Semiotics and semiology are often used synonymously.
The theory that has signs as its object of interest is known as semiotics . This science is responsible for analyzing their presence in society, just like semiology . Both concepts are taken as synonyms by the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) , although experts establish some differences.
Many authors have spoken and written about the term: Saussure , Pierre , Buyssens , etc. In the different definitions there are common elements and others that are absolutely opposite; However, everyone agrees on something, that semiotics is not about an act of reading; but rather an attitude of exploring what exists in the background of all meaning: its roots and the mechanisms that sustain it.
Different views on semiotics
Some of these intellectuals maintain that semiotics includes all other sciences, which are dedicated to the study of signs in certain fields of knowledge. That is, they see it as a science aimed at studying how thinking works to explain people's ways of interpreting the environment and creating and disseminating knowledge.
Other specialists define semiology as a discipline that is responsible for studies linked to the analysis of signs at a general level, both linguistic (related to semantics and writing) and semiotics (human and nature signs).
The existing links between signifiers and meanings are studied by semiotics.
The importance of the linguistic sign
The linguistic sign is understood as the most relevant link in human communication systems. It is made up of a signifier (the acoustic image) and a meaning (an idea that one has in the mind regarding any word). For Charles Pierce ( 1839 – 1914 ), the sign is an entity composed of the signifier (the material support), the signified (the mental image) and the referent (the object, whether imaginary or real, to which the sign alludes). .
The most important characteristics of the linguistic sign are arbitrariness , linearity , immutability and mutability .
Branches of semiotics
Semiotics is divided into various classes:
* Semantics , which is responsible for studying what relationships exist between signifiers and meanings; that is, the meaning of words , statements and sentences.
*Onomasiology, which is responsible for naming objects and establishing different names for the same thing.
*Semasiology , on the contrary, studies the relationship that exists between an object and its name. In the case of dialogue, it starts from the receiver to the sender for its study.
* Pragmatics is responsible for studying the relationships between signifiers and users; That is, how human beings use different signs when communicating.
*The part of semiotics that is responsible for studying the relationships established between the various signifiers is called syntax .
In each language, semiotics occupies a different place and therefore its analysis environment also varies. In the case of Spain, its intervention in the field of communication has proven somewhat uneven and even superfluous. We can say that two well-defined lines can be distinguished within semiotics, one is focused on social discourse and the other on the visual .
The study of social discourse
The semiotics of social discourse, also known as socio-semiotics, is responsible for studying the process through which the mass media came to integrate into the culture of society, producing various typologies in discourses, such as journalistic, advertising and political; from which social discourse has emerged, which takes things from each of them to express ideas with which the people feel identified.
At the same time, in recent years the closeness between semiotics and mass communication has been further strengthened thanks to the advanced technologies used in the field of audiovisual arts. This has meant that semiotics must begin to study the meaning of signs in the world of computing and artificial intelligence. Possibly this will require a unification between colloquial language and new technologies, and a broad study of these consequences may contribute to a greater understanding of the relationships between societies.
In the field of medicine , finally, semiotics is the area dedicated to the treatment of the signs of diseases through diagnosis and prognosis. It is worth mentioning that this meaning is one of the oldest that exists.