The following is a list of semiotics terms; that is, those words used in discussion, classification, criticism, and analysis of the study of sign processes (

semiosis Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign. ...

), analogy, metaphor, signification and communication,

signs Signs may refer to: * ''Signs'' (2002 film), a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan * ''Signs'' (TV series) (Polish: ''Znaki'') is a 2018 Polish-language television series * ''Signs'' (journal), a journal of women's studies *Signs (band), an American ...

and

symbols A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different co ...

. Note: in order to help the reader this page also includes terms which are not part of semiotic theory per se but which are commonly found alongside their semiotic brethren - these terms come from linguistics, literary theory and narratology.

A

* Addressee (Imported from linguistic theory)

B

Biosemiotics Biosemiotics (from the Greek βίος ''bios'', "life" and σημειωτικός ''sēmeiōtikos'', "observant of signs") is a field of semiotics and biology that studies the prelinguistic meaning-making, biological interpretation processes, pr ...

C

* Codes *

Connotation A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation. A connotation is frequently described as either positive o ...

* Commutation tests

D

* Decode *

Denotation In linguistics and philosophy, the denotation of an expression is its literal meaning. For instance, the English word "warm" denotes the property of being warm. Denotation is contrasted with other aspects of meaning including connotation. For ins ...

E

Ecosemiotics Ecosemiotics is a branch of semiotics in its intersection with human ecology, ecological anthropology and ecocriticism. It studies sign processes in culture, which relate to other living beings, communities, and landscapes. Ecosemiotics also deals w ...

Encode The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) is a public research project which aims to identify functional elements in the human genome. ENCODE also supports further biomedical research by "generating community resources of genomics data, software ...

F

Film semiotics Film semiotics is the study of sign process (semiosis), or any form of activity, conduct, or any process that involves signs, including the production of meaning, as these signs pertain to moving pictures. Every artform has some hidden symbols in ...

G

H

I

Iconicity In functional-cognitive linguistics, as well as in semiotics, iconicity is the conceived similarity or analogy between the form of a sign (linguistic or otherwise) and its meaning, as opposed to arbitrariness (which is typically assumed in s ...

Indexicality In semiotics, linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy of language, indexicality is the phenomenon of a '' sign'' pointing to (or ''indexing'') some object in the context in which it occurs. A sign that signifies indexically is called an index o ...

Interpretant Interpretant is a subject (philosophy) / sign (semiotics) that refers to the same object (philosophy) as another sign (semiotics), transitively. History The concept of "interpretant" is part of Charles Sanders Peirce's "triadic" theory of the s ...

(Peircean semeiotic system)

J

K

L

Lexical Lexical may refer to: Linguistics * Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language * Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification * Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge * Lexica ...

M

Meaning Meaning most commonly refers to: * Meaning (linguistics), meaning which is communicated through the use of language * Meaning (philosophy), definition, elements, and types of meaning discussed in philosophy * Meaning (non-linguistic), a general te ...

* Modality

N

Narrator Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...

(Imported term from

narratology Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect human perception. It is an anglicisation of French ''narratologie'', coined by Tzvetan Todorov (''Grammaire du Décaméron'', 1969). Its theoretical li ...

)

O

P

Paradigmatic analysis Paradigmatic analysis is the analysis of paradigms embedded in the text rather than of the surface structure ( syntax) of the text which is termed syntagmatic analysis. Paradigmatic analysis often uses commutation tests, i.e. analysis by substi ...

* Paradigms *

Paratext In literary interpretation, paratext is material that surrounds a published main text (e.g., the story, non-fiction description, poems, etc.) supplied by the authors, editors, printers, and publishers. These added elements form a frame for the ma ...

(A term from narratology)

Q

R

* Receiver (mathematical/transmission theory of communication)

S

* Semeiotic *

Semiosis Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign. ...

Semiosphere The semiosphere is an idea in biosemiotic theory proposing that, contrary to ideas of nature determining sense and experience, the phenomenal world is a creative and logical structure of processes of semiosis where signs operate together to prod ...

* Semiotics of agriculture *

Semiotics of music videos Semiotics of music videos is the observation of symbolism used within music videos. Overview Semiotics in popular music, or mesomusica, is different from semiotics in other musical forms, because pop music denotes a cultural object (Matusitz, 2004) ...

Semiotics of dress The semiotics of dress is a term used to refer to the design and customs associated with dress (clothing), as patterned to a kind of symbolism that has rules and norms. It is the study of how people use clothing and adornments to signify various cu ...

Signs Signs may refer to: * ''Signs'' (2002 film), a 2002 film by M. Night Shyamalan * ''Signs'' (TV series) (Polish: ''Znaki'') is a 2018 Polish-language television series * ''Signs'' (journal), a journal of women's studies *Signs (band), an American ...

*Signified ('' Signifié'') *

Sign A sign is an Physical object, object, quality (philosophy), quality, event, or Non-physical entity, entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to ...

ified *Signifier ('' Signifiant'') *

Signifier In semiotics, signified and signifier (French: ''signifié'' and ''signifiant'') stand for the two main components of a sign, where ''signified'' pertains to the "plane of content", while ''signifