Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, including their processes and systems. It is an important approach to communication research because it examines the association between signs and their roles in how people create meanings on a daily basis. According to Thomas Sebeok, a U.S. semiotician and linguist, semiotics refers to the exchange of messages and the system of signs that lie beneath them; it enables us to understand and express the signs’ meanings. Sometimes called semiology, semiotics was developed at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century by scholars like Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist and semiotician, and Charles Sanders Peirce, a U.S. philosopher, linguist, semiotician, logician, and mathematician. After further defining the root ...

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