Editing Semiotics (section)

== Notable semioticians ==
[[File:Exemple de signalement visuel du statut social chez un Cichlidé.jpg|thumb|Signaling and communication between the ''[[Astatotilapia burtoni]]'']]
[[Thomas Carlyle]] (1795–1881) ascribed great importance to symbols in a religious context, noting that all worship "must proceed by Symbols"; he propounded this theory in such works as "[[Critical and Miscellaneous Essays|Characteristics]]" (1831),<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Treadwell |first=James |date=1998-07-01 |title='Sartor Resartus' and the work of writing |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&issn=00140856&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA21112577&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs |journal=Essays in Criticism |language=English |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=224–244|doi=10.1093/eic/48.3.224 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }}</ref> ''[[Sartor Resartus]]'' (1833–4),<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jackson |first=Leon |date=1999 |title=The Reader Retailored: Thomas Carlyle, His American Audiences, and the Politics of Evidence |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30227300 |journal=Book History |volume=2 |pages=146–172 |jstor=30227300 |issn=1098-7371}}</ref> and ''[[On Heroes]]'' (1841),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sincere Idolatry: Carlyle and Religious Symbols |url=https://victorianweb.org/authors/carlyle/heroes/rose10.html |access-date=2023-02-16 |website=victorianweb.org}}</ref> which have been retroactively recognized as containing semiotic theories.

[[Charles Sanders Peirce]] (1839–1914), a [[History of logic|noted logician]] who founded philosophical [[pragmatism]], defined ''semiosis'' as an irreducibly triadic process wherein something, as an object, logically determines or influences something as a sign to determine or influence something as an interpretation or ''interpretant'', itself a sign, thus leading to further interpretants.<ref>For Peirce's definitions of signs and semiosis, see under "[http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/sign.html Sign]" and "[http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/semiosis.html Semiosis, semeiosy]" in the ''[http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms]''; and "[http://perso.numericable.fr/robert.marty/semiotique/access.htm 76 definitions of sign by C.&nbsp;S. Peirce]" collected by Robert Marty. Peirce's "[http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/ep/ep2/ep2book/ch02/ep2ch2.htm What Is a Sign] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528062034/http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/ep/ep2/ep2book/ch02/ep2ch2.htm |date=2010-05-28 }}" (MS 404 of 1894, ''Essential Peirce'' v. 2, pp. 4–10) provides intuitive help.</ref> Semiosis is logically structured to perpetuate itself. The object may be quality, fact, rule, or even fictional ([[Prince Hamlet|Hamlet]]), and may be "immediate" to the sign, the object as represented in the sign, or "dynamic", the object as it really is, on which the immediate object is founded. The interpretant may be "immediate" to the sign, all that the sign immediately expresses, such as a word's usual meaning; or "dynamic", such as a state of agitation; or "final" or "normal", the ultimate ramifications of the sign about its object, to which inquiry taken far enough would be destined and with which any interpretant, at most, may coincide.<ref>See Peirce, excerpt from a letter to William James, March 14, 1909, ''Collected Papers'' v. 8, paragraph 314. Also see under relevant entries in the ''[http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms]''. On coincidence of actual opinion with final opinion, see MS 218, [http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/logic/ms218.htm transcription] at ''Arisbe'', and appearing in ''Writings of Charles S. Peirce'' v. 3, p.&nbsp;79.</ref> His ''semiotic''<ref>He spelt it "semiotic" and "semeiotic." See under "[http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/semeiotic.html Semeiotic] [etc.] in the ''Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms''.</ref> covered not only artificial, linguistic, and symbolic signs, but also semblances such as kindred sensible qualities, and indices such as reactions. He came c.&nbsp;1903<ref>Peirce, ''Collected Papers'' v. 2, paragraphs 243–263, written c.&nbsp;1903.</ref> to [[Semiotic elements and classes of signs (Peirce)|classify any sign]] by three interdependent trichotomies, intersecting to form ten (rather than 27) classes of sign.<ref>He worked on but did not perfect a finer-grained system of ten trichotomies, to be combined into 66 ([[Triangular number|''T''<sub>''n''+1</sub>]]) classes of sign. That raised for Peirce 59,049 classificatory questions (59,049 = 3<sup>10</sup>, or 3 to the 10th power). See p. 482 in "Excerpts from Letters to Lady Welby", ''Essential Peirce'' v. 2.</ref> Signs also enter into various kinds of meaningful combinations; Peirce covered both semantic and syntactical issues in his speculative grammar. He regarded formal semiotic as logic ''per se'' and part of philosophy; as also encompassing study of arguments ([[Abductive reasoning|hypothetical]], [[Deductive reasoning|deductive]], and [[Inductive reasoning|inductive]]) and inquiry's methods including pragmatism; and as allied to, but distinct from logic's pure mathematics. In addition to pragmatism, Peirce provided a definition of "sign" as a ''representamen'', in order to bring out the fact that a sign is something that "represents" something else in order to suggest it (that is, "re-present" it) in some way:<ref name="CREDO Reference">{{cite book|last=Ryan|first=Michael|url=http://www.credoreference.com/entry/wileylitcul/semiotics|title=The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2011|isbn=978-1-4051-8312-3|location=Hoboken, NJ}}</ref>{{Ref|NoteH|[H]}} {{blockquote|text=A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea.}}

