Semiotics

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Semiotics
 
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Semiotics (/ˌsiːmiˈɒtɪks, ˌsɛm-, -maɪ-/ SEE-mee-OT-iks, SEM-, -⁠my-) is the systematic study of sign processes 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 can be communicated through thought itself or through the senses. Contemporary semiotics is a branch of science that studies meaning-making and various types of knowledge.<ref>Campbell, C., Olteanu, A., & Kull, K. (2019). Learning and knowing as semiosis: Extending the conceptual apparatus of semiotics. Sign Systems Studies 47(3/4), 352–381.</ref>

The semiotic tradition explores the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communications. 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.<ref name="caesar">Caesar, Michael (1999). Umberto Eco: Philosophy, Semiotics, and the Work of Fiction. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 55. ISBN 978-0-7456-0850-1.</ref> Semioticians also focus on the logical dimensions of semiotics, examining biological questions such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world.

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.

History and terminology

The importance of signs and signification has been recognized throughout much of the history of philosophy and psychology. The term derives from Ancient Greek σημειωτικός (sēmeiōtikós) 'observant of signs'<ref>Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott. 1940. "σημειωτικός." A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented by H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Available via Perseus Digital Library.</ref> (from σημεῖον (sēmeîon) 'a sign, mark, token').<ref>σημεῖον, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus</ref> 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.<ref>"Semiotics for Beginners: Signs". visual-memory.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-03-26.</ref>

It would not be until Augustine of Hippo<ref>Deely, John. 2009. Augustine & Poinsot: The Protosemiotic Development. Scranton: University of Scranton Press. [provides full details of Augustine's originality on the notion of semiotics.]</ref> 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.<ref>Romeo, Luigi. 1977. "The Derivation of 'Semiotics' through the History of the Discipline." Semiosis 6(2):37–49.</ref> A monograph study on this question would be done by Manetti (1987).<ref>Manetti, Giovanni. 1993 [1987]. Theories of the Sign in Classical Antiquity, translated by C. Richardson. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. [Original: Le teorie del segno nell'antichità classica (1987). Milan: Bompiani.]</ref><ref group="lower-alpha">See also Andrew LaVelle's discussion of Romeo on Peirce-l Archived 2018-10-01 at the Wayback Machine.</ref> These theories have had a lasting effect in Western philosophy, 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 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.

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',<ref>"Semiotics." Oxford English Dictionary (1989). ["The branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of symptoms."]</ref> the branch of medicine concerned with interpreting symptoms of disease ("symptomatology"). Indeed, 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:<ref>Stubbes, Henry. 1670. The Plus Ultra reduced to a Non Plus. London. p. 75.</ref>

"…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),<ref>Encyclopedia Britannica. 2020 [1998]. "Semiotics: Study of Signs." Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed 8 April 2020 Web.</ref><ref group="lower-alpha">Locke (1700) uses the Greek word "σημιωτική" [sic] in the 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, 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, 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";: vii  that "the present text is based on the original fourth edition of the Essay;: xxv  and that "readings in the other early authorized editions are adopted, in appropriate form, where necessary, and recorded otherwise in the textual notes.": xxv  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 and in some systems for pronouncing classical Greek, "σημιωτική" and "σημειωτική" are pronounced the same.</ref> in which he explains how science may be divided into three parts:<ref name=":12">Locke, John. 1963 [1823]. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.</ref>: 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:<ref name=":12" />: 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 would introduce Eastern Europe to semiotics and adopt 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:<ref>Cited in Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics for Beginners. "Introduction."</ref>

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<ref group="lower-alpha">The whole anthology, Frontiers in Semiotics, was devoted to the documentation of this pars pro toto move of Sebeok</ref> 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,"<ref>Peirce, Charles Sanders. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 2: para. 227.</ref> and which is philosophical logic pursued in terms of signs and sign processes.<ref>Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1998 [1902]. "Logic, Regarded As Semeiotic," [manuscript L75] Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway, edited by J. Ransdell.</ref><ref>Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1998 [1902]. "On the Definition of Logic." [memoir 12]. Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway, edited by J. Ransdell.</ref>

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.<ref>Atkin, Albert (2023), "Peirce's Theory of Signs", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-03-21</ref>

Peircean scholar and editor Max H. Fisch (1978)<ref group="lower-alpha">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.</ref> would claim that "semeiotic" was Peirce's own preferred rendering of Locke's σημιωτική.<ref>Fisch, Max H. (1978), "Peirce's General Theory of Signs" in Sight, Sound, and Sense, ed. T. A. Sebeok. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 31–70.</ref> 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's term)<ref>2001. "Umwelt". Semiotica 134(1). Pp. 125–135. [special issue on "Jakob von Uexküll: A paradigm for biology and semiotics," guest-edited by K. Kull.]</ref> 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.<ref name=":2">Heidegger, Martin. 1962 [1927]. Being and Time, translated by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. New York: Harper & Row. p. 487.</ref><ref group="lower-alpha">"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 1962/1927:486)</ref> 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.<ref>Sebeok, Thomas A. 1986. "Communication, Language, and Speech. Evolutionary Considerations." Pp. 10–16 in I Think I Am A Verb. More Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs. New York: Plenum Press. Published lecture.

