Semiotics

Semiotics (/ˌsɛmiˈɒtɪks/ SEM-ee-OT-iks) is the systematic study of interpretation, meaning-making, semiosis (sign process) and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter.

Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs. Signs often are communicated by verbal language, but also by gestures, or by other forms of language, e.g. artistic ones (music, painting, sculpture, etc.). Contemporary semiotics is a branch of science that generally studies meaning-making (whether communicated or not) and various types of knowledge.^[1]

Unlike linguistics, semiotics also studies non-linguistic sign systems. Semiotics includes the study of indication, designation, likeness, analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication.

Semiotics is frequently seen as having important anthropological and sociological dimensions. Some semioticians regard every cultural phenomenon as being able to be studied as communication.^[2] Semioticians also focus on the logical dimensions of semiotics, examining biological questions such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their ecological niche.

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 including zoosemiotics and phytosemiotics.

Definitions and related fields

Semiotics is the study of signs or of how meaning is created and communicated through them. Also called semiology,^[a] it examines the nature of signs, their organization into signs systems, like language, and the ways individuals interpret and use them. Semiotics has wide-reaching applications because of the pervasive nature of signs, affecting how individuals experience phenomena, communicate ideas, and interact with the world.^[4]

These applications make it an interdisciplinary field, originating in philosophy and linguistics and closely related to disciplines like psychology, anthropology, aesthetics, sociology, and education sciences.^[5] Because most sciences rely on sign processes in some form, semiotics is sometimes characterized as a meta-discipline that provides a general approach for the analysis of signs across domains.^[6] It is controversial whether semiotics is itself a science since there are no universally accepted theoretical assumptions or methods on which semioticians agree.^[7] Semiotics has also been characterized as a theory, a doctrine, a movement, or a discipline.^[8] Apart from its interdisciplinary applications, pure semiotics is typically divided into three branches: semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics, studying how signs relate to objects, to each other, and to sign users, respectively.^[9]

Semiotic inquiry overlaps in various ways with linguistics and communication theory. It shares with linguistics the interest in the analysis of sign systems, examining the meanings of words, how they are combined to form sentences, and how they convey messages in concrete contexts. A key difference is that linguistics focuses on language, while semiotics also studies non-linguistic signs, such as images, gestures, traffic signs, and animal calls.^[10] Communication theory studies how individuals encode, convey, and interpret both linguistic and non-linguistic messages. It typically focuses on technical aspects of how messages are transmitted, usually between distinct organisms. Semiotics, by contrast, concentrates on the meaning of messages and the creation of meaning, including the role of non-communicative signs.^[11][b] For example, semioticians also study naturally occurring biological signs, like disease symptoms, and signs based on inanimate relations, such as smoke as a sign of fire.^[13]

The term semiotics derives from the Greek word σημειωτική (semeiotike), originally associated with the study of disease symptoms.^[14] Proposing a new field of inquiry of signs, John Locke suggested the Greek term as its name.^[15] The first use of the English term semiotics dates to the 1670s.^[16] Semiotics became a distinct field of inquiry following the works of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, the founders of the discipline.^[17]

Signs

Main article: Sign (semiotics)

A sign is an entity that stands for something else. For example, the word cat is a sign that stands for a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. Signs direct the attention of interpreters away from themselves and toward the entities they represent. They can take many forms, such as words, images, sounds, and odours. Similarly, they can refer to many types of entities, including physical objects, events, or places, psychological feelings, and abstract ideas. They help people recognize patterns, predict outcomes, make plans, communicate ideas, and understand the world.^[18]

Semioticians distinguish different elements of signs. The sign vehicle is the physical form of the sign, such as sound waves or printed letters on a page, whereas the referent is the object it stands for. The precise number and nature of these elements is disputed and different models of signs propose distinct analyses.^[19] The referent of a sign can itself be a sign, leading to a chain of signification. For instance, the expression "red rose" is a sign for a particular type of flower, which can itself act as a sign of love.^[20]

Semiosis is the capacity or activity of comprehending and producing signs. Also characterized as the action of signs, it involves the interplay between sign vehicle and referent as organisms interpret meaning within a given context.^[21] Different types of semiosis are distinguished by the type of organisms engaging in the sign activity, such as the contrast between anthroposemiosis involving humans, zoösemiosis involving other animals, and phytosemiosis involving plants.^[22]

Meaning, sense, and reference

The meaning of a sign is what is generated in the process of semiosis. Meaning is typically analyzed into two aspects: sense and reference.^[c] This distinction is also known by the terms connotation and denotation as well as intension and extension. The reference of a sign is the object for which it stands. For example, the reference of the term morning star is the planet Venus. The sense of a sign is the way it stands for the object or the mode in which the object is presented. For instance, the terms morning star and evening star have the same reference since they point to the same object. However, their meanings are not identical since they differ on the level of sense by presenting this object from distinct perspectives.^[24]

Various theories of meaning have been proposed to explain its nature and identify the conditions that determine the meanings of signs. Referential or extensional theories define meaning in terms of reference, for example, as the signified object or as a context-dependent function that points to objects.^[25] Ideational or mentalist theories interpret the meaning of a sign in relation to the mental states of language users, for example, as the ideas it evokes.^[26] Pragmatic theories describe meaning based on behavioral responses and use conditions.^[27]

