- "Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning-making."
Deconstructionists often explore the relationship between language and meaning, examining how language can be used to reinforce or challenge dominant cultural narratives and ideologies.
Linguistics: Study of language structure, usage, and rules.
Semiotics: Study of signs and symbols and their meaning.
Saussure's theory of sign: The idea that signifier and signified are two separate entities and the meaning of a sign is arbitrary.
Structuralism: The theory that social and cultural phenomena can be analyzed by the underlying structures that shape them.
Post-structuralism: An extension of structuralism that emphasizes the instability and ambiguity of language and meaning.
Deconstruction: A philosophical approach that aims to expose and undermine the assumptions and concepts that underlie a text or discourse.
Signifier: The physical form of a sign, such as a word or symbol.
Signified: The concept or meaning associated with the signifier.
Iconicity: The relationship between the signifier and the signified based on likeness or similarity.
Indexicality: The relationship between the signifier and the signified based on cause and effect.
Arbitrariness: The idea that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is not inherently logical or predictable.
Intertextuality: The relationship between different texts and the way they influence and inform one another.
Semiosis: The process of meaning-making through the use of signs.
Context: The social, cultural, and historical circumstances that shape how a sign is perceived and understood.
Discourse: The collective body of language that is used to communicate meaning and cultural values within a particular community.
Hegemony: The dominant cultural and ideological force that shapes the ways in which social and cultural values are perceived and understood.
Ideology: The set of beliefs and values that shape an individual's worldview and understanding of the world.
Power: The ability to shape and control discourse, meaning, and cultural values.
Resistance: The efforts of marginalized groups to challenge and subvert dominant discourses and ideologies.
Representation: The ways in which social identities and cultural values are constructed and reproduced through language and other symbols.
Structuralism: Structuralism is a philosophical and linguistic movement that emphasizes the importance of the underlying structures and patterns in language and other forms of communication. It seeks to identify and analyze the fundamental structures that underlie communication systems, including language, sign systems, and social relationships.
Post-structuralism: Post-structuralism is a philosophical and linguistic movement that challenges the notion of stable, fixed structures and meanings in language and other forms of communication. It emphasizes the ways in which meaning is fluid and constantly being re-negotiated in the context of social and cultural practices.
Semiotics of Culture: This approach to semiotics emphasizes the role of culture and cultural practices in shaping meaning-making practices. It explores how symbols, signs, and other forms of communication are deeply embedded in cultural practices and meanings, and how these meanings can vary across different cultural contexts.
Structuralist Semiotics: Structuralist Semiotics is a semiotic approach that focuses on the underlying structures and patterns that shape communication systems. It emphasizes the important role of sign systems, including language, in creating and structuring meaning.
Cultural Semiotics: Cultural semiotics is a semiotic approach that focuses on the ways in which cultural practices and social relationships shape the meaning of language, sign systems, and other forms of communication. This approach emphasizes the importance of context, history, and social relationships in shaping meaning.
Linguistic Semiotics: Linguistic semiotics is a semiotic approach that focuses on the study of language and how it shapes meaning. It explores the structure of language and the ways in which linguistic signs are used to communicate meaning.
Deconstructive Semiotics: Deconstructive semiotics is an approach to semiotics that emphasizes the importance of deconstructing conventional meanings and hierarchies in language and other forms of communication. It seeks to expose the power relations and assumptions that underlie language and meaning-making practices.
Cognitive Semiotics: Cognitive semiotics is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of cognition, language, and meaning. It explores the cognitive processes involved in meaning-making and the ways in which these processes are reflected in linguistic and other forms of communication.
Visual Semiotics: Visual semiotics is a semiotic approach that focuses on the study of visual signs and symbols. It explores the ways in which visual images, signs, and symbols are used to convey meaning and shape our understanding of the world around us.
- "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."