Semantica

Colegio Bilingüe Integral
Maria Fernanda Avendaño
Mr. Fernando Cárdenas
English

SEMIOTICS

Semiotics or semiology is basically the study of the signs. It means that it studies thesignification, symbolism, communication etc. Semiotics are divided into 3 parts the first one is the Semantics which is the relation between the signs and what they mean, the second one is the Syntactic which isthe study of the process by which a sentence is constructed, and the third one is Pragmatics which is the relation of the signs and the effect that they have among people. They are all branches ofsemiotics.

The meaning of semiotics is very complex, and most of the times if you’re asked to find the meaning of semiotics you will have to define it yourself, because is very tricky the definition.“Semiotics could be anywhere. The shortest definition is that is the study of signs… semiotics can include the study of all these signs; people will probably assume that semiotics is about ‘visualsigns’”. (Chandler 1995)

Semiotics is understood as the interpretation of the signs and the effect that they have in our daily life, related with our communication form. In the definition ofsemiotics is included the definition of Signifier, anything that it signifies like a piece of paper or a table, and Significant, which is the concept that the signifier refers to.

The beginnings ofsemiotics are located in the Western tradition. Plato explored the nature of linguistics signs, based on the opinions of others philosophers the agree in this conclusion
“Any name which you give, in myopinion, is the right one, and if you change that and give another, the new name is correct as the old” .(Cratylus, 360 B.C.E)

Semiotics are most commonly used in advertising messages, using signsor symbols. A signs can be understood as a signifier, or a symbol that signifies something else. In the advertising messages that contain images, it is common to see the image of the product you’re...