Semiotics: what it is and how it relates to communication

The study of meaning offers a different view of society.

Semiotics, also known as semiology or sign theory, is the study of how we use signs to create and convey meaning and significance as we communicate.is the study of how we use signs to create and transmit senses and meanings as we communicate.

It is a theory that has had important repercussions in the human and social sciences because it has helped us to deeply understand our communication, the interactions we establish as well as some elements of the contexts where we develop.

The following is a general review of what semiotics is, what are some of its antecedents and the effects it has had on the social and human sciences.

What is semiotics?

Semiotics is the scientific discipline that is in charge of studying signs and the ways in which meaning is constructed and conveyed during communication.. It is part of the theories of language, where the sign is defined as the minimum unit of a sentence; an element (object, phenomenon, sign) that is used to represent or substitute another that is not present; thus, the sign is an element loaded with meanings.

To study this, semiotics is divided into three main branches: semantics, pragmatics and syntactics. Among its antecedents is Saussure's theory of signs, which is also known as semiology.

In fact, the term semiology comes from the Greek "semeion" meaning sign. Its antecedents can be found in the field of atomistic philosophy, and also in the 17th century.and also in the 17th century, when John Locke spoke of semiotike as a science or a set of principles to explain signs.

In the same century, the German philosopher Johann Lambert wrote a treatise on the same subject, already under the concept of semiotics. However, the most recognized antecedent of this discipline comes from the 20th century and the studies of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce.

Like any other discipline, semiotics has gone through different stages and has been transformed according to different has been transformed in accordance with different philosophical and scientific trends.. Zecchetto (2002), speaks of three generations of semiotics: the first of them arises approximately in 1950 and is characterized by structuralist thinking; the second, in 1970, has an approach that moves towards post-structuralism; and in the third, around 1980, the question arises about the interaction between the text and the interlocutor, so it is an interactionist paradigm.

Semiotics or semiology? Differences

Although the answer depends largely on which author is asked, in general, they are terms that are used interchangeably..

However, there are those who defend that semiology is the theoretical description of symbolic systems in general; and semiotics refers to the study of particular systems, for example, images, fashions, cinema, advertising, among others.

At a formal level, and especially since 1969 when the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS) was institutionalized, only one term is recognized: semiotics, to cover the two types of study we have mentioned.

Beyond text: semiotics of the image

Human beings communicate through almost all (if not all) the things we do: what we say and what we do not say; through our movements, gestures or postures, and even through more complex tools that involve our senses, such as advertising, cinema, music, etc.

Therefore, semiotics is a science that has more than one method: it can investigate the meaning that is constructed and transmitted not only through oral language or written language, but it can analyze, for example, an advertising poster and its elements (how its language, images or aesthetic forms are structured and used), and thus understand what is the sense, the meaningThe importance of this approach in the social sciences is not only in the field of advertising, but also in the field of social sciences.

Its importance in the social sciences

Semiotics has had an important impact on the study of language and human communication, as well as on the understanding of the psychological and social phenomena that are generated through this communication.

That is why semiotics is related in an important way with the problem of knowledgeand with the way in which signs allow us to reach it. In other words, semiotics, the study of signs, offers us a point of view on reality, and on the way in which things acquire and transmit meaning, which has been especially useful in extending the scope of the human sciences.

Some of its criticisms revolve around the fact that semiotics is a discipline that tries to cover too many things, with which its methods become diffuse and sometimes difficult to justify by means of traditional scientific methods.

Bibliographical references:

• Bobes, M. (1973). La semiótica como teoría lingüística. Madrid: Editorial Gredos.
• International Association of Semiotic Studies (IASS). (S/A). Short Story. Retrieved April 10, 2018. Available at http://iass-ais.org/presentation-2/short-history/.
• Zecchetto, V. (2002). The dance of signs. Nociones de semiótica general. Ecuador: Ediciones ABYA-YALA.