Semiology

Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the study of sign process (semiosis). It includes the study of signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness, analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. It is not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition called semiology, which is a subset of semiotics.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.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.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.'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).Syntactics 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. Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the study of sign process (semiosis). It includes the study of signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness, analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. It is not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition called semiology, which is a subset of semiotics. 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 and phytosemiotics). 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: 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: 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: