The following
outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to semiotics:
Semiotics – study of
meaning-making, signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. Also called semiotic studies, or semiology (in the Saussurean tradition).
Classification of semiotics
Semiotics can be described as all of the following:
Academic discipline – branch of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part), and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong.
Social science – field of study concerned with society and human behaviours.
Branches of semiotics
Three main branches
Semantics – relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata, or
meaning
Syntactics – relations among signs in formal structures
Pragmatics – relation between signs and the effects they have on the people who use them
Subfields
Biosemiotics: 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.
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.
Comics semiotics: the study of the various codes and signs of comics and how they are understood.
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 constructivist ideas—complement each other in a common framework.
Design semiotics 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.
Film semiotics: the study of the various codes and signs of film and how they are understood. Key figures include
Christian Metz.
Finite 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.
Hylosemiotics: 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.
Marketing 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.
Music semiology: the study of signs as they pertain to music on a variety of levels.
Artificial intelligence semiotics: 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. 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.
Semiotics of mathematics: the study of signs, symbols, sign systems and their structure, meaning and use in mathematics and mathematics education.
Product semiotics – study of the use of signs in the design of physical products. Introduced by
Rune Monö while teaching Industrial Design at the Institute of Design,
Umeå University, Sweden.
Literary semiotics – approach to literary criticism informed by the theory of signs or semiotics. Semiotics, tied closely to the structuralism pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, was extremely influential in the development of literary theory out of the formalist approaches of the early twentieth century.
Semiotic engineering – views HCI as computer-mediated communication between designers and users at interaction time. The system speaks for its designers in various types of conversations specified at design time. These conversations communicate the designers' understanding of who the users are, what they know the users want or need to do, in which preferred ways, and why.
Semiotic information theory – considers the information content of signs and expressions as it is conceived within the semiotic or sign-relational framework developed by Charles Sanders Peirce.
Social semiotics – expands the interpretable semiotic landscape to include all cultural codes, such as in slang, fashion, and advertising. It considers social connotations, including meanings related to ideology and power structures, in addition to denotative meanings of signs.
Urban semiotics – study of meaning in urban form as generated by signs, symbols, and their social connotations.[1] It focuses on material objects of the built environment, such as streets, squares, parks, and buildings, but also abstract cultural constructs such as building codes, planning documents, unbuilt designs, real estate advertising, and popular discourse about the city,[2] such as architectural criticism and real estate blogs.
Phytosemiotics – the study of the sign processes in plants, or more broadly, the vegetative semiosis.
Zoosemiotics – study of animal meaning-making and communication.
^Gottdienier, M., and Lagopoulos, Alexandros, eds. The City and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. p.5
Semiotiche, Gian Paolo Caprettini, Managing Director; Andrea Valle & Miriam Visalli, Editors. Some articles in English. Home site seems gone from Web, old url
[1] no longer good, and Wayback Machine cannot retrieve.
The following
outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to semiotics:
Semiotics – study of
meaning-making, signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. Also called semiotic studies, or semiology (in the Saussurean tradition).
Classification of semiotics
Semiotics can be described as all of the following:
Academic discipline – branch of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part), and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong.
Social science – field of study concerned with society and human behaviours.
Branches of semiotics
Three main branches
Semantics – relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata, or
meaning
Syntactics – relations among signs in formal structures
Pragmatics – relation between signs and the effects they have on the people who use them
Subfields
Biosemiotics: 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.
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.
Comics semiotics: the study of the various codes and signs of comics and how they are understood.
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 constructivist ideas—complement each other in a common framework.
Design semiotics 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.
Film semiotics: the study of the various codes and signs of film and how they are understood. Key figures include
Christian Metz.
Finite 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.
Hylosemiotics: 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.
Marketing 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.
Music semiology: the study of signs as they pertain to music on a variety of levels.
Artificial intelligence semiotics: 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. 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.
Semiotics of mathematics: the study of signs, symbols, sign systems and their structure, meaning and use in mathematics and mathematics education.
Product semiotics – study of the use of signs in the design of physical products. Introduced by
Rune Monö while teaching Industrial Design at the Institute of Design,
Umeå University, Sweden.
Literary semiotics – approach to literary criticism informed by the theory of signs or semiotics. Semiotics, tied closely to the structuralism pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, was extremely influential in the development of literary theory out of the formalist approaches of the early twentieth century.
Semiotic engineering – views HCI as computer-mediated communication between designers and users at interaction time. The system speaks for its designers in various types of conversations specified at design time. These conversations communicate the designers' understanding of who the users are, what they know the users want or need to do, in which preferred ways, and why.
Semiotic information theory – considers the information content of signs and expressions as it is conceived within the semiotic or sign-relational framework developed by Charles Sanders Peirce.
Social semiotics – expands the interpretable semiotic landscape to include all cultural codes, such as in slang, fashion, and advertising. It considers social connotations, including meanings related to ideology and power structures, in addition to denotative meanings of signs.
Urban semiotics – study of meaning in urban form as generated by signs, symbols, and their social connotations.[1] It focuses on material objects of the built environment, such as streets, squares, parks, and buildings, but also abstract cultural constructs such as building codes, planning documents, unbuilt designs, real estate advertising, and popular discourse about the city,[2] such as architectural criticism and real estate blogs.
Phytosemiotics – the study of the sign processes in plants, or more broadly, the vegetative semiosis.
Zoosemiotics – study of animal meaning-making and communication.
^Gottdienier, M., and Lagopoulos, Alexandros, eds. The City and the Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. p.5
Semiotiche, Gian Paolo Caprettini, Managing Director; Andrea Valle & Miriam Visalli, Editors. Some articles in English. Home site seems gone from Web, old url
[1] no longer good, and Wayback Machine cannot retrieve.