Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is
the study of sign process (semiosis). It is
not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition
called semiology, which is a subset of semiotics.
Semiotics includes the study of signs and
sign processes, indication, designation, likeness,
analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism,
signification, and communication.
The semiotic tradition explores the study
of signs and symbols as a significant part
of communications. Different from linguistics,
semiotics also studies non-linguistic sign
systems.
Semiotics is frequently seen as having important
anthropological and sociological dimensions;
for example, the Italian semiotician and novelist
Umberto Eco proposed that every cultural phenomenon
may be studied as communication. Some semioticians
focus on the logical dimensions of the science,
however. They examine areas belonging also
to the life sciences—such as how organisms
make predictions about, and adapt to, their
semiotic niche in the world (see semiosis).
In general, semiotic theories take signs or
sign systems as their object of study: the
communication of information in living organisms
is covered in biosemiotics (including zoosemiotics).
== Terminology ==
The term derives from the Greek σημειωτικός
sēmeiōtikos, "observant of signs" (from
σημεῖον sēmeion, "a sign, a mark")
and it was first used in English prior to
1676 by Henry Stubbes (spelt semeiotics) in
a very precise sense to denote the branch
of medical science relating to the interpretation
of signs. John Locke used the term sem(e)iotike
in book four, chapter 21 of An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding (1690). Here he explains
how science may be divided into three parts:
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:
Nor is there any thing to be relied upon in
Physick, but an exact knowledge of medicinal
physiology (founded on observation, not principles),
semiotics, method of curing, and tried (not
excogitated, not commanding) medicines.
In the nineteenth century, Charles Sanders
Peirce defined what he termed "semiotic" (which
he sometimes spelled 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", and which is philosophical
logic pursued in terms of signs and sign processes.
The Peirce scholar and editor Max H. Fisch
claimed in 1978 that "semeiotic" was Peirce's
own preferred rendering of Locke's σημιωτική.
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.
Ferdinand de Saussure, however, founded his
semiotics, which he called semiology, in the
social sciences:
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.
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. The Peircean semiotic addresses
not only the external communication mechanism,
as per Saussure, but the internal representation
machine, investigating not just sign processes,
or modes of inference, but the whole inquiry
process in general. Peircean semiotics further
subdivides each of the three triadic elements
into three sub-types. For example, signs can
be icons, indices, and symbols.
Yuri Lotman introduced Eastern Europe to semiotics
and adopted Locke's coinage as the name to
subtitle (Σημειωτική) his founding
at the University of Tartu in Estonia in 1964
of the first semiotics journal, Sign Systems
Studies.
Thomas Sebeok assimilated "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 been challenged
with serious criticism, for example by Jacques
Derrida's assertion 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'.
For Derrida, 'il n'y a pas de hors-texte'
("there is nothing outside the text"). He
was in obvious opposition to materialists
and marxists who argued that a sign has to
point towards a real meaning, and cannot be
controlled by the referent's closed-loop references.
== History ==
The importance of signs and signification
has been recognized throughout much of the
history of philosophy, and in psychology as
well. Plato and Aristotle both explored the
relationship between signs and the world,
and Augustine considered the nature of the
sign within a conventional system. These theories
have had a lasting effect in Western philosophy,
especially through scholastic philosophy.
(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.)
The general study of signs that began in Latin
with Augustine culminated in Latin 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". Peirce
aimed 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,) 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.
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. Sebeok also
played the central role in bringing Peirce's
work to the center of the semiotic stage in
the twentieth century, first with his expansion
of the human use of signs ("anthroposemiosis")
to include also the generically animal sign-usage
("zoösemiosis"), then with his further expansion
of semiosis (based initially on the work of
Martin Krampen, but taking advantage of Peirce's
point that an interpretant, as the third item
within a sign relation, "need not be mental")
to include the vegetative world ("phytosemiosis").
Peirce's 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.
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. Other early theorists in the field
of semiotics include Charles W. Morris. Max
Black argued that the work of Bertrand Russell
was seminal in the field.
== Formulations ==
Semioticians classify signs or sign systems
in relation to the way they are transmitted
(see modality). 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 (see lexical words),
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 (see syntax and semantics). 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 (1987; trans. 1990: 16),
who, as a musicologist, considered the theoretical
study of communication irrelevant to his application
of semiotics.
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. 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.
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 cognitive methods and theories developed
in 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.
