Concept

Semiotics

Overview

Semiotics is the study of signs. It is an interdisciplinary field that examines what signs are, how they form sign systems, and how individuals use them to communicate meaning. Its main branches are syntactics, which addresses how signs are organized and combined; semantics, which addresses the relation between signs and their meanings; and pragmatics, which addresses the relation between signs and their users. Semiotics is related to linguistics but has a broader scope that includes nonlinguistic signs, such as maps and clothing.

Signs are entities that stand for something else, such as the word cat, which stands for a carnivorous mammal. They can take many forms, such as sounds, images, written marks, and gestures. Iconic signs operate through similarity. For them, the sign vehicle resembles the referent, such as a portrait of a person. Indexical signs are based on a direct physical link, such as smoke as a sign of fire. For symbolic signs, the relation between sign vehicle and referent is conventional or arbitrary, which applies to most linguistic signs. Models of signs analyze the basic components of signs. Ferdinand de Saussure's dyadic model identifies a perceptible image and a concept as the core elements, whereas Charles Sanders Peirce's triadic model distinguishes a sign vehicle, a referent, and an effect in the interpreter's mind.

Sign systems are structured networks of interrelated signs, such as the English language. Semioticians study how signs combine to form larger units of meaning, called texts. They explore how the message of a text depends on the meanings of the signs composing it and how contextual factors and tropes influence this process. They also investigate the codes employed to communicate meaning, including conventional codes, such as the color code of traffic signals, and natural codes, such as DNA encoding hereditary information.

Semiotics has diverse applications because of the pervasive nature of signs. Many semioticians study cultural products, such as literature, art, and media, investigating both the elements used to express meaning and the subtle ideological messages they convey. The psychological activities associated with sign use are another research topic. Biosemiotics extends the scope of inquiry beyond human communication, examining sign processes within and between animals, plants, and other organisms. Because semiotics spans many disciplines, no single methodology is used across all of its subfields. Although the roots of semiotic research lie in antiquity, it was not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that semiotics emerged as an independent field of inquiry.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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8. Naming. When children have, by repeated sensations, got ideas fixed in their memories, they begin by degrees to learn the use of signs. And when they have got the skill to apply the organs of speech to the framing of articulate sounds, they begin to make use of words, to signify their ideas to others. These verbal signs they sometimes borrow from others, and sometimes make themselves, as one may observe among the…
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
States what Semiotics is; the author is tied to Semiotics in the knowledge graph.
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Whenever this is done, what is now sensible may be called a "sign" or "symbol," and that of which it is intended to call up the "idea" may be called its "meaning." This is a rough outline of what constitutes "meaning." But we must fill in the outline in various ways. And, since we are concerned with what is called "thought," we must pay more attention than we otherwise should do to the private as opposed to the…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
States what Semiotics is.
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And so the term "individual" is placed in the definition of person to signify the mode of subsistence which belongs to particular substances. Reply Obj. 4: According to the Philosopher (Metaph. v, 5), the word "nature" was first used to signify the generation of living things, which is called nativity. And because this kind of generation comes from an intrinsic principle, this term is extended to signify the…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
States what Semiotics is; the author is tied to Semiotics in the knowledge graph.
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Semiotics

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