Types and sign relations

Semioticians distinguish various types of signs, often based on the sign relation or how the sign vehicle is connected to the referent.^[28] A type is a general pattern or universal class, corresponding to shared features of individual signs. Types contrast with tokens, which are individual instances of a type. For example, the word banana encompasses six letter tokens (b, a, n, a, n, and a), which belong to three distinct types (b, a, and n).^[29]

A historically influential classification of sign types relies on the contrast between conventional and natural signs. Conventional signs depend on culturally established norms and intentionality to establish the link between sign vehicle and referent. For example, the meaning of the term tree is fixed by social conventions associated with the English language rather than a natural connection between the term and actual trees. Natural signs, by contrast, are based on a substantial link other than conventions. For instance, the footprint of a bear signifies the presence of a bear as a result of the bear's movement rather than a matter of convention. In modern semiotics, the distinction between natural and conventional signs has been replaced by the threefold classification into icons, indices, and symbols, initially proposed by Peirce.^[28]

Icons are signs that operate through similarity: sign vehicles resemble or imitate the referents to which they are linked. They include direct physical similarity, such as a life-like portrait depicting a person, but also encompass more abstract resemblance, such as metaphors and diagrams.^[30] Icons are also used in animal communication. For instance, ants of the species Pogonomyrmex badius use a smell-based warning signal that resembles the type of danger with a correspondence between intensity and duration of signal and danger.^[31]

Indices are signs that operate through a direct physical link. Typically, the referent is the cause of the sign vehicle. For example, smoke indicates the presence of fire because it is a physical effect produced by the fire itself. Similarly, disease symptoms are signs of the disease causing them and a thermometer's gauge reading indicates the temperature responsible. Other material links besides a direct cause-effect relation are also possible such as a directional signpost physically pointing the path to a nearby campsite.^[32]

Symbols are signs that operate through convention-based associations. For them, the relation between sign vehicle and referent is arbitrary. It arises from social agreements, which an individual needs to learn in order to decode the meaning. Examples are the numeral "2", the colors on traffic lights, and national flags.^[33]

The categories of icon, index, and symbol are not exclusive, and the same sign may belong to more than one. For example, some road warning signs combine iconic elements, like an image of falling rocks to indicate rockslide, with symbolic elements, such as a red triangle to signal danger.^[34] Various other categories are discussed in the academic literature. Thomas Sebeok expands the icon-index-symbol classification by adding three more categories: signals are signs that typically trigger behavioral responses in the receiver; symptoms are automatic, non-arbitrary signs; names are extensional signs that identify one specific individual.^[35] Other categorizations of signs are based on the channel of transmission, the intentions of the communicators, vagueness, ambiguity, reliability, complexity, and type of referent.^[36]

Models

Models of signs seek to identify the essential components of signs. Many models have been proposed and most introduce a unique terminology for the different components although they often share substantial conceptual overlap. A common classification distinguishes between dyadic and triadic models.^[37]

Dyadic models assert that signs have essentially two components, a sign vehicle and its meaning. An influential dyadic model was proposed by Saussure, who names the components signifier and signified. The signifier is a sensible image, whereas the signified is a concept or an idea associated with this form. For Saussure, the sign is a relation that connects signifier and signified, functioning as a bridge from a sensory form to a concept. He understands both signifier and signified as psychological elements that exist in the mind. As a result, the meaning of signs is limited to the realm of ideas and does not directly concern the external objects to which signs refer. Focusing on language as a general model of signs, Saussure argued that the relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary, meaning that any sensible image could in principle be paired with any concept. He held that individual signs need to be understood in the context of sign systems, which organize and regulate the arbitrary connections.^[38]

Various interpreters of Saussure's model, such as Louis Hjelmslev^[d] and Roman Jakobson, rejected the purely psychological interpretation of signs. For them, signifiers are material forms that can be seen or heard, not mental images of material forms. Similarly, critics have objected to the idea that the relation between signs and signifiers are always arbitrary, pointing to iconic and indexical signs as counterexamples.^[40][e]

Triadic models assert that signs have three components. An influential triadic model proposed by Peirce argues that the third component is required to account for the individual that interprets signs, implying that there is no meaning without interpretation. According to Peirce, a sign is a relation between representamen, object, and interpretant. The representamen is a perceptible entity, the object is the referent for which the representamen stands, and the interpretant is the effect produced in the mind of the interpreter.^[42]

Peirce distinguishes various aspects of these components. The immediate object is the object as the sign presents it—a mental representation. The dynamic object, by contrast, is the actual entity as it really is, which anchors the meaning of the sign. The immediate interpretant is the sign's potential meaning, whereas the dynamic interpretant is the sign's actual effect or the understanding it produces. The final interpretant is the ideal meaning that would be reached after an exhaustive inquiry.^[43] Peirce emphasizes that semiosis or meaning-making is a continuously evolving process. Analyzing Peirce's model, Umberto Eco talks of an "unlimited semiosis" in which the interpretation of one sign leads to more signs, resulting in an endless chain of signification.^[44]

Another triadic model, proposed by Charles Kay Ogden and I. A. Richards, distinguishes between symbol, thought, and referent. Known as the semiotic triangle, it asserts that the connection between symbol and referent is not direct but requires the mediation of thought to establish the link.^[45]

