Semiotics
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.[1]
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.[2] 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.
: the study of semiotic processes at all levels of biology, or a semiotic study of living systems (e.g., Copenhagen–Tartu School). Annual meetings ("Gatherings in Biosemiotics") have been held since 2001.
Biosemiotics
: 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.
Cognitive semiotics
: the study of the various codes and signs of comics and how they are understood.
Comics 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.
Computational semiotics
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 Juri Lotman (e.g., Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School).
Cultural
: 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 constructivist ideas—complement each other in a common framework.[56]
Cybersemiotics
or product semiotics: the study of the use of signs in the design of physical products; introduced by Martin Krampen and in a practitioner-oriented version by Rune Monö while teaching industrial design at the Institute of Design, Umeå University, Sweden.
Design semiotics
: the study of the various codes and signs of film and how they are understood. Key figures include Christian Metz.
Film semiotics
: an approach to the semiotics of technology developed by Cameron Shackell. It is used to both trace the effects of technology on human thought and to develop computational methods for performing semiotic analysis.
Finite semiotics
: a current avenue of palaeographical research in Gregorian chant, which is revising the Solesmes school of interpretation.
Gregorian chant semiology
: an approach to semiotics that understands meaning as inference, which is developed through exploratory interaction with the physical world. It expands the concept of communication beyond a human-centered paradigm to include other sentient beings, such as animals, plants, bacteria, fungi, etc.[57]
Hylosemiotics
: 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.
Law and semiotics
(or commercial semiotics): an application of semiotic methods and semiotic thinking to the analysis and development of advertising and brand communications in cultural context. Key figures include Virginia Valentine, Malcolm Evans, Greg Rowland, Georgios Rossolatos. International annual conferences (Semiofest) have been held since 2012.
Marketing semiotics
: the study of signs as they pertain to music on a variety of levels.
Music semiology
: the study of semiotic processes in organizations (with strong ties to computational semiotics and human–computer interaction).
Organisational semiotics
: an application of semiotic methods and semiotic thinking to art history.
Pictorial semiotics
: semiotics in popular music.
Semiotics of music videos
: expands the interpretable semiotic landscape to include all cultural codes, such as in slang, fashion, tattoos, and advertising. Key figures include Roland Barthes, Michael Halliday, Bob Hodge, Chris William Martin and Christian Metz.
Social semiotics
and post-structuralism in the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Louis Hjelmslev, Roman Jakobson, Jacques Lacan, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, etc.
Structuralism
: an application of semiotic methods and semiotic thinking to theatre studies. Key figures include Keir Elam.[58]
Theatre semiotics
: the study of meaning in urban form as generated by signs, symbols, and their social connotations.
Urban semiotics
: is the observation of symbolism used within photography.
Semiotics of photography
: the observation of visual symbols and the symbols' recognition by machine learning systems. The phrase was coined by Daniel Hoeg, founder of Semiotics Mobility, due to Semiotics Mobility's design and learning process for autonomous recognition and perception of symbols by neural networks.[60][61] The phrase refers to machine learning and neural nets application of semiotic methods and semiotic machine learning to the analysis and development of robotics commands and instructions with subsystem communications in autonomous systems context.
Artificial intelligence semiotics
: the study of signs, symbols, sign systems and their structure, meaning and use in mathematics and mathematics education.
Semiotics of mathematics
Representation of a 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;
methodology
By scholars and professional researchers as a method to interpret meanings behind symbols and how the meanings are created;
Potential improvement of 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
ergonomic
: Epure, Eisenstat, and Dinu (2014) express that "semiotics allows for the practical distinction of persuasion from manipulation in marketing communication."[72]: 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.[72] Semiotics can also be used to analyze advertising effectiveness and meaning. Cian (2020),[73] 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).
Marketing
— presents semiotic theories and theories closely related to semiotics.
Signo
The Semiotics of the Web
Semiotic Society of America
— includes journals, lecture courses, etc.