Semiotics-Rajarata University Year-3 Sem.1

Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Department of Languages

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Online Lectures

Year and Semester	Year-3 Semester-1
Subject	Syntax and Semantics
Subject Code	ENGL 3112
Course Unit	Semiotics
Date	30.06.2020
Time	Practical: 9.00 am-11.00 am
Lecturer	D.N. Aloysius

Semiotics is the study of sign process, which is any form of activity, conduct, or any process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, which is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign. The meaning can be intentional such as a word uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, such as a symptom being a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory.

The semiotic tradition explores the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communications. Unlike linguistics, semiotics also studies non-linguistic sign systems. Semiotics includes the study of signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness, analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication.

Semiotics is frequently seen as having important anthropological and sociological dimensions; for example, the Italian semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco proposed that every cultural phenomenon may be studied as communication. Some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science, however. They examine areas belonging also to the life sciences—such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world.