Sign systems

Main article: Sign system

A sign system is a complex of relations governing how signs are formed, combined, and interpreted, such as a specific language. Signs usually occur in the context of a sign system, and some semiotic theories assert that isolated signs have little meaning apart from their systemic relations to other signs.^[46]

Sign elements and texts

Sign systems often rely on basic constituents or sign elements to compose signs. For example, alphabetic writing systems use letters as sign elements to construct words, while Morse code uses dots and dashes. Letters are essential for differentiating word meanings, like the contrast between the words cat, rat, and hat based on their initial letter. The basic sign elements usually do not have a meaning of their own unless combined in systematic ways.^[47]

A text is a large sign composed of several smaller signs according to a specific code.^[48] Unlike basic sign elements, the units composing a text are themselves meaningful. The meaning of a text, called its message, depends on its components. However, it is usually not a mere aggregate of their isolated meanings, but shaped by their interaction and organization. In addition to linguistic texts, such as a novel or a mathematical formula, there are also non-linguistic texts, such as a diagram, a poster, or a musical composition consisting of several movements.^[49] The capacity to create and understand texts, known as textuality, is also present in some non-human animals. For example, honey bees perform a complex dance combining diverse features to communicate information about their environment to other bees.^[50]

The meaning of a text can depend on and refer to other texts—a feature called intertextuality.^[51] Semioticians distinguish several aspects of texts. Paratext encompasses elements that frame or surround a text, such as titles, headings, acknowledgments, footnotes, and illustrations. Architext refers to the general categories to which a text belongs, such as its genre, style, medium, and authorship. A metatext is a text that comments on another text. A hypotext is a text that serves as the basis of another text, such as a novel that has a sequel or is parodied in another work. In such cases, the derivative text that refers to the earlier work is the hypertext.^[52][f]

Structural relations between signs

Diagram showing syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations for the sentence "The man sleeps."^[54]

The signs in a sign system are connected through several structural relations, like the contrast between syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations. Syntagmatic relations govern how individual signs or sign elements can be combined to form larger expressions. For example, sentences are linear arrangements of words, and syntagmatic relations govern which words can be combined to produce grammatically correct sentences. Similarly, a dinner menu is a sequence of courses with syntagmatic relations governing their arrangement, like beginning with a starter, followed by a main course and a dessert. Some sign systems use non-linear arrangements, such as traffic signs combining the shape of a sign with the symbol it shows.^[55]

Paradigmatic relations are links between signs that belong to the same structural category. They specify which elements can occupy a particular position and can substitute for each other without breaking the system's rules. For example, in the sentence "The man sleeps.", the word man stands in paradigmatic relations to words like woman, child, and person because substituting them also results in a correct sentence. For the dinner menu, the same holds for the different options for the dessert, such as cake, ice cream, and fruit salad. In the case of traffic signs, there are paradigmatic relations between the shape options, such as triangle and circle. The meaning of the chosen paradigmatic option is influenced by the absent options, which form a background of meaningful alternatives. In natural language, these alternatives are typically related to specific word classes. For instance, when a particular word position in a sentence calls for a verb then the paradigmatic options consist of verbs.^[56]

The semiotic square is a tool to analyze the meanings of contrasting terms, such as rich/poor.^[57]

Another form of semiotic analysis examines sign pairs consisting of opposites where two signs denote contrasting features and exclude each other, like the pairs good/bad, hot/cold, and new/old. Some contrasts involve a continuous scale with intermediate levels, like fast/slow, whereas others are polar oppositions without degrees in between, such as alive/dead.^[58] Early structuralist philosophy is associated with the idea that meaning arises primarily from binary oppositions.^[59] The semiotic square, proposed by Algirdas Greimas, offers a more fine-grained differentiation. It relates a sign, such as rich, to three contrasting terms: its contradictory (not rich), its contrary (poor), and the contradictory of its contrary (not poor).^[60]

Another structural feature is asymmetric sign pairs where one item is unmarked and the other marked. The unmarked sign is the generic and neutral expression often taken for granted, whereas the marked sign is specialized and denotes additional features. The unmarked term is more commonly used and is typically privileged as the default or norm. Examples are the pairs dog/bitch, day/night, he/she, and right/left. This asymmetry is of particular interest to the semiotic study of culture as a guide to implicit background assumptions and power relations.^[61] For example, patriarchal societies tend to use unmarked forms for masculine terms, while unmarked forms for feminine terms are more common in matriarchal societies.^[62]

Tropes

Semioticians study associative mechanisms through which a sign acquires alternative meanings by interacting with other signs. This change in meaning can occur in cases where the literal meaning of a sign is inadequate or absurd, leading to a shift toward a figurative meaning. For example, the term snake literally refers to a limbless reptile but has a different meaning in the sentence "The professor is a snake."^[63]

The mechanisms through which this shift in meaning happens are called tropes. Discussions of tropes sometimes focus on four master tropes^[g] as the basis of most others: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony.^[65] A metaphor is an analogy in which attributes from one entity are carried over to another, such as associating the snake-like attributes of being sneaky and cold-blooded with a professor.^[66] A metonymy is a way of referring to one object by naming another closely related thing, like speaking of a king as the crown.^[67] Similarly, a synecdoche is a way of referring to one object by naming one of its parts, like speaking of one's car as my wheels.^[68] The trope of irony works through dissimilarity, literally expressing the opposite of what is meant, such as remarking "Great job!" after a horrible failure.^[69]