Original lecture title "The Evolution of Communication and the Origin of Language," in International Summer Institute for Semiotic and Structural Studies Colloquium on 'Phylogeny and Ontogeny of Communication Systems' (June 1–3, 1984).</ref><ref>Sebeok, Thomas A. 2012. "Afterword." Pp. 365–83 in Semiotic Prologues, edited by J. Deely and M. Danesi. Ottawa: Legas.</ref> Sebeok also played the central role in bringing Peirce's work to the center of the semiotic stage in the twentieth century,<ref group="lower-alpha">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.</ref> first with his expansion of the human use of signs ("anthroposemiosis") to include also the generically animal sign-usage ("zoösemiosis"),<ref group="lower-alpha">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.</ref> then with his further expansion of semiosis to include the vegetative world ("phytosemiosis"). Such would initially be based on the work of Martin Krampen,<ref>Krampen, Martin. 1981. "Phytosemiotics." Semiotica 36(3):187–209.</ref> but takes advantage of Peirce's point that an interpretant, as the third item within a sign relation, "need not be mental".<ref>Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1934 [1907] "A Survey of Pragmaticism." P. 473. in The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce 5, edited by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [originally titled "Excerpt from "Pragmatism (Editor [3])"]</ref><ref>Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1977 [1908]. "letter to Lady Welby 23 December 1908" [letter]. Pp. 73–86 in Semiotic and Significs: The Correspondence between C. S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby, edited by C. S. Hardwick and J. Cook. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.</ref><ref>Peirce, Charles Sanders. 2009. "Semiosis: The Subject Matter of Semiotic Inquiry." Pp. 26–50 in Basics of Semiotics (5th ed.), edited by J. Deely. Tartu, Estonia: Tartu University Press. See especially pp. 31,38– 41.</ref>

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.<ref>"LOGOS – Multilingual Translation Portal". courses.logos.it. Retrieved 2017-03-26.</ref> 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.<ref group="lower-alpha">For a summary of Peirce's contributions to semiotics, see Liszka (1996) or Atkin (2006).</ref>

Other early theorists in the field of semiotics include Charles W. Morris.<ref>1971, orig. 1938, Writings on the general theory of signs, Mouton, The Hague, The Netherlands</ref> Writing in 1951, Jozef Maria Bochenski 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."<ref>Jozef Maria Bochenski (1956) Contemporary European Philosophy, trans. Donald Nichols and Karl Ashenbrenner from 1951 edition, Berkeley, CA: University of California, Section 25, "Mathematical Logic," Subsection F, "Semiotics," p. 259.</ref>

Max Black argued that the work of Bertrand Russell was seminal in the field.<ref>Black, Max. 1944. The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell 5. Library of Living Philosophers.</ref>

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 (taps) 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.

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.<ref name=Nattiez>Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music. Translated by Carolyn Abbate. Princeton: Princeton University Press.</ref>: 16 

Syntactics

Semiotics differs from linguistics 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,<ref>"Definition of Syntactics by Merriam-Webster". Merriam-Webster Inc. Retrieved May 29, 2019.</ref> or—more generally—with formal properties of symbol systems<ref>"Syntactics definition and meaning". HarperCollins Publishers. Retrieved May 29, 2019.</ref> (specifically, with reference to linguistic signs, syntax)<ref>"Syntactics". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on August 7, 2020.</ref> 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 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 and continental philosophy. On a closer look, there may be found some differences regarding subjects. Philosophy of language pays more attention to natural languages 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 (including literary theory) and to cultural anthropology.

