Semiosis is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. The term was introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) to describe a process that interprets signs as referring to their objects, as described in his theory of sign relations, or semiotics. Other theories of sign processes are sometimes carried out under the heading of semiology, following on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913). Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped in sign systems. ... Semiotics (also spelled Semeiotics) is the study of signs and sign systems. ... Biosemiotics (bios=life & semion=sign) is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the physical and biologic realm, in an attempt to integrate the findings of scientific biology and semiotics to form a new view of life and meaning as immanent features of the... In semiotics, the concept of a code is of fundamental importance. ... Computational semiotics is an interdisciplinary field that applies, conducts, and draws on research in logic, mathematics, the theory and practice of computation, formal and natural language studies, the cognitive sciences generally, and semiotics proper. ... This word has distinct meanings in logic, philosophy, and common usage. ... In semiotics, the process of interpreting a message sent by the addresser to the addressee is called decoding. ... In semiotics, denotation is the surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary. ... In semiotics, the process of creating a message for transmission by the addresser to the addressee is called encoding. ... In the lexicon of a language, lexical words or nouns refer to things. ... In semiotics, modality refers to the particular way in which the information is to be encoded for presentation to humans, i. ... Because too much data can cause “cognitive clutter”, individuals need a system to enable them to rank available data in terms of its immediate importance. ... In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as, ...something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity. ... A sign relation is the basic construct in the theory of signs, or semiotic theory, as developed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). ... In semiotics, a sign relational complex is a generalization of a sign relation that allows for empty components in the elementary sign relations, or sign relational triples of the form (object, sign, interpretant). ... Semiosphere is the sphere of semiosis in which the sign processes operate in the set of all interconnected Umwelts. ... Semiotic literary criticism, also called literary semiotics, is the approach to literary criticism informed by the theory of signs or semiotics. ... In logic, mathematics, and semiotics, a triadic relation or a ternary relation is an important special case of a polyadic or finitary relation, one in which the number of places in the relation is three. ... Umwelt (from the German umwelt, environment) according to Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok is the biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal. ... In semiotics, the value of a sign depends on its position and relations in the system of signification and upon the particular codes being used. ... In semiotics, the commutation test is used to identify the value or signficance of any of the signifiers used in the material to be analysed. ... In semiotics paradigmatic analysis is analysis of paradigms rather than surface structure (syntax) as in syntagmatic analysis, often made through commutation tests, comparisons of words chosen with absent words, words of the same type or class but not chosen. ... In semiotics syntagmatic analysis is analysis of syntax or surface structure (Syntagmatic structure), rather than paradigms as in paradigmatic analysis. ... Roland Barthes Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) was a French literary critic, literary and social theorist, philosopher, and semiotician. ... Marcel Danesi is known for his work in language, communications, and semiotics, being Professor of Semiotics and Communication Theory at the University of Toronto, Canada. ... Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (pronounced ) (November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Geneva-born Swiss linguist whose ideas laid the foundation for many of the significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. ... Photo of Umberto Eco by Robert Birnbaum Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian medievalist, philosopher and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose and his many essays. ... Louis Hjelmslev (October 3, 1899 - May 30, 1965) was a Danish linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Danish School in linguistics. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... Roberta Kevelson was the #1 authority on the pragmatism theories of Charles Sanders Peirce, and an authority on Semiotics in general. ... Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse), (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American polymath, physicist, and philosopher, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Thomas Albert Sebeok (born in Budapest, Hungary, on November 9, 1920, died December 21, 2001 in Bloomington, Indiana) was one of the most prolific and wide-ranging of US semioticians. ... Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of beauty and the moral value of art, so aestheticization as propaganda is the process of presenting violence as an acceptable means of promoting a political aim even though it involves the injury or death of people. ... The aestheticization of violence in high culture art or mass media is the depiction of violence in a manner that is “stylistically excessive in a significant and sustained way” so that the audience is able to connect references from the play of images and signs” to artworks, genre conventions, cultural... The Semiotics of Ideal Beauty asks whether there can ever be a single yardstick of beauty or whether what is recognised as beauty will be in continuous flux as each culture evolves and establishes new measures of social acceptability. ... In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as, ...something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse), (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American polymath, physicist, and philosopher, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... A sign relation is the basic construct in the theory of signs, or semiotic theory, as developed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). ... Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped in sign systems. ... Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (pronounced ) (November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Geneva-born Swiss linguist whose ideas laid the foundation for many of the significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. ...

Introduction to theory

Peirce was interested primarily in logic, while Saussure was interested primarily in linguistics, which examines the functions and structures of language. But both of them recognised that there is more to significant representation than language in the narrow sense of speech and writing alone. So they developed the idea of semiosis to relate language to other sign systems both human and nonhuman. Today, there is disagreement as to the operating cause and effect. One school of thought argues that language is the semiotic prototype and its study illuminates principles that can be applied to other sign systems. The opposing school argues that there is a metasign system and that language is simply one of many codes for communicating meaning, citing the way in which human infants learn about their environment before they have acquired language. Whichever may be right, a preliminary definition of semiosis is any action or influence for communicating meaning by establishing relationships between signs which are to be interpreted by an audience. Logic, from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, (but coming to mean thought or reason) is the study of criteria for the evaluation of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy among philosophers. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language. ... In semiotics, the concept of a code is of fundamental importance. ... An audience is a group of people who participate in and experience or encounter a work of art, literature, theatre, music or academics in any medium. ...