Semiotic tropes are primarily discussed in relation to linguistic sign systems, where they are also known as figures of speech. However, their underlying mechanisms also affect non-linguistic sign systems.^[70] For example, an advertisement for an airline may juxtapose the landing of a plane with the tranquil touchdown of a swan as a pictorial metaphor for grace and reliability.^[71] Comics often rely on pictorial metonymies to express emotions, like a raised fist to stand for anger.^[72] In photography, close-ups can function as synecdoches by presenting the whole through a part.^[73] In film, one type of audiovisual irony presents a horrific visual scene accompanied by incongruously cheerful music.^[74]

Codes

Main article: Code

A code is a sign system used to communicate. It includes a set of signs, the meaning relations among them, and the rules for combining them to create and interpret messages.^[75][h] Digital codes rely on clear and precise distinctions of how signs are formed and combined, as in written language. They contrast with analog codes, which use continuous variations to convey meaning, such as seamless gradations of color in painting.^[77] Simple codes include only few basic elements and relations, as in the color code of traffic signals. Complex codes, like the English language, can encompass countless elements as well as syntactic and sociocultural norms involved in meaning-making. Conventional codes are human-made constructs, including aesthetic codes used in the creation of artworks, like music and painting. They contrast with natural codes,^[i] like DNA, which functions as a biochemical information system encoding hereditary information through nucleotide sequences.^[79]

Semioticians analyze codes along several dimensions, such as the domain and context they operate in, the sensory channel they rely on, and the function they perform. Some codes focus on the precise expression of knowledge, such as mathematical formulas, while others govern cultural and behavioral norms, including conventions of politeness and ceremonial practices.^[80] A code can have domain-specific subcodes that refine its scope of meaning or regulate usage in particular settings. Codes and subcodes are not static frameworks but can evolve as new conventions or technologies emerge.^[81]

Models of communication are representations of the main components of communication, often including the processes of encoding and decoding.^[82]

Code also plays a central role in models of communication—conceptual representations of the main components of communication. Many include the idea that a sender conveys a message through a channel to a receiver, who interprets it and may respond with feedback. Encoding is the process of expressing meaning in the form of a message using the system of a specific code. Decoding is the reverse process of interpreting the message to understand its meaning. In some cases, different codes can be used to express the same message. Similarly, messages can sometimes be translated from one code into another, such as transcribing a written text into Morse code.^[83]

Discourse is the social use of language or other codes, taking place at a specific moment in a particular context. Discourse analysis examines how meaning arises in a discourse, considering the communicators and their respective roles, as well as the influences of context and institutional backgrounds.^[84]

Semioticians are also interested in how codes reflect and shape human perception of the world.^[85] By influencing perception, codes can affect behavior by making individuals aware of possible courses of action.^[86] The controversial Whorfian hypothesis suggests that language shapes thought by providing fundamental categories of understanding, with the potential consequence that speakers of different languages think differently.^[87]

History and terminology

The importance of signs and signification has been recognized throughout much of the history of philosophy and psychology. For the Greeks, 'signs' (σημεῖον sēmeîon) occurred in the world of nature and 'symbols' (σύμβολον sýmbolon) in the world of culture. As such, Plato and Aristotle explored the relationship between signs and the world.^[88]

It would not be until Augustine of Hippo^[89] 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.^[90] A monograph study on this question was done by Manetti (1987).^[91][j] These theories have had a lasting effect in Western philosophy, especially through scholastic philosophy.^{[citation needed]}

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 to draw up a "new list of categories". More recently Umberto Eco, in his Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, has argued that semiotic theories are implicit in the work of most, perhaps all, major thinkers.^{[citation needed]}

John Locke

John Locke (1690), himself a man of medicine, 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' Thesaurus Graecae Linguae, which listed σημειωτική as the name for 'diagnostics',^[92] the branch of medicine concerned with interpreting symptoms of disease ("symptomatology"). Physician and scholar Henry Stubbe (1670) had transliterated this term of specialized science into English precisely as semeiotics, marking the first use of the term in English:^[93]

...nor is there any thing to be relied upon in Physick, but an exact knowledge of medicinal phisiology (founded on observation, not principles), semeiotics, method of curing, and tried (not excogitated, not commanding) medicines...

Locke would use the term sem(e)iotike in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (book IV, chap. 21),^[94][k] in which he explains how science may be divided into three parts:^[95]: 174

All that can fall within the compass of human understanding, being either, first, the nature of things, as they are in themselves, their relations, and their manner of operation: or, secondly, that which man himself ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of any end, especially happiness: or, thirdly, the ways and means whereby the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated; I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts.

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:^[95]: 175

Thirdly, the third branch [of sciences] may be termed σημειωτικὴ, or the doctrine of signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also Λογικὴ, logic; the business whereof is to consider the nature of signs the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others.