[[Ferdinand de Saussure]] (1857–1913), the "father" of modern [[linguistics]], proposed a dualistic notion of signs, relating the ''signifier'' as the form of the word or phrase uttered, to the ''signified'' as the mental concept. According to Saussure, the sign is completely [[Semiotic arbitrariness|arbitrary]]—i.e., there is no necessary connection between the sign and its meaning. This sets him apart from previous philosophers, such as [[Plato]] or the [[Scholasticism|scholastics]], who thought that there must be some connection between a signifier and the object it signifies. In his ''[[Course in General Linguistics]]'', Saussure credits the American linguist [[William Dwight Whitney]] (1827–1894) with insisting on the arbitrary nature of the sign. Saussure's insistence on the arbitrariness of the sign also has influenced later philosophers and theorists such as [[Jacques Derrida]], [[Roland Barthes]], and [[Jean Baudrillard]]. Ferdinand de Saussure coined the term {{Lang|fr|sémiologie}} while teaching his landmark "Course on General Linguistics" at the [[University of Geneva]] from 1906 to 1911. Saussure posited that no word is inherently meaningful. Rather a word is only a "signifier." i.e., the representation of something, and it must be combined in the brain with the "signified", or the thing itself, in order to form a meaning-imbued "sign." Saussure believed that dismantling signs was a real science, for in doing so we come to an empirical understanding of how humans synthesize physical stimuli into words and other abstract concepts.

[[Jakob von Uexküll]] (1864–1944) studied the [[sign process]]es in animals. He used the German word ''[[Umwelt]]'', {{Gloss|environment}}, to describe the individual's subjective world, and he invented the concept of functional circle ({{Lang|de|funktionskreis}}) as a general model of sign processes. In his ''Theory of Meaning'' ({{Lang|de|Bedeutungslehre}}, 1940), he described the semiotic approach to [[biology]], thus establishing the field that now is called [[biosemiotics]].

[[Valentin Voloshinov]] (1895–1936) was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]]-Russian linguist, whose work has been influential in the field of [[literary theory]] and [[Marxism|Marxist]] [[Ideology|theory of ideology]]. Written in the late 1920s in the USSR, Voloshinov's ''Marxism and the Philosophy of Language'' ({{Langx|ru|Marksizm i Filosofiya Yazyka}}) developed a counter-Saussurean linguistics, which situated language use in social process rather than in an entirely decontextualized Saussurean ''langue''.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

[[Louis Hjelmslev]] (1899–1965) developed a formalist approach to Saussure's structuralist theories. His best known work is ''Prolegomena to a Theory of Language'', which was expanded in ''Résumé of the Theory of Language'', a formal development of ''glossematics'', his scientific calculus of language.{{cn|date=February 2025}}

[[Charles W. Morris]] (1901–1979): Unlike his mentor [[George Herbert Mead]], Morris was a behaviorist and sympathetic to the [[Vienna Circle]] [[positivism]] of his colleague, [[Rudolf Carnap]]. Morris was accused by [[John Dewey]] of misreading Peirce.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Dewey|first1=John|year=1946|title=Peirce's Theory of Linguistic Signs, Thought, and Meaning|journal=The Journal of Philosophy|volume=43|issue=4|pages=85–95|doi=10.2307/2019493|jstor=2019493}}</ref>

In his 1938 ''Foundations of the Theory of Signs'', he defined semiotics as grouped into three branches:

# ''Syntactics''/''syntax'': deals with the formal properties and interrelation of signs and symbols, without regard to meaning.
# ''Semantics'': deals with the formal structures of signs, particularly the relation between signs and the objects to which they apply (i.e. signs to their designata, and the objects that they may or do denote).
# ''Pragmatics'': deals with the biotic aspects of semiosis, including all the psychological, biological, and sociological phenomena that occur in the functioning of signs. Pragmatics is concerned with the relation between the sign system and sign-using agents or interpreters (i.e., the human or animal users).