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),<ref>Shackell, Cameron (2019-03-05). "Finite semiotics: Recovery functions, semioformation, and the hyperreal". Semiotica. 2019 (227): 211–26. doi:10.1515/sem-2016-0153. ISSN 0037-1998. S2CID 149185917.</ref><ref>Shackell, Cameron (2018-04-25). "Finite cognition and finite semiosis: A new perspective on semiotics for the information age". Semiotica. 2018 (222): 225–40. doi:10.1515/sem-2018-0020. ISSN 0037-1998. S2CID 149817752.</ref><ref>Shackell, Cameron (2019-07-26). "Finite semiotics: Cognitive sets, semiotic vectors, and semiosic oscillation". Semiotica. 2019 (229): 211–35. doi:10.1515/sem-2017-0127. ISSN 1613-3692. S2CID 67111370.</ref><ref>Shackell, Cameron. 2018. "Finite semiotics: A new theoretical basis for the information age Archived 2020-01-25 at the Wayback Machine." Cross-Inter-Multi-Trans: Proceedings of the 13th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS/AIS). IASS Publications & International Semiotics Institute. Retrieved 2020-01-25.</ref> 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 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,<ref>Shackell, Cameron, and Laurianne Sitbon. 2018. "Cognitive Externalities and HCI: Towards the Recognition and Protection of Cognitive Rights." Pp. 1–10 in Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI '18. Montreal: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/3170427.3188405. ISBN 978-1-4503-5621-3.</ref> creativity theory,<ref>Shackell, Cameron, and Peter Bruza. 2019. "Introducing Quantitative Cognitive Analysis: Ubiquitous reproduction, Cognitive Diversity and Creativity." Pp. 2783–9 in Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2019), edited by C. Freksa. Cognitive Science Society. ISBN 978-1-5108-9155-5. Retrieved 2020-01-25.</ref> and a computational semiotics method for generating semiotic squares from digital texts.<ref>Shackell, Cameron; Sitbon, Laurianne (2019-09-12). "Computational opposition analysis using word embeddings: A method for strategising resonant informal argument". Argument & Computation. 10 (3): 301–317. doi:10.3233/AAC-190467.</ref>

Pictorial semiotics

Pictorial semiotics<ref>"Pictorial Semiotics". Oxford Index. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web. Archived from the original on 2018-09-20. Retrieved 2014-10-31.</ref> 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.<ref>"Pictorial Codes". Oxford Index. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web. Archived from the original on 2014-10-31. Retrieved 2014-10-31.</ref>

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.<ref>Sonesson, Göran (1988). "Methods and Models in Pictorial Semiotics": 2–98. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)</ref>

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.<ref name="Alden">Alden, Dana L; Steenkamp, Jan-Benedict E. M; Batra, Rajeev (1999). "Brand Positioning Through Advertising in Asia, North America, and Europe: The Role of Global Consumer Culture". Journal of Marketing. 63 (1): 75–87. doi:10.2307/1252002. JSTOR 1252002.</ref>

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.<ref>Pan, Yuling; Sha, Mandy (2019-07-09). The Sociolinguistics of Survey Translation. London: Routledge. pp. 72–75. doi:10.4324/9780429294914. ISBN 978-0-429-29491-4. S2CID 198632812.</ref> 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.<ref>Chandler, Daniel. 2007 [2001]. Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge.</ref> 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.<ref>Spotts, Harlan E; Weinberger, Marc G; Parsons, Amy L (1997). "Assessing the Use and Impact of Humor on Advertising Effectiveness: A Contingency Approach". Journal of Advertising. 26 (3): 17. doi:10.1080/00913367.1997.10673526.</ref> 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.<ref>Beeman, William O (1981). "Why Do They Laugh? An Interactional Approach to Humor in Traditional Iranian Improvisatory Theater: Performance and Its Effects". The Journal of American Folklore. 94 (374): 506–526. doi:10.2307/540503. JSTOR 540503.</ref>

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.<ref name="Brannen">Brannen, Mary Yoko (2004). "When Mickey Loses Face: Recontextualization, Semantic Fit, and the Semiotics of Foreignness". Academy of Management Review. 29 (4): 593–616. doi:10.5465/amr.2004.14497613. JSTOR 20159073.</ref>

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 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.<ref name="Brannen" /> 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.<ref name="Alden" />

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.<ref>Thurlow, Crispin; Aiello, Giorgia (2016). "National pride, global capital: A social semiotic analysis of transnational visual branding in the airline industry". Visual Communication. 6 (3): 305. doi:10.1177/1470357207081002. S2CID 145395587.</ref>

Semiotics of dreaming

Template:Only primary sources The flexibility of human semiotics is well demonstrated in dreams. Sigmund Freud<ref>Freud, Sigmund. 1900 [1899]. The Interpretation of Dreams. London: Hogarth</ref> 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."

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.<ref>Mirka, Danuta, ed. The Oxford handbook of topic theory. Oxford Handbooks, 2014.</ref> 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. Ratner's discussion of topic theory primarily consists of musical topics that he finds to be particularly prevalent in Baroque-style music.<ref>Ratner, Leonard Gilbert. "Classical Music: Expression, Form, and Style." (1980).</ref>

Robert Hatten continues this conversation in his 1994 publication, Beethoven, Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation, 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." Hatten, therefore, is able to expand the realm in which musical topics are recognized as such.<ref>Hatten, Robert S. Musical meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, correlation, and interpretation. Indiana University Press, 2004.</ref>

List of subfields

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

Notable semioticians

Signaling and communication between the Astatotilapia burtoni

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),<ref>Treadwell, James (1998-07-01). "'Sartor Resartus' and the work of writing". Essays in Criticism. 48 (3): 224–244. doi:10.1093/eic/48.3.224.</ref> Sartor Resartus (1833–4),<ref>Jackson, Leon (1999). "The Reader Retailored: Thomas Carlyle, His American Audiences, and the Politics of Evidence". Book History. 2: 146–172. ISSN 1098-7371. JSTOR 30227300.</ref> and On Heroes (1841),<ref>"Sincere Idolatry: Carlyle and Religious Symbols". victorianweb.org. Retrieved 2023-02-16.</ref> 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.<ref>For Peirce's definitions of signs and semiosis, see under "Sign" and "Semiosis, semeiosy" in the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms; and "76 definitions of sign by C. S. Peirce" collected by Robert Marty. Peirce's "What Is a Sign Archived 2010-05-28 at the Wayback Machine" (MS 404 of 1894, Essential Peirce v. 2, pp. 4–10) provides intuitive help.</ref> 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.<ref>See Peirce, excerpt from a letter to William James, March 14, 1909, Collected Papers v. 8, paragraph 314. Also see under relevant entries in the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms. On coincidence of actual opinion with final opinion, see MS 218, transcription at Arisbe, and appearing in Writings of Charles S. Peirce v. 3, p. 79.</ref> His semiotic<ref>He spelt it "semiotic" and "semeiotic." See under "Semeiotic [etc.] in the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms.</ref> 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<ref>Peirce, Collected Papers v. 2, paragraphs 243–263, written c. 1903.</ref> to classify any sign by three interdependent trichotomies, intersecting to form ten (rather than 27) classes of sign.<ref>He worked on but did not perfect a finer-grained system of ten trichotomies, to be combined into 66 (Tn+1) classes of sign. That raised for Peirce 59,049 classificatory questions (59,049 = 310, or 3 to the 10th power). See p. 482 in "Excerpts from Letters to Lady Welby", Essential Peirce v. 2.</ref> 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:<ref name="CREDO Reference">Ryan, Michael (2011). The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-8312-3.</ref>[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.

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.

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.<ref>Dewey, John (1946). "Peirce's Theory of Linguistic Signs, Thought, and Meaning". The Journal of Philosophy. 43 (4): 85–95. doi:10.2307/2019493. JSTOR 2019493.</ref>

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.

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

Chart semiotics of social networking

Some applications of semiotics include:

  • 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."<ref name=":0">Epure, M.; Eisenstat, E.; Dinu, C. (2014). "Semiotics And Persuasion In Marketing Communication". Linguistic & Philosophical Investigations. 13: 592–605.</ref>: 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.<ref name=":0" /> Semiotics can also be used to analyze advertising effectiveness and meaning. Cian (2020),<ref>Cian, Luca (2012). "A comparative analysis of print advertising applying the two main plastic semiotics schools: Barthes' and Greimas'". Semiotica. 2012 (190): 57–79. doi:10.1515/sem-2012-0039.</ref> for instance, analyzed a specific printed advertisement from two different semiotic points of view. He applied the interpretative instruments provided by the Barthes' school of thinking (focused on the description of explicit signs taken in isolation). He then analyzed the same advertising using Greimas' 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 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.

Main institutions

A world organisation of semioticians, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, and its journal Semiotica, was established in 1969. The larger research centers together with teaching program include the semiotics departments at the University of Tartu, University of Limoges, Aarhus University, and Bologna University.

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), 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 (series editors Paul Cobley and Kalevi Kull) replaces the former "Approaches to Semiotics" (more than 120 volumes) and "Approaches to Applied Semiotics" (series editor Thomas A. Sebeok). Since 1980 the Semiotic Society of America has produced an annual conference series: Semiotics: The Proceedings of the Semiotic Society of America.

See also

References

Footnotes

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Citations

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  • Zlatev, Jordan. (2009). "The Semiotic Hierarchy: Life, Consciousness, Signs and Language, Cognitive Semiotics". Sweden: Scania.

External links

Look up semiotics in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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Library resources about
Semiotics

Peircean focus

Journals and book series

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