Juri Lotman introduced Eastern Europe to semiotics and adopted Locke's coinage (Σημειωτική) as the name to subtitle his founding at the University of Tartu in Estonia in 1964 of the first semiotics journal, Sign Systems Studies.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure founded his semiotics, which he called semiology, in the social sciences:^[96]

It is ... possible to conceive of a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life. It would form part of social psychology, and hence of general psychology. We shall call it semiology (from the Greek semeîon, 'sign'). It would investigate the nature of signs and the laws governing them. Since it does not yet exist, one cannot say for certain that it will exist. But it has a right to exist, a place ready for it in advance. Linguistics is only one branch of this general science. The laws which semiology will discover will be laws applicable in linguistics, and linguistics will thus be assigned to a clearly defined place in the field of human knowledge.

Thomas Sebeok^[l] 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, 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, Charles Sanders Peirce 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,"^[97] and which is philosophical logic pursued in terms of signs and sign processes.^[98][99]

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[100]

Peircean scholar and editor Max H. Fisch (1978)^[m] would claim that "semeiotic" was Peirce's own preferred rendering of Locke's σημιωτική.^[101] 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.^{[citation needed]}

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's term)^[102] 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.^[103][n] 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[104][105] Sebeok also played the central role in bringing Peirce's work to the center of the semiotic stage in the twentieth century,^[o] first with his expansion of the human use of signs (anthroposemiosis) to include also the generically animal sign-usage (zoösemiosis),^[p] then with his further expansion of semiosis to include the vegetative world (phytosemiosis). Such would initially be based on the work of Martin Krampen,^[106] but takes advantage of Peirce's point that an interpretant, as the third item within a sign relation, "need not be mental".^{[107][108][109]}

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.^[110] 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.^[q]

Core branches

General semiotics studies the nature of signs and their operation within sign systems in the widest sense, independent of the domains to which they belong. It contrasts with applied semiotics, which examines signs in particular domains or from discipline-specific perspectives.^[111] An influential categorization, proposed by Morris, divides general semiotics into three branches: syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics.^[112]

Syntactics studies formal relations between signs. It investigates how signs combine to form compound signs and which rules govern this process. For example, the rules of grammar in natural languages specify how words may be arranged to form sentences and how different arrangements influence meaning. As a result of the syntactic rules of the English language, the expression "elephants are big" is grammatically correct, whereas "elephants big are" is not.^[113] Syntactics is not limited to language and includes the study of non-linguistic compound signs, such as the arrangement of visual elements in geographic maps.^[114]

Semantics studies the relation between signs and what they stand for, examining how signs refer to concrete things and abstract ideas. It typically focuses on the general meaning of a sign rather than its meaning in a particular context. Semantics addresses the meaning of both basic and compound signs. In the linguistic domain, it includes lexical semantics, which explores word meaning, and phrasal semantics, which studies sentence meaning.^[115] Other areas include animal semantics, which investigates, for example, how animal warning calls stand for predators.^[116]

Pragmatics studies the relation between signs and sign users. It examines how individuals produce and interpret signs in concrete contexts, applying syntactic insights into formal structures and semantic insights into general meaning to real-life situations. The pragmatic dimension of sign use in communication encompasses aspects such as social conventions and expectations, speaker intention, audience, and other contextual factors. For example, it depends on the concrete situation whether the expression "she found a mole" refers to the discovery of an animal, a skin mark, or a spy.^[117]

Various academic discussions address the relation between the three branches, such as their relative importance or hierarchy. Historically, syntactics and semantics have received more attention than pragmatics, particularly in the study of linguistic sign systems. One reason for this preferential treatment is the idea that sign usage is largely determined by what signs mean and how they can be combined. As a result, pragmatics has often been regarded as a secondary discipline, reserved for diverse problems that could not be adequately addressed from the perspectives of the other two disciplines. However, this marginal treatment of pragmatics is questioned in the contemporary discourse. Some proposals reverse the priority and see pragmatics as the primary discipline. One reason is the idea that syntactics and semantics are abstractions that cannot be scientifically studied on their own without examining actual sign use.^[118]

Formulations and subfields

Color-coding hot- and cold-water faucets (taps) is common in many cultures but, as this example shows, the coding may be rendered meaningless because of context. The two faucets probably were sold as a coded set, but the code is unusable (and ignored), as there is a single water supply.

Semioticians classify signs or sign systems in relation to the way they are transmitted. This process of carrying meaning depends on the use of codes 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 word to refer to a thing, the community must agree on a simple meaning (a denotative meaning) within their language, but that word can transmit that meaning only within the language's grammatical structures and codes. Codes also represent the values of the culture, and are able to add new shades of connotation to every aspect of life.^{[citation needed]}

To explain the relationship between semiotics and communication studies, communication 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, psychology, and mechanics involved. Both disciplines recognize that the technical process cannot be separated from the fact that the receiver must decode 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 (1994) suggested that semioticians' priorities were to study signification first, and communication second. A more extreme view is offered by Jean-Jacques Nattiez who, as a musicologist, considered the theoretical study of communication irrelevant to his application of semiotics.^[119]: 16

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, and Umberto Eco. 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 may also be seen as 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 Aarhus University (Denmark), with an important connection with the Center of Functionally Integrated Neuroscience (CFIN) at Aarhus Hospital. Amongst the prominent cognitive semioticians are Per Aage Brandt, Svend Østergaard, Peer Bundgård, Frederik Stjernfelt, 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, Sweden.

Finite semiotics

Finite semiotics, developed by Cameron Shackell (2018, 2019),^{[120][121][122][123]} aims to unify existing theories of semiotics for application to the post-Baudrillardian 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 demand 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,^[124] creativity theory,^[125] and a computational semiotics method for generating semiotic squares from digital texts.^[126]

Pictorial semiotics

Pictorial semiotics^[127] is intimately connected to art history and theory. It goes beyond them both in at least one fundamental way, however. While art history 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.^[128]

According to Göran Sonesson, a Swedish semiotician, pictures can be analyzed by three models: the narrative model, which concentrates on the relationship between pictures and time in a chronological manner as in a comic strip; the rhetoric model, which compares pictures with different devices as in a metaphor; and 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.^[129]

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. Culture codes 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 has caused the development of a global consumer culture where products have similar associations, whether positive or negative, across numerous markets.^[130]

Mistranslations may lead to instances of "Engrish" or "Chinglish" terms for unintentionally humorous cross-cultural slogans intended to be understood in English. When translating surveys, the same symbol may mean different things in the source and target language thus leading to potential errors. For example, the symbol of "x" is used to mark a response in English language surveys but "x" usually means 'no' in the Chinese convention.^[131] 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.^[132] 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) suggest that contradiction or incongruity creates absurdity and therefore, humor.^[133] 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.^[134]

A good example of branding according to cultural code is Disney's international theme park business. Disney fits well with Japan's cultural code because the Japanese value "cuteness", politeness, and gift-giving as part of their culture code; Tokyo Disneyland sells the most souvenirs of any Disney theme park. In contrast, Disneyland Paris 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 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.^[135]

However, some researchers have suggested that it is possible to successfully pass a sign perceived as a cultural icon, such as the logos for Coca-Cola or McDonald'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.^[135] 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.^[130]

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 depend 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.^[136]

Semiotics of dreaming

The flexibility of human semiotics is well demonstrated in dreams. Sigmund Freud^[137] spelled out how meaning in dreams rests on a blend of images, affects, 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."

Introversive and extroversive semiosis in music

Kofi Agawu^[138] quotes the distinction made by Roman Jakobson^[139] between "introversive semiosis, a language which signifies itself," and extoversive semiosis, the referential component of the semiosis. Jakobson writes that introversive semiosis "is indissolubly linked with the esthetic function of sign systems and dominates not only music but also glossolalic poetry and nonrepresentational painting and sculpture",^[140] but Agawu uses the distinction mainly in music, proposing Schenkerian analysis as a path to introversive semiosis and topic theory as an example of extroversive semiosis. Jean-Jacques Nattiez makes the same distinction: "Roman Jakobson sees in music a semiotic system in which the 'introversive semiosis' – that is, the reference of each sonic element to the other elements to come – predominates over the 'extroversive semiosis' – or the referential link with the exterior world."^[141]

Musical topic theory

Semiotics can be directly linked to the ideals of musical topic theory, which traces patterns in musical figures throughout their prevalent context in order to assign some aspect of narrative, affect, or aesthetics to the gesture. Danuta Mirka's The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory presents a holistic recognition and overview regarding the subject, offering insight into the development of the theory.^[142] In recognizing the indicative and symbolic elements of a musical line, gesture, or occurrence, one can gain a greater understanding of aspects regarding compositional intent and identity.

Philosopher Charles Pierce discusses the relationship of icons and indexes in relation to signification and semiotics. In doing so, he draws on the elements of various ideas, acts, or styles that can be translated into a different field. Whereas indexes consist of a contextual representation of a symbol, icons directly correlate with the object or gesture that is being referenced.

In his 1980 book Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style, Leonard Ratner amends the conversation surrounding musical tropes—or "topics"—in order to create a collection of musical figures that have historically been indicative of a given style.^[143] Robert Hatten continues this conversation in Beethoven, Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (1994), in which he states that "richly coded style types which carry certain features linked to affect, class, and social occasion such as church styles, learned styles, and dance styles. In complex forms these topics mingle, providing a basis for musical allusion."^[144]

