semiology

Semiology is the study of signs and sign processes, and the ways in which meaning is produced and understood in human communication and culture. It analyzes how signs—whether spoken words, written texts, images, sounds, or gestures—function within systems of signs or codes to convey messages. The field investigates how signifiers relate to signified concepts and how social context, conventions, and power relations shape interpretation. In many scholarly traditions the term semiotics is used for the broader discipline, while "sémiologie" is common in French-language work and sometimes denotes a more culture-centered approach.

Two foundational strands have shaped semiology. Ferdinand de Saussure's structural linguistics treated the sign as a dyad: the signifier (the form) and the signified (the concept), with meaning arising from differential relations within langue (the system) rather than from any positive link to reality. He emphasized paroled and langue and the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes of sign organization. Charles Peirce proposed a triadic model of sign, object, and interpretant, and distinguished signs as icons, indexes, and symbols. These perspectives differ in emphasis on system versus interpretation and on sign-relationship within culture.

Semiology has been applied across linguistics, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, media analysis, advertising, art, and ritual studies. Analysts examine codes, myths, and narratives in texts and images, exploring how signs acquire authority, convey ideology, or generate cross-cultural meanings. Contemporary usage often treats semiotics as a general theory of signs, while semiology may emphasize particular cultural and social dimensions of signification.