- "Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning-making."
An overview of the different schools and theories of semiotics, including structuralism, post-structuralism, and feminist semiotics.
Signs and symbols: The basic building blocks of semiotics, including the distinction between denotation and connotation.
Semiotic systems: The various ways in which signs are organized and the rules that govern sign use in different contexts.
Linguistic signs: The study of language as a sign system, including the structure of language, the nature of meaning, and the relationship between language and thought.
Non-linguistic signs: The analysis of non-verbal signs, such as images, sounds, and gestures, with a focus on how they are used to convey meaning.
Semiotic analysis: The methods and techniques used to analyze and interpret signs, including structuralism, post-structuralism, and cultural semiotics.
Signification: The process by which signs are assigned meaning, including the role of culture, history, and power relations in shaping the meanings of signs.
Semiotics and culture: The relationship between sign systems and cultural practices, including the role of semiotics in shaping cultural norms and values.
Media and communication: The analysis of the semiotics of various forms of media, including film, television, advertising, and social media.
Semiotics and the arts: The role of semiotics in the analysis and interpretation of literary texts, visual art, and music.
Semiotics and psychology: The study of how semiotic processes influence perception, cognition, and behavior, including the role of semiotics in shaping identity and social relationships.
Structural Semiotics: It focuses on analyzing the relationships between signs and their meanings in a particular cultural context.
Peircean Semiotics: This theory was developed by Charles Sanders Peirce, which distinguishes between three types of signs: icons, indexes, and symbols.
Saussurean Semiotics: It was developed by Ferdinand de Saussure, who believed that the meaning of a sign is determined by its relationship with other signs in a language system.
Cognitive Semiotics: This theory combines the principles of linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience, with the aim of understanding the cognitive processes involved in creating and interpreting signs.
Social Semiotics: It focuses on the social and cultural context in which signs are produced and interpreted, and how meaning is negotiated between different groups in society.
Biosemiotics: It examines how signs and meaning systems operate in biological organisms, and how they are involved in processes such as evolution and communication.
Ecosemiotics: It examines the role of signs and meaning systems in human interactions with the natural environment.
Affective Semiotics: It examines how emotions and affective responses are encoded and communicated through signs and meaning systems.
Visual Semiotics: It focuses on the analysis of visual signs and how they convey meaning, particularly in fields such as advertising and media.
Literary Semiotics: It is concerned with the analysis of literary texts and the ways in which meaning is constructed through the use of language and textual devices.
- "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."