List of subfields

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

• Biosemiotics: 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 and anthropological semantics.
• Cognitive semiotics: 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 Aarhus University (Denmark), with an important connection with the Center of Functionally Integrated Neuroscience (CFIN) at Aarhus Hospital. Amongst the prominent cognitive semioticians are Per Aage Brandt, 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, Sweden.
• Comics semiotics: the study of the various codes and signs of comics and how they are understood.
• Computational semiotics: attempts to engineer the process of semiosis, in the study of and design for human–computer interaction or to mimic aspects of human cognition through artificial intelligence and knowledge representation.
• Cultural and literary semiotics: examines the literary world, the visual media, the mass media, and advertising in the work of writers such as Roland Barthes, Marcel Danesi, and Juri Lotman (e.g., Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School).
• Cybersemiotics: built on two already-generated interdisciplinary approaches: cybernetics and systems theory, including information theory 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, specifically used in Engineering Cybernetics.^[145]
• Design semiotics or product semiotics: the study of the use of signs in the design of physical products; introduced by Martin Krampen and in a practitioner-oriented version by Rune Monö while teaching industrial design at the Institute of Design, Umeå University, Sweden.
• Ethnosemiotics: a disciplinary perspective which links semiotics concepts to ethnographic methods.
• Fashion semiotics
• 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, which is revising the Solesmes school of interpretation.
• Hylosemiotics: an approach to semiotics that understands meaning as inference, which is developed through exploratory interaction with the physical world. It expands the concept of communication beyond a human-centered paradigm to include other sentient beings, such as animals, plants, bacteria, fungi, etc.^[146]
• 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.
• 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: 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 computational semiotics and human–computer interaction).
• Pictorial semiotics: an application of semiotic methods and semiotic thinking to art history.
• Semiotics of music videos: semiotics in popular music.
• Social semiotics: expands the interpretable semiotic landscape to include all cultural codes, such as in slang, fashion, tattoos, and advertising. Key figures include Roland Barthes, Michael Halliday, Bob Hodge, Chris William Martin and Christian Metz.
• Structuralism and post-structuralism in the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Louis Hjelmslev, Roman Jakobson, Jacques Lacan, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, etc. Post-structuralism and semiotics are closely related in their approaches to language, meaning, and interpretation; their relationships, and focuses are on how signs—whether linguistic, visual, or cultural—function to convey meaning, and how those meanings can shift depending on context and interpretation.
• Theatre semiotics: an application of semiotic methods and semiotic thinking to theatre studies. Key figures include Keir Elam.^[147]
• Urban semiotics: the study of meaning in urban form as generated by signs, symbols, and their social connotations.
• Visual semiotics: analyses visual signs; prominent modern founders to this branch are Groupe μ and Göran Sonesson.^[148]
• Semiotics of photography: is the observation of symbolism used within photography.
• Artificial intelligence semiotics: the observation of visual symbols and the symbols' recognition by machine learning systems. The phrase was coined by Daniel Hoeg, founder of Semiotics Mobility, due to Semiotics Mobility's design and learning process for autonomous recognition and perception of symbols by neural networks.^[149][150] The phrase 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.^[151]
• Semiotics of mathematics: the study of signs, symbols, sign systems and their structure, meaning and use in mathematics and mathematics education.

Methods

Semioticians use diverse methods to analyze and compare signs and sign systems. Different domains of signs and perspectives of inquiry typically call for distinct techniques depending on the forms of representation and modes of meaning-making under study. As a result, there is no universally adopted methodology but only an interdisciplinary, loosely connected set of approaches.^[152] Within a given domain, semioticians typically seek to determine what meaning is produced, why it emerges the way it does, and how it is encoded.^[153]

Structural analysis examines the structural framework of texts and sign systems, exploring the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations underlying signification. The commutation test is an influential tool for structural analysis. It explores how the meanings of linguistic and non-linguistic texts are shaped by their components and what roles specific signs play in this process. It proceeds by changing certain elements of a text, either actually or as a thought experiment, and assesses whether or how this change affects the overall meaning. For example, in the analysis of an advertisement, a semiotician may probe whether the overall message changes if a woman is shown using the product instead of a man. If it does then gender is a signifying element. The way how the overall message changes provides insights into the semiotic role of the changed aspect. The commutation test can be applied to a wide range of elements or features, such as shape, size, color, camera angle, typeface, age, class, and ethnicity. Instead of replacing one element with another, other versions of the commutation test add or remove elements to explore, for instance, what draws attention by its absence or what is taken for granted.^[154][r]

In the study of cultural sign systems, semioticians often focus on hidden meanings and connotations, such as ideological messages and power dynamics that influence meaning-making without being immediately apparent to observers.^[156] This dimension can be studied in diverse ways, such as comparing marked and unmarked terms to reveal how cultural norms privilege certain meanings and marginalize others.^[61] Critical discourse analysis has a similar goal, seeking to understand how texts and social reality shape each other. It is particularly interested in how ideologies and power relations are reproduced in discourse, for example, by analyzing how political actors depict immigrants as threats to promote restrictive immigration policies.^[157]

Another approach to semiotics focuses on the historical dimension of sign systems and semiotic practices. It examines how they came into existence and evolved, studying how the relevant codes and media developed and how new conventions and genres emerged. The historical inquiry also considers the effects of technological developments, for instance, by tracing how the invention of the printing press and the internet have shaped the way people engage with written texts.^[158]

Although qualitative investigation is the dominant approach in semiotics, some researchers also use quantitative methods. For example, many forms of content analysis examine objective patterns found in an individual document or an entire discourse and employ statistical analysis to discover systematic patterns in sign usage. Applied to the news coverage of a violent incident, a content analyst may gather statistical information about how often the perpetrators are described as rebels rather than terrorists. Quantitative data on its own is usually not sufficient to explain complex semiotic processes, which is why content analysis is typically combined with other approaches.^[159]

In applied semiotics, researchers often tailor their approach to the specific area of signs under investigation.^[160] For instance, biosemioticians may adapt concepts intended for linguistic analysis to biological codes like DNA. In some cases, this requires conceptual modifications, for example, when terms like interpretation are applied to sign processes without a conscious subject.^[161]

Notable semioticians

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) ascribed great importance to symbols in a religious context, noting that all worship "must proceed by Symbols"; he propounded this theory in such works as "Characteristics" (1831),^[162] Sartor Resartus (1833–4),^[163] and On Heroes (1841),^[164] which have been retroactively recognized as containing semiotic theories.

