Semiotics

Semiotics - also known as semiology - is the study of signs, both individually and grouped in sign systems, and includes the study of how meaning is transmitted and understood. Semioticians also sometimes examine how organisms, no matter how big or small, make predictions about and adapt to their semiotic niche in the world (see Semiosis). Semiotics theorises at a general level about signs, while the study of the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics.

Subfields

This is not intended as an exclusive list, but merely as an indication of the spread of work:

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• Biosemiotics is the study of semiotic processes at all levels of biology, or a semiotic study of living systems.
• Computational semiotics attempts to engineer the process of semiosis, say in the study of and design for Human-Computer Interaction or to mimic aspects of human cognition through artificial intelligence and knowledge representation.
• Cultural and literary semiotics examines the literary world, the visual media, the mass media, and advertising in the work of writers such as Roland Barthes, Marcel Danesi, and Yuri Lotman
• Music semiology "There are strong arguments that music inhabits a semiological realm which, on both ontogenetic and phylogenetic levels, has developmental priority over verbal language." (Middleton 1990, p.172) See Nattiez (1976, 1987, 1989), Stefani (1973, 1986), Baroni (1983), and Semiotica (66: 1–3 (1987)).
• Structuralism and poststructuralism in the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Louis Hjelmslev, Roman Jacobson, Jacques Lacan, Claude Lévi-Strauss, etc.