Page 199 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

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As human beings, we may decide not to eat or drink, not to talk or communicate, or perhaps not even to live, but as long as we do live we cannot choose not to convey 'meaning' to the surrounding world. 'Semi- otics,' in the broadest sense, is the study of the basic human activity of creating meaning. 'Signs' are all types of elements—verbal, nonverbal, natural, arti- ficial, etc.—which carry meaning. Thus, semiotics is the study of sign structures and sign processes. In certain research traditions, the name of this study has been 'semiology'; the distinction between semiology andsemioticshasoftenbeeninterpretedconceptually, and not just terminologically, whereas today this superficial distinction has been abandoned: 'semiotics' is the generally accepted ecumenical term, which will also be adopted here.
As a specific discipline, semiotics is most developed as the study of the signs which function in the world of human activity. Here, semiotics investigates three fundamental problems. First, how the world which surrounds us is 'constituted' as a humanenvironment because of our perception and apprehension of it through signs; second, how this world is coded and decoded, and thus made into a 'specific cultural domain' consisting of networks of signs; third, how we 'communicate' and 'act' through signs in order to make this domain a collectively shared cultural universe.
Semiotics may deal with the basic and general aspects of such a study; in this case neighboring areas, covered by specialized disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, or aesthetics, will to a certain extent be subsumed by semiotics.
Semiotics also carries out investigations of concrete
sign processes. In this case, semiotics will have to take into account signs of different 'types' which are simultaneously engaged in the process, such as signals, multileveled meaning structures, unintended mani- festations of meaning, etc., and their different systems of expression or 'media' (visual, verbal, gestural, tactile, etc.).
As a discipline in its own right, albeit a not too sharply delimited one, or as an integrated part of other disciplines, semiotics is involved whenever the production and exchange of information and meaning is studied. Such studies range from animal com- munication, through stimulus and response processes occurring throughout the biosphere, to the processing of information in machines. In these contexts, while semiotics does not define the fundamental research questions, it contributes methodologically or con- ceptually to the actual investigations.
1. BasicSemioticNotions
The key notions of semiotics are generated in a variety of disciplines, and semiotic research is carried out by different semiotic schools. This situation produces a different terminology and different specific research interests inside the entire field of semiotics, but five notions are recurrent 'attractors' for the semiotic enterprise through the modern history of semiotics to the late-twentieth-century state of affairs, and will remainsointhefutureofsemiotics.Thesefivenotions are 'code,' 'structure,' 'sign,' 'discourse,' and 'text.'
The following presentation of the notions opens with the most abstract ones, 'code' and 'structure.' They are modified by semiotics in order to serve its purpose: the study of the production of 'meaning.'
Semiotics S. E. Larsen
Semiotics
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