== Notable semioticians ==
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. 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. His
semiotic 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 to classify
any sign by three interdependent trichotomies,
intersecting to form ten (rather than 27)
classes of sign. 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 the term "sign" as:"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." Peirce
called the sign 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. For a summary of Peirce's contributions
to semiotics, see Liszka (1996) or Atkin (2006).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 for "environment", umwelt, 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 (tr.: Marksizm i Filosofiya
Yazyka) developed a counter-Saussurean linguistics,
which situated language use in social process
rather than in an entirely decontexualized
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). In his 1938
Foundations of the Theory of Signs, he defined
semiotics as grouped into three branches:
Semantics: relation between signs and the
things to which they refer; their signified
denotata, or meaning
Syntactics/Syntax: relations among or between
signs in formal structures
Pragmatics: relation between signs and sign-using
agents or interpretersSyntactics is the Morris'ean
branch of semiotics that deals with the formal
properties of signs and symbols; the interrelation
of the signs, without regard to meaning. Semantics
deals with the relation of signs to their
designata and the objects that they may or
do denote; the relation between the signs
and the objects to which they apply. Finally,
pragmatics deals with the biotic aspects of
semiosis, with all the psychological, biological,
and sociological phenomena that occur in the
functioning of signs; the relation between
the sign system and its human (or animal)
user. 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.
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.
Yuri 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".
The Mu Group (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.
Paul Bouissac (1934–) A world renowned expert
of circus studies, Bouissac is known for developing
a range of semiotic interpretations of circus
performances. This includes the multimodal
dimensions of clowns and clowning, jugglers,
and trapeze acts. He is the author of several
books relating to the semiotics of the circus.
Bouissac is the Series Editor for the Advances
in Semiotics Series for Bloomsbury Academic.
He runs the SemiotiX Bulletin which has a
global readership, is a founding editor of
the Public Journal of Semiotics, and was a
central founding figure in the Toronto Semiotic
Circle. He is Professor Emeritus of Victoria
College, University of Toronto. The personal,
professional, and intellectual life of Bouissac
is recounted in the book, The Pleasures of
Time: Two Men, A Life, by his life-long partner,
the sociologist Stephen Harold Riggins.
Julia Kristeva (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 slasher films
and has had a remarkable influence on feminism
and feminist literary studies.
== Semiotics of dreaming ==
The flexibility of human semiotics is well
demonstrated in dreams. Sigmund Freud 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 mindbrain
converts and disguises the verbal dream thought
into an imagistic form, through processes
he called the "dream-work".
== Current applications ==
Applications of semiotics include:
It represents 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;
It may improve 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.In some countries,
its role 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.
Publication of research is both in dedicated
journals such as Sign Systems Studies, established
by Yuri 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.
Marketing is another application of semiotics.
Epure, Eisenstat and Dinu (2014) said, "semiotics
allows for the practical distinction of persuasion
from manipulation in marketing communication"
(p. 592). Semiotics are used in marketing
as a persuasive device to influence buyers
to change their attitudes and behaviors in
the market place. Two ways that Epure, Eisenstat
and Dinu (2014) state that semiotics are used
are:
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.Semiotics analysis is
used by scholars and professional researchers
as a method to interpret meanings behind symbols
and how the meanings are created. Below is
an example of how semiotic analysis is utilized
in a research paper published in an academic
journal: Educational Research and Reviews.
== Branches ==
Semiotics has sprouted subfields including,
but not limited to, the following:
Biosemiotics: the study of semiotic processes
at all levels of biology, or a semiotic study
of living systems (e.g., Copenhagen–Tartu
School).
Semiotic anthropology.
Cognitive semiotics: 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 the Center for Cognitive Semiotics
(CCS) at Lund University, Sweden.
Computational semiotics: attempts to engineer
the process of semiosis, in the study of and
design for human-computer interaction or to
mimic aspects of human cognition through artificial
intelligence and knowledge representation.
See also cybercognition.
Cultural and literary semiotics: examines
the literary world, the visual media, the
mass media, and advertising in the work of
writers such as Roland Barthes, Marcel Danesi,
and Yuri Lotman (e.g., Tartu–Moscow Semiotic
School).
Cybersemiotics: built on two already-generated
interdisciplinary approaches: cybernetics
and systems theory including information theory
and science, and Peircean semiotics including
phenomenology and pragmatic aspects of linguistics,
attempts to make the two interdisciplinary
paradigms—both going beyond mechanistic
and pure constructivistic ideas—complement
each other in a common framework. Søren Brier.
