semiotic

Semiotics is the study of signs and sign processes, including how meaning is created, communicated, and interpreted. It encompasses signs that convey meaning in language, images, sounds, gestures, and cultural artifacts, and it examines the systems and rules by which signs operate within cultures and media.

Two foundational traditions shaped semiotics in the twentieth century. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure emphasized the dyadic sign, composed of a signifier and a signified, and viewed signs as part of a system of differences. American philosopher Charles S. Peirce proposed a triadic model in which a sign represents an object to an interpretant, and distinguished signs by categories such as icon, index, and symbol. Later writers such as Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, and Julia Kristeva developed these ideas in literary theory, anthropology, and cultural studies.

Within semiotics, key concepts include sign systems, codes, conventions, and pragmatics of usage. Semantics studies meanings of signs, syntactics analyzes how signs relate to one another within a system, and pragmatics concerns how context affects interpretation. Semiotics also studies how signs generate connotations, denotations, and interpretive communities across cultures.

Semiotics is applied in linguistics, anthropology, media studies, advertising, film and visual culture, art, design, and user interfaces, where analysts seek to understand how meaning is produced, circulated, and consumed through signs and sign systems.