Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of signs and sign systems: how signs represent things, acquire meaning, and shape interpretation.
Sign: A perceptible form that stands for something beyond itself within an interpretive system. Semiotics takes signs, from words to images, as its basic units.
Semiotic triangle: A model linking a sign, its referent, and the concept or interpretation associated with it. It makes the mediated relation between signs and what they signify visible.
Ferdinand de Saussure: A Swiss linguist whose work established a structural account of linguistic signs. His signifier–signified model became a foundation for European semiotics.
Visual semiotics: The analysis of how images and visual forms function as signs. It applies semiotic tools to composition, imagery, and visual conventions.
Hermeneutics: The study and practice of interpreting texts, traditions, and other meaningful expressions. It centers interpretive understanding, while semiotics also analyzes sign systems and their structures.
Signifier and signified: Ferdinand de Saussure’s terms for a sign’s perceptible form and the concept it evokes. This distinction anchors the structuralist account of how linguistic signs signify.
Peircean semiotics: A theory of signs developed by Charles Sanders Peirce around sign, object, and interpretant. Its triadic structure explains how meaning depends on an interpreting effect.
Charles Sanders Peirce: An American philosopher and logician who developed a triadic theory of signs. His account treats signification as an ongoing relation among sign, object, and interpretant.
Social semiotics: The study of how people make meaning through socially shaped signs and communicative practices. It treats sign systems as resources shaped by social relations and institutions.
Information theory: The mathematical study of information, uncertainty, and communication over channels. It measures signal transmission, unlike semiotics’ focus on signification and interpretation.