Design semiotics or product semiotics: the
study of the use of signs in the design of
physical products; introduced by Martin Krampen,
a o, and in a practitioner-oriented version
by Rune Monö while teaching industrial design
at the Institute of Design, Umeå University,
Sweden.
Ethnosemiotics is a disciplinary perspective
which links semiotics concepts to ethnographic
methods.
Film semiotics: the study of the various codes
and signs of film and how they are understood;
see Christian Metz.
Gregorian chant semiology is a current avenue
of palaeographical research in Gregorian chant
which is revising the Solesmes school of interpretation.
Law and semiotics: one of the more accomplished
publications in this field is the International
Journal for the Semiotics of Law, published
by International Association for the Semiotics
of Law.
Marketing semiotics, or commercial semiotics
is an application of semiotic methods and
semiotic thinking in the analysis and development
of advertising and brand communications in
cultural context. Key figures include Virginia
Valentine, Malcolm Evans, Greg Rowland, Georgios
Rossolatos.
Music semiology: "There are strong arguments
that music inhabits a semiological realm which,
on both ontogenetic and phylogenetic levels,
has developmental priority over verbal language."
(Middleton 1990, p. 172) See Nattiez (1976,
1987, 1989), Stefani (1973, 1986), Baroni
(1983), and Semiotica (66: 1–3 (1987)).
Semiotics of music videos.
Organisational semiotics: the study of semiotic
processes in organizations (with strong ties
to computational semiotics and human-computer
interaction).
Social semiotics: expands the interpretable
semiotic landscape to include all cultural
codes, such as in slang, fashion, tattoos,
and advertising (See Roland Barthes, Michael
Halliday, Bob Hodge, Chris William Martin
and Christian Metz).
Structuralism and post-structuralism in the
work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault,
Louis Hjelmslev, Roman Jakobson, Jacques Lacan,
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, etc.
Theatre semiotics: extends or adapts semiotics
onstage; key theoricians include Keir Elam.
Urban semiotics
Visual semiotics: analyses visual signs; prominent
modern founders to this branch are Groupe
µ and Göran Sonesson (see also visual rhetoric).
Semiotics of photography.
=== Pictorial semiotics ===
Pictorial semiotics 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.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 (or
laocoon) model, which considers the limits
and constraints of pictorial expressions by
comparing textual mediums that utilize time
with visual mediums that utilize space.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.
One of the many ways that pictorial semiotics
has been changing has been through the use
of emojis in email, text or other online conversations.
Though not seen as works of art, these small
images of happy, sad, winking faces or even
a smiling poo image, have made their way into
our everyday communication through digital
devices. In the early advances of mobile technology
and the increasing manner in which such devices
are used, many in the linguistic community
felt that vital communication cues, such as
the importance of nonverbal cues, would be
lost. Another concern is that with the high
use of these symbols would begin to oversimplify
our language to where the language's strength
would be lost.
However, others have said that the use of
emojis in digital conversation has helped
to give more clarity to a conversation. Since
the ability to read another person's facial
expressions, nonverbal cues or tone of voice
isn’t possible in a typed message, emojis
allow a communicator to convey attitudes and
emotions to their message receiver. As for
oversimplifying our language, some have argued
that perhaps our language is not being simplified,
but that new generations are revitalizing
the early forms of semiotics like cave paintings
or hieroglyphics. As technology advances,
so will the use of emojis or possibly a more
advanced form of pictorial symbols to use
in digital communication.
=== 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.Mistranslations
may lead to instances of "Engrish" or "Chinglish",
terms for unintentionally humorous cross-cultural
slogans intended to be understood in English.
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.
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. 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.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.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 Coca-Cola or McDonald's logos, from one
culture to another. This may be accomplished
if the sign is migrated from a more economically-developed
to a less developed culture. 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.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.
== Gangs and graffiti ==
Graffiti is used by gang members to mark their
territory and to warn off rivals. Graffiti
is a great example of semiotics and the use
of symbols. Police task forces are now starting
to use a programming system called GARI, they
upload pictures of gang symbols that they
find and it helps them to decipher the meaning
of the symbols. Gang members use semiotics
and symbols for many different reasons, for
example: Government-sanctioned graffiti from
the city's Department of Public Works, in
red, typically indicates an abandoned building,
or the stylized SS stands for South Side,
a faction of the 18th Street gang based in
southern Indianapolis. A rival gang sprayed
red Xs over the work as a sign of disrespect.In
the book The Lost Boyz: A Dark Side of Graffiti
by Justin Rollins it talks about how Rollins
started writing on trains at a very early
age, because it helped him find himself, he
was now a graffiti writer – a somebody.
