Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of sign processes and the laws governing them. The study itself is usually broken into three separate areas. These are are semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics.

• semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for;
• syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs;
• pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters (Morris 1938).


Fedinand de Saussure (1857-1913) is know as the forbearer of modern linguistics and semiotics. Other key figures in the early development of semiotics were Charles Sanders Peirce, Charles William Morris, Roland bathes, Algirdas Greimas, Yuri Lotman, Christian Metz, Umberto Eco and Julia Kristeva.

Barthes declared that 'semiology aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all of these, which form the content of ritual convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification' (Barthes 1967).

The reasoning behind semiotics is that it assists us not to take reality for granted. We learn that reality is a system of signs. Learning about semiotics can help us become more aware of reality as a construction and the roles we ourselves have in constructing it.