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), a noted logician who founded philosophical pragmatism, 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.^[165] Semiosis is logically structured to perpetuate itself. The object may be quality, fact, rule, or even fictional (Hamlet), 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.^[166] His semiotic^[167] 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^[168] to classify any sign by three interdependent trichotomies, intersecting to form ten (rather than 27) classes of sign.^[169] 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, deductive, 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:^[170][H]

A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea.

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), the "father" of modern linguistics, 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 Plato or the scholastics, who thought that there must be some connection between a signifier and the object it signifies. In his Course in General Linguistics, Saussure credits the American linguist William Dwight Whitney (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 Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, and Jean Baudrillard. Ferdinand de Saussure coined the term sémiologie while teaching his landmark "Course on General Linguistics" at the University of Geneva 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.

Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) studied the sign processes in animals. He used the German word Umwelt, '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 biology, thus establishing the field that now is called biosemiotics.

Valentin Voloshinov (1895–1936) was a Soviet-Russian linguist, whose work has been influential in the field of literary theory and Marxist theory of ideology. Written in the late 1920s in the USSR, Voloshinov's Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (Russian: Marksizm i Filosofiya Yazyka) developed a counter-Saussurean linguistics, which situated language use in social process rather than in an entirely decontextualized Saussurean langue.^{[citation needed]}

Louis Hjelmslev (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.^{[citation needed]}

Charles W. Morris (1901–1979): Unlike his mentor George Herbert Mead, Morris was a behaviorist and sympathetic to the Vienna Circle positivism of his colleague, Rudolf Carnap. Morris was accused by John Dewey of misreading Peirce.^[171]

In his 1938 Foundations of the Theory of Signs, he defined semiotics as grouped into three branches:

1. Syntactics/syntax: deals with the formal properties and interrelation of signs and symbols, without regard to meaning.
2. 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).
3. 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 (1908–2004), the "father" of modern psychosomatic medicine, developed a diagnostic method based on semiotic and biosemiotic analyses.

Roland Barthes (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, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Thomas A. Sebeok (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 and coining the term zoosemiotics. 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.

Juri Lotman (1922–1993) was the founding member of the Tartu (or Tartu-Moscow) Semiotic School. He developed a semiotic approach to the study of culture—semiotics of culture—and established a communication model for the study of text semiotics. He also introduced the concept of the semiosphere. Among his Moscow colleagues were Vladimir Toporov, Vyacheslav Ivanov and Boris Uspensky.

Christian Metz (1931–1993) pioneered the application of Saussurean semiotics to film theory, applying syntagmatic analysis to scenes of films and grounding film semiotics in greater context.

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

Groupe μ (founded 1967) developed a structural version of rhetorics, and the visual semiotics.

Umberto Eco (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, 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.^[172]

Julia Kristeva (born 1941), a student of Lucien Goldmann and Roland Barthes, Bulgarian-French semiotician, literary critic, psychoanalyst, feminist, and novelist. 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 (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 Charles Sanders Peirce, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Roman Jakobson.

Current applications

Some applications of semiotics include:^{[citation needed]}

• Representation of a methodology 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 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, or on a small scale, such as the configuration of instrumentation for human use; and
• Marketing: Epure, Eisenstat, and Dinu (2014) express that "semiotics allows for the practical distinction of persuasion from manipulation in marketing communication."^[173]: 592 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 Roland Barthes, 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.^[173]

In some countries, the role of semiotics is limited to literary criticism 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 in the choice of media and the design of communication strategies assume new importance in this age of mass media.^{[citation needed]}

Main institutions

A world organization of semioticians, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, and its journal Semiotica, was established in 1969. The larger research centers together with teaching programs include the semiotics departments at the University of Tartu, University of Limoges, Aarhus University, and Bologna University.^{[citation needed]}

Publications

Publication of research is both in dedicated journals such as Sign Systems Studies, established by Juri Lotman and published by Tartu University Press; Semiotica, founded by Thomas A. Sebeok and published by Mouton de Gruyter; Zeitschrift für Semiotik; European Journal of Semiotics; Versus (founded and directed by Umberto Eco), The American Journal of Semiotics, et al.; and as articles accepted in periodicals of other disciplines, especially journals oriented toward philosophy and cultural criticism, communication theory, etc.^{[citation needed]}

The major semiotic book series Semiotics, Communication, Cognition, published by De Gruyter Mouton (series editors Paul Cobley and Kalevi Kull) replaces the former "Approaches to Semiotics" (series editor Thomas A. Sebeok, 127 volumes) and "Approaches to Applied Semiotics" (7 volumes). Since 1980 the Semiotic Society of America has produced an annual conference series: Semiotics: The Proceedings of the Semiotic Society of America.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Ecosemiotics – Branch of semiotics
• Ethnosemiotics
• Gender symbol – Symbols of gender, sex, or sexuality
• Index of semiotics articles
• Language game (philosophy) – Words and contextual actions which provide a complete meaning
• Neurosemiotics
• Outline of semiotics – Overview of and topical guide to semiotics
• Private language argument – Argument that a language understandable by only one person is incoherent
• Semiofest
• Semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce
• Social semiotics
• Universal language – Hypothetical language