[[Thure von Uexküll]] (1908–2004), the "father" of modern [[psychosomatic medicine]], developed a diagnostic method based on semiotic and biosemiotic analyses.

[[Roland Barthes]] (1915–1980) was a French literary theorist and semiotician. He often would critique pieces of cultural material to expose how bourgeois society used them to impose its values upon others. For instance, the portrayal of wine drinking in French society as a robust and healthy habit would be a bourgeois ideal perception contradicted by certain realities (i.e. that wine can be unhealthy and inebriating). He found semiotics useful in conducting these critiques. Barthes explained that these bourgeois cultural myths were second-order signs, or connotations. A picture of a full, dark bottle is a sign, a signifier relating to a signified: a fermented, alcoholic beverage—wine. However, the bourgeois take this signified and apply their own emphasis to it, making "wine" a new signifier, this time relating to a new signified: the idea of healthy, robust, relaxing wine. Motivations for such manipulations vary from a desire to sell products to a simple desire to maintain the status quo. These insights brought Barthes very much in line with similar Marxist theory.

[[Algirdas Julien Greimas]] (1917–1992) developed a structural version of semiotics named, "generative semiotics", trying to shift the focus of discipline from signs to systems of signification. His theories develop the ideas of Saussure, Hjelmslev, [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], and [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]].

[[Thomas A. Sebeok]] (1920–2001), a student of Charles W. Morris, was a prolific and wide-ranging American semiotician. Although he insisted that animals are not capable of language, he expanded the purview of semiotics to include non-human signaling and communication systems, thus raising some of the issues addressed by [[philosophy of mind]] and coining the term [[zoosemiotics]]. Sebeok insisted that all communication was made possible by the relationship between an organism and the environment in which it lives. He also posed the equation between ''semiosis'' (the activity of interpreting signs) and ''life''—a view that the [[Copenhagen-Tartu biosemiotic school]] has further developed.

[[Juri Lotman]] (1922–1993) was the founding member of the [[Tartu]] (or Tartu-Moscow) [[Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School|Semiotic School]]. He developed a semiotic approach to the study of culture—[[semiotics of culture]]—and established a communication model for the study of text semiotics. He also introduced the concept of the [[semiosphere]]. Among his Moscow colleagues were [[Vladimir Toporov]], [[Vyacheslav Ivanov (philologist)|Vyacheslav Ivanov]] and [[Boris Uspensky]].

[[Christian Metz (critic)|Christian Metz]] (1931–1993) pioneered the application of Saussurean semiotics to [[film theory]], applying [[syntagmatic analysis]] to scenes of films and grounding [[film semiotics]] in greater context.

[[Eliseo Verón]] (1935–2014) developed his "Social Discourse Theory" inspired in the Peircian conception of "Semiosis."

[[Groupe μ]] (founded 1967) developed a structural version of [[rhetorics]], and the [[visual semiotics]].

[[Umberto Eco]] (1932–2016) was an Italian novelist, semiotician and academic. He made a wider audience aware of semiotics by various publications, most notably ''A Theory of Semiotics'' and his novel, ''[[The Name of the Rose]]'', which includes (second to its plot) applied semiotic operations. His most important contributions to the field bear on interpretation, encyclopedia, and model reader. He also criticized in several works (''A theory of semiotics'', ''La struttura assente'', ''Le signe'', ''La production de signes'') the "iconism" or "iconic signs" (taken from Peirce's most famous triadic relation, based on indexes, icons, and symbols), to which he proposed four modes of sign production: recognition, ostension, replica, and invention.

[[Julia Kristeva]] (born 1941), a student of [[Lucien Goldmann]] and [[Roland Barthes]], Bulgarian-French semiotician, [[literary critic]], [[Psychoanalysis|psychoanalyst]], [[French feminist|feminist]], and [[novelist]]. She uses psychoanalytical concepts together with the semiotics, distinguishing the two components in the signification, the symbolic and the semiotic''.'' Kristeva also studies the [[Gender in horror films|representation of women and women's bodies in popular culture, such as horror films]] and has had a remarkable influence on feminism and feminist literary studies.

[[Michael Silverstein]] (1945–2020), a theoretician of semiotics and linguistic anthropology. Over the course of his career he created an original synthesis of research on the semiotics of communication, the sociology of interaction, Russian formalist literary theory, linguistic pragmatics, sociolinguistics, early anthropological linguistics and structuralist grammatical theory, together with his own theoretical contributions, yielding a comprehensive account of the semiotics of human communication and its relation to culture. His main influence was [[Charles Sanders Peirce]], [[Ferdinand de Saussure]], and [[Roman Jakobson]].