This is true with a lot of symbols. People
use symbols to express themselves by getting
tattoos or wearing a symbol on their clothing.
This helps them to feel like they belong to
something or it helps them to express themselves.
Gangs also use their clothing as a symbol,
they do something unique for their group so
that you aware of the gang you are encountering.
An example could be a certain pant leg rolled
up or wearing a certain color of bandana.
The book also talks about how Rollins joined
a graffiti gang that was called the WK which
stands for Who Kares but it also had a different
meaning which was Wanted Kriminals. Many symbols
in semiotics theory have different meanings;
these meanings can be different from country
to country or even just from person to person
depending on where and how a person was raised.
For example, in the United States, waving
is a form of "hello" but in other cultures
this could mean something offensive.Semiotics
is anything that can stand for something else.
A symbol does not stand on its own, it is
a part of something, a system perhaps. Symbols
in gangs are used for different things. Not
just to show which gang a person is associated
with but to express what has happened in their
gang and in their individual lives. Gangs
were first created to strengthen a certain
ethnic group. They are very territorial. To
show which territory is theirs they will mark
the streets so that other gangs are aware.
There are special ways to read gang signs
and their tattoos: left to right, top to bottom.
They may also make the tattoo or graffiti
cluttered so that it is hard to read.Each
gang has special hand signals or set of signs
to identify themselves. There are some gangs
who add a dot or something similar to their
graffiti to stand as a phrase used in their
specific gang. Each gang is unique and has
special symbols, and these symbols usually
have some sort of meaning. For example, the
gang called "Bloods" use the color red in
their clothing to symbolize they are a part
of this specific gang. They also are known
to use the number 5 and have tattoos and graffiti
of a five-point crown. The hand sign that
they use mostly is a "b" which stands for
bloods.Some gangs use graffiti and tattoos
more than others as well as using their clothing
as a symbol of their gang. Gangs will also
use codes to communicate on the streets. They
will oftentimes use a number that will relate
to a letter of the alphabet. Depending on
the gang, they may use more complex codes.Street
gangs are known for using graffiti in their
neighborhoods to mark their territory. Gangs
are also using their graffiti to challenge
other gangs and to disrespect them. When they
do this, they will somehow cross the other
gang's symbol, and they will use their gang
slang as well. They make sure to do it in
a place that is clear and will leave a direct
hit on the other gang.Semiotics and gang graffiti
merge on the undercarriage of bridges, the
face of billboards, on abandoned buildings,
storefronts, the sides of railroad cars, and
even in inconspicuous places found along dirt
roads in small rural areas. The idea, is to
communicate a message. A message that is part
of a system.It is not uncommon for those outside
the culture of gangs to judge the meaning
of graffiti and its direct connection to semiotics
as completely negative. This kind of graffiti
was branded "Graffiti of Grief" in an article
by Gabrielle Luber. They are a commemoration
of mourning; a "funeral" for those who have
died on the streets. The murals are often
created by
members designated within the gang and the
artwork is intended "provide glimpses of their
lives, possessions, friends, and surroundings,
and map out for us the identities of lost
friends." The symbols used in these murals
are intentional and communicate significant
meanings within the developed culture. It
is an art, an expression of respect and loyalty.
It is a portable headstone and is often layered
(painted over) with the next memorial of death
caused by street violence. In its own right,
it is a historical timeline, a genealogy of
grief, and it is rewritten every day with
the same story and a new name. Poverty, marginalism,
survival, perpetual crisis, inadequate housing,
low or no job skills, poor education, and
social constraints and constructs will continue
to market for the consumption of lives on
the streets. The symbol of grief portrayed
in certain kinds of graffiti suggest a depth
of meaning and a place or memorial far beyond
what the eye can see. To an outsider, it may
easily be interpreted without compassion.
== 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, Aarhus
University, and Bologna University.
== In popular culture ==
The discipline is mentioned in an episode
of The Big Bang Theory called The Hamburger
Postulate.
== See also