Discussion

Semiosis is the performance element involving signs. Although a human can communicate many things unintentionally, individuals usually speak or write to elicit some kind of response. Yet there is little real explanation of how semiosis produces its effects which is odd given that the word "sign" is in everyday use and most people would understand what it means. But semiotics has not offered clear technical definitions, nor is there agreement about how signs should be classified. So what, if anything, can be said with certainty?

As an insect or animal, human or otherwise, moves through its environment (sometimes termed the Umwelt), all the senses collect data which are made available to the brain. However, to prevent sensory overload, only salient data will receive the full attention of the cognitive elements of the mind. This indicates that a part of the process must be controlled by a model of the real world capable of ranking data elements in terms of their significance and filtering out the data irrelevant to survival. A sign cannot function until the audience distinguishes it from the background noise. It then triggers cognitive activity to interpret the data input and so convert it into meaningful information. This would suggest that, in the semiosphere, the process of semiosis goes through the following cycle: Umwelt (from the German umwelt, environment) according to Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok is the biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal. ... Because too much data can cause “cognitive clutter”, individuals need a system to enable them to rank available data in terms of its immediate importance. ... An abstract model (or conceptual model) is a theoretical construct that represents physical, biological or social processes, with a set of variables and a set of logical and quantitative relationships between them. ... Cognitive The scientific study of how people obtain, retrieve, store and manipulate information. ... Semiosphere is the sphere of semiosis in which the sign processes operate in the set of all interconnected Umwelts. ...

• the plant, insect or animal with the need to communicate will know what needs to be said and assess the best means of saying it;
• this information will then be encoded and relevant muscle groups will effect transmission — although to some extent intentional in the human, the actual movements of the body are autonomic, i.e. the individual is not aware of moving individual muscles, but achieves the desired result by an act of will (see H. L. A. Hart on the nature of an action);
• the audience filters ambient data and perceives the uttered code as a grouping of signs;
• the audience then interprets the signs (sometimes termed decoding) to attribute meaning. This involves matching the signs received against existing patterns and their meanings held in memory (i.e. it is learned and understood within the community). In plants, insects and animals, the results of a successful interpretation will be an observable response to the stimuli perceived.

In biology, scout bees and ants will return home to tell the others where food is to be found, the fact of fertility must be announced to prospective mates from the same species, and the presence of danger must be passed as a warning to others in the group. Such transmission may be chemical, auditory, visual, or tactile whether singly or in combination. There is a new field of research activity termed biosemiotics, and Jesper Hoffmeyer claims that endosymbiosis, self-reference, code duality, the availability of receptors, autopoiesis, and others are the general properties of all living systems. Thomas Sebeok suggests that a similar list of properties for life may coincide with the definition of semiosis, i.e. that the test of whether something is alive, is a test to determine whether and how it communicates meaning to another of its kind. In semiotics, the process of creating a message for transmission by the addresser to the addressee is called encoding. ... H. L. A. Hart (Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart) (1907-1992) is considered one of the most important legal philosophers of the twentieth century. ... Philosophy of action is chiefly concerned with human action, intending to distinguish between activity and passivity, voluntary, intentional, culpable and involuntary actions, and related question. ... In semiotics, the process of interpreting a message sent by the addresser to the addressee is called decoding. ... A community usually refers to a group of people who interact and share certain things as a group, but it can refer to various collections of living things sharing an environment, plant or animal. ... Biology (from Greek βίος λόγος, see below) is the branch of science dealing with the study of living organisms. ... Biosemiotics (bios=life & semion=sign) is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the physical and biologic realm, in an attempt to integrate the findings of scientific biology and semiotics to form a new view of life and meaning as immanent features of the... An endosymbiont (also known as intracellular symbiont) is any organism that lives within cells of another organism, i. ... Autopoiesis literally means auto (self)-creation (from the Greek: auto - αυτό for self- and poiesis - ποίησις for creation or production) and expresses a fundamental complementarity between structure and function. ... Thomas Albert Sebeok (born in Budapest, Hungary, on November 9, 1920, died December 21, 2001 in Bloomington, Indiana) was one of the most prolific and wide-ranging of US semioticians. ...

For humans, semiosis is an aspect of the wider systems of social interaction in which information is exchanged. It can result in particular types of social encounter, but the process itself can be constrained by social conventions such as propriety, privacy, and disclosure. So this means that no social encounter is reducible to semiosis alone, and that semiosis can only be understood by identifying and exploring all the conditions that make the transmission and reception of signs possible and effective. When two individuals meet, the ways in which they think, the specific identities they assume, the emotional responses they make, and the beliefs, motives, and purposes they have, will frame the situation as it develops dynamically and potentially test the legitimacy of the outcomes. All these elements are, to a greater or lesser extent, semiotic in nature in that prevailing codes and values are being applied. Consequently, where the line is drawn between semiosis and semiotics will always be somewhat arbitrary. A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted rules, norms, standards or criteria, often taking the form of a custom. ... In semiotics, the value of a sign depends on its position and relations in the system of signification and upon the particular codes being used. ...

References

Hoffmeyer, Jesper. Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (1996)

Witzany, Guenther. "Semiosis and Evolution". In Witzany, G. "The Logos of the Bios 1". Helsinki: Umweb. (2006)