Hi! I’m Joel and this is The Glossary, a bi-weekly supplement to Learned. This week, we're defining terms.
subscribe | unsubscribe | comments | twitter | about
About five years ago I started on a career change, one result of which is this newsletter. I earned a Master's degree in linguistics and I'm now considering options for moving forward with my doctorate. One part of that process is figuring out what I want to study. So, I'm going to use this space (The Glossary) to try to identify the linguistic concepts that are most important to me. And that begins with defining terms.
Semiotics, generally speaking, is the study of signs and symbols. Merriam-Webster has a pretty good formal definition:
a general philosophical theory of signs and symbols that deals especially with their function in both artificially constructed and natural languages and comprises syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics
But what does that mean for linguistic studies? Most linguistic approaches to semiotics follow on from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, whose greatest contribution to the field was coining the terms signifier and signified. The signifier (usually identified as a sound or written mark although those are both not-quite-wrong, not-quite-right definitions) is the intended piece of communication, while the signified is the received piece of communication.
Look at this example:
I just love pizza!
From the text alone, you might infer that pizza is a dish which I, the writer / speaker, enjoy. But, what if I was being sarcastic? Or, to take it a step further, what if what I mean by pizza is not what you mean by pizza? Maybe when I write pizza, I'm thinking of a thick-crust, ham and pineapple dish, while you're thinking (shudder) of anchovies and flatbread?
So, from this example, and as a very basic definition, semiotics is the study of how we communicate using verbal and non-verbal symbols; how we transmit and receive communicative information through various mediums including speech and the written word.
As I said, this is only a bare-bones definition, but it will do as a starting place. As always, I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.
subscribe | unsubscribe | comments | twitter | about
New Learned on Monday!
Joel