- "Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning-making."
It is a study of signs and symbols, including their meaning and interpretation in various cultural contexts.
Signs and Symbols: Refers to the basic concepts in semiotics, including the definition and characteristics of signs, symbols, and icons.
Signification: Refers to the process of how meaning is made through signs and symbols.
Code: Refers to the set of rules and conventions governing the use of signs and symbols in communication.
Semiotic Analysis: Refers to the technique of interpreting a text or visual image based on its underlying codes and signifiers.
Ferdinand de Saussure: Refers to the founding father of modern semiotics and his distinction between the signifier and signified.
Charles Sanders Peirce: Refers to another pioneer in semiotics and his triadic model of the sign.
Roland Barthes: Refers to the French literary theorist who popularized semiotics and its application in cultural studies.
Umberto Eco: Refers to the Italian semiotician and philosopher who developed a semiotic theory of culture.
Intertextuality: Refers to the relationship between texts and the way they refer to other texts.
Myth and Narrative: Refers to the role of storytelling and myth in shaping our understanding of the world.
Ideology: Refers to the system of beliefs and values that shape our culture and our understanding of reality.
Representation: Refers to the way in which images, texts, and concepts represent reality.
Discourse Analysis: Refers to the study of the way in which language is used to produce and reproduce social relations.
Linguistics: Refers to the study of language and its role in communication.
Psychology of Perception: Refers to the study of how our mental processes interpret and make sense of the world around us.
Cultural Semiotics: Refers to the application of semiotics to culture and cultural studies.
Advertising and Marketing: Refers to the use of semiotics to analyze the way in which advertising and marketing communicate and persuade.
Gender Studies: Refers to the application of semiotics to study the role of gender in culture and society.
Postmodernism: Refers to the cultural movement that challenges traditional notions of truth, identity, and meaning.
Visual Culture: Refers to the study of images and visual media and their role in shaping our understanding of the world.
Cryptography: The study of encoding and decoding secret messages.
Steganography: The art of hiding messages within plain text or data.
Linguistics: The scientific study of language and its structure.
Iconography: The study of visual symbols and their interpretation.
Gestural communication: The use of body language, facial expressions, and gestures to convey meaning.
Musical notation: The system of writing music using symbols and characters.
Braille: A system of raised dots used to represent letters and numbers for the visually impaired.
Morse code: A system of dots and dashes used to transmit messages over long distances.
Sign language: Visual languages used by those with hearing impairments.
Programming languages: A set of instructions used to communicate with computers.
- "Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, usually called a meaning, to the sign's interpreter."
- "Signs can also communicate feelings (which are usually not considered meanings) and may communicate internally (through thought itself) or through any of the senses: visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory (taste)."
- "Contemporary semiotics is a branch of science that studies meaning-making and various types of knowledge."
- "Unlike linguistics, semiotics also studies non-linguistic sign systems."
- "Semiotics includes the study of signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness, analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication."
- "Some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science, while others explore the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communications."
- "The Italian semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco proposed that every cultural phenomenon may be studied as communication."
- "They examine areas also belonging to the life sciences—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)."
- "Semiotics is not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition called semiology, which is a subset of semiotics."