Semiotics is the study of how humans communicate and create meaning through symbols. It was formalized in 1922 and divided into three parts: semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics. Semiotics is not limited to verbal languages and can be applied to other symbol systems. It is also connected to human survival and can be applied to other species through biosemiotics or zoosemiosis.
Semiotics, also known as “semiotic studies” and “semiology,” is the study of how humans communicate. Specifically, it is the study of how we have created meaning and how meaning is understood by the people to whom the meaning is communicated. Semiotics is the study of how we use symbols such as letters and numbers to transfer meaning between parts.
The term “semiotics” comes from the Greek word semeiotikos which means “interpreter of signs”. In English, the term was first used by the British writer and scholar Henry Stubbes in 1670. Twenty years later, in 1690, John Locke used the term in his work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Some important figures in the history of semiotics include: Charles Sanders Peirce, Ferdinand de Saussure, William Dwight Whitney, Louis Trolle Hjelmslev, Charles W. Morris, Umberto Eco, Algirdas Julien Greimas, Thomas A. Sebeok, Juri Lotman and Valentin Volosinov.
The development of semiotics as a field of study was formalized during the Vienna Circle, an event that took place at the University of Vienna in 1922. At the Vienna Circle, a group of scholars presented a work titled “International Encyclopedia of unified science”. In this work, the field of semiotics has been defined and divided into three parts: semantics, syntactics and pragmatics.
Semantics is the study of how meaning is expressed in a language. It is important to note that semantics is not limited to verbal languages. It can also be applied to other symbol systems that convey meaning, such as the language of mathematics and computer codes. Syntactics is the study of how symbols within a specific language relate to each other or the study of syntax. Pragmatics is the study of how a language is used in practical applications, how speakers of a language use the language.
Semiotics is a discipline deeply connected with human experience. Communication is not only the key to professional success and personal relationships, it is also the key to survival. Through language, humans have the ability to complete crucial tasks such as asking for help or warning someone else of possible or imminent danger. However, humans aren’t the only species capable of communicating such information. A cat stuck in a tree will meow loudly, even howl to communicate its situation. A mother duck yells at her ducklings for her if she sees a hunting dog approaching the shoreline. The application of semiotic theories in organisms other than humans is called “biosemiotics” or “zoosemiosis”.
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