Semiotics, also called
semiotic studies and including (in the
Saussurean tradition)
semiology, is the study of
signs and sign processes (
semiosis), indication, designation, likeness,
analogy,
metaphor,
symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of
linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of
language more specifically. However, as different from linguistics, semiotics studies also non-linguistic
sign systems. Semiotics is often divided into three branches:
Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their
denotata, or
meaning Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures
Pragmatics: Relation between signs and sign-using agents
Semiotics is frequently seen as having important
anthropological dimensions; for example,
Umberto Eco proposes that every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication. However, some semioticians focus on the
logical dimensions of the science. They examine areas belonging also to the
natural sciences – such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic
niche in the world (see
semiosis). In general, semiotic theories take
signs or
sign systems as their object of study: the communication of information in living organisms is covered in
biosemiotics (including
zoosemiotics).
Syntactics is the branch of semiotics that deals with the formal properties of signs and symbols. More precisely, syntactics deals with the "rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences. "
Charles Morris adds that semantics deals with the relation of signs to their designata and the objects which they may or do denote; and, pragmatics deals with the biotic aspects of semiosis, that is, with all the psychological, biological, and sociological phenomena which occur in the functioning of signs.