Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of signs, both individually and grouped in sign systems, and includes the study of how meaning is transmitted and understood. Semioticians also sometimes examine how organisms, no matter how big or small, make predictions about and adapt to their semiotic niche in the world (see Semiosis). Semiotics theorises at a general level about signs, while the study of the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics.
The subject was originally spelled semeiotics to honour John Locke (1632–1704), who, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), first coined the term "semeiotike" from the Greek word semeion, meaning "mark" or "sign".
Clarification of Terms
Semioticians classify signs and 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 noises 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 only transmit that meaning 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 transfering data from a source to a receiver as efficiently and effectively as possible. Hence, communication theorists construct models based on codes, media, and contexts to explain the biology, psychology, and mechanics involved. Both disciplines also recognise 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 should also be distinguished from linguistics. Although both start from the same point, semiotics links linguistic facts to non-linguistic facts to give a broader empirical coverage and to offer conclusions that seem more plausible because, intiutively, humans understand that one can only interpret language in a social context (sometimes termed the semiosphere). Pure linguistics dismantles language into its components, analysing usage in slow-time, whereas, in the real world of human semiotic interaction there is an often chaotic blur of language and signal exchange which semiotics attempts to analyse and so identify the systemic rules accepted by all the participants.
Semiosis or semeiosis is the process that forms meaning from any organism's apprehension of the world through signs.
Current applications
Semiotics has two primary applications:
- It represents a methodology for the analysis of texts regardless of modality. For these purposes, "text" is any message preserved in a form that has an existence independent of either its sender or receiver; and
- It is a methodology that can be used by any other major discipline whether it be biology, anthropology, computing, engineering, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, or psychology. The concepts and methods are highly portable and may enrich understanding, for example, for improving ergonomic design in any situation where it is important to ensure that human beings can interact more effectively with their environments, whether it be on a large scale, as in architecture, or on a small scale in the configuration of instrumentation for human use.
Semiotics is only slowly establishing itself as a discipline to be respected. In some countries, its role is limited to literary criticism and an appreciation of audio and visual media, but this narrow focus can 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. The use of semiotic methods to reveal different levels of meaning and, sometimes, hidden motivations has led some to demonise elements of the subject as Marxist, nihilist, etc. (e.g. critical discourse analysis in Postmodernism and deconstruction in Post-structuralism).
Publication of research is both in dedicated journals such as Sign Systems Studies, established by Juri Lotman and published by Tartu University Press; Semiotica, founded by Sebeok, Zeitschrift für Semiotik; European Journal of Semiotics; The American Journal of Semiotics; Versus (founded and directed by Eco), et al.; and as articles accepted in periodicals of other disciplines, especially journals oriented toward philosophy and cultural criticism.
Subfields
This is not intended as an exclusive list, but merely as an indication of the spread of work:
- Biosemiotics is the study of semiotic processes at all levels of biology, or a semiotic study of living systems.
- Computational semiotics attempts to engineer the process of semiosis, say in the study of and design for Human-Computer Interaction or to mimic aspects of human cognition through artificial intelligence and knowledge representation.
- 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
- 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)).
- Structuralism and poststructuralism in the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Louis Hjelmslev, Roman Jacobson, Jacques Lacan, Claude Lévi-Strauss, etc.
Some References
- * Barthes, Roland. ([1957] 1987). Mythologies. New York: Hill & Wang. * Barthes, Roland ([1964] 1967). Elements of Semiology. (Translated by Annette Lavers & Colin Smith). London: Jonathan Cape. * Chandler, Daniel. (2002). Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge. * Culler, Jonathan (1975). Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. * Danesi, Marcel & Perron, Paul. (1999). Analyzing Cultures: An Introduction and Handbook. Bloomington: Indiana UP. * Danesi, Marcel. (1994). Messages and Meanings: An Introduction to Semiotics. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press. * Danesi, Marcel. (2002). Understanding Media Semiotics. London: Arnold; New York: Oxford UP. * Derrida, Jacques (1981). Positions. (Translated by Alan Bass). London: Athlone Press. * Eagleton, Terry. (1983). Literary Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. * Eco, Umberto. (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. London: Macmillan. * Foucault, Michel. (1970). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Tavistock. * Greimas, Algirdas. (1987). On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory. (Translated by Paul J Perron & Frank H Collins). London: Frances Pinter. * Hjelmslev, Louis (1961). Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. (Translated by Francis J. Whitfield). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. * Hodge, Robert & Kress, Gunther. (1988). Social Semiotics. Ithaca: Cornell UP. * Lacan, Jacques. (1977) Écrits: A Selection. (Translated by Alan Sheridan). New York: Norton. * Lidov, David (1999) Elements of Semiotics. New York: St. Martin's Press. * Lotman, Yuri L. (1990). Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. (Translated by Ann Shukman). London: Tauris. * Sebeok, Thomas A. (Editor) (1977). A Perfusion of Signs. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press * Williamson, Judith. (1978). Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. London: Boyars.
Source: Wikipedia