors of some Virtuosi are discovered, the Credit of the Aristotelians in part Re-advanced; and Enquiries made....'', (London), 1670. * * Williamson, Judith. (1978). ''Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising''. London: Boyars. * Zlatev, Jordan. (2009). "The Semiotic Hierarchy: Life, Consciousness, Signs and Language, Cognitive Semiotics". Sweden: Scania.

External links

Signo
— presents semiotic theories and theories closely related to semiotics.

Center for Semiotics
— Denmark:

Semiotic Society of America

Open Semiotics Resource Center
— includes journals, lecture courses, etc.

Peircean focus

Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway

wit

Journals and book series

*
American Journal of Semiotics
'' edited by J. Deely and C. Morrissey. US: Semiotic Society of America. *
Applied Semiotics / Sémiotique appliquée (AS/SA)
', edited by P. G. Marteinson & P. G. Michelucci. CA: University of Toronto. *
Approaches to Applied Semiotics
' (2000–09 series), edited by T. Sebeok, et al. Berlin:

De Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

. *
Approaches to Semiotics
' (1969–97 series), edited by T. A. Sebeok, A. Rey, R. Posner, et al. Berlin:

. *
Biosemiotics
', edited by M. Barbieri ( eic)
International Society for Biosemiotic Studies
*
Cybernetics and Human Knowing
', edited by S. Brier, (chief). *
International Journal of Marketing Semiotics
', edited by G. Rossolatos, (chief). *
International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems (IJSSS)
', edited by A, Loula & J. Queiroz. *
The Public Journal of Semiotics
', edited by P. Bouissac (eic), A. Cienki (assoc.), R. Jorna, and W. Nöth. *

' (2001–7), edited by E. Taborsky. Toronto

*

', edited by G. Genosko (gen.) and P. Bouissac (founding ed.). *
Semiotica
', edited by M. Danesi (chief)
International Association for Semiotic Studies
*
Semiotiche
', edited by A. Valle and M. Visalli. *
Semiotics, Communication and Cognition
' (series), edited by P. Cobley and K. Kull. *
Semiotics: Yearbook of the Semiotic Society of America
', edited by J. Pelkey. US: Semiotic Society of America. *
SemiotiX New Series: A Global Information Bulletin
', edited by P. Bouissac, et al. *

', edited by K. Kull, K. Lindstrom, M. Lotman, T. Maran, S. Salupere, P. Torop. Estonia
Dept. of Semiotics, U. of Tartu
*

', edited by R. J. Parmentier. *
Signs: International Journal of Semiotics
'' edited by M. Thellefsen, T. Thellefsen, and B. Sørensen, (chief eds.). *

' (series), edited by P. Torop, K. Kull, S. Salupere. *
Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society
', edited by C. de Waal (chief)
The Charles S. Peirce Society
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Versus: Quaderni di studi semiotici
', founded by U. Eco. {{Authority control Communication studies Cybernetics Philosophy of language +