Semiology studies linguistic and semiotic signs.
The first thing we are going to do before thoroughly defining what semiology is is to proceed to determine the etymological origin of the term. Thus, we find the fact that this word comes from Greek as it is made up of two words from that language: semeion which can be translated as “sign” and logos which is synonymous with “study” or “treaty”.
Semiology is a science that is responsible for the study of signs in social life. The term is usually used as a synonym for semiotics , although specialists make some distinctions between the two.
It can be said that semiology is responsible for all studies related to the analysis of signs, both linguistic (linked to semantics and writing) and semiotics (human and nature signs).
The work of Saussure and Peirce
The Swiss Ferdinand de Saussure ( 1857-1913 ) was one of the main theorists of the linguistic sign , defining it as the most important association in human communication. For Saussure , the sign is made up of a signifier (an acoustic image) and a signified (the main idea we have in mind regarding any word).
The American Charles Peirce ( 1839-1914 ), for his part, defined the sign as a three-sided entity, with a signifier (the material support), a signified (the mental image) and a referent (the real or imaginary object to which which the sign refers to).
Barthes and Eco, other references of semiology
Two authors are of vital importance within what semiology is, but they are not the only ones because throughout history there have been others who have also left their deep mark on this discipline. This would be the case, for example, of the Frenchman Roland Barthes, who bequeathed important theories and works on it to later generations, such as the book titled “Elements of Semiology.”
What is made clear in this work is that this discipline has as its pillars and objects of study all sign systems, regardless of their limits or their substances, and also that its elements are the following: the syntagm, the language , connotation, speech, paradigm, signifier, meaning and denotation.
Thanks to semiology it is possible to understand how communication develops between two people.
In the same way, another important figure within the field of semiotics and semiology is the well-known writer Umberto Eco. This author, known at a more popular level for novels as interesting as “The Name of the Rose” (1980) or “Foucault's pendulum” (1988), which has also played a key role within the discipline at hand through its studies on systems of meaning.
The branches of science
Semiology points out that the linguistic sign has four fundamental characteristics, which are arbitrariness , linearity , immutability and mutability .
Among the branches of semiology, there are clinical semiology (in medicine, the study of the signs through which a disease manifests itself), zoosemiotics (the exchange of signals between animals), cultural semiotics (the study of the meaning systems created by a culture ) and aesthetic semiotics (the study of the levels of reading works of art of various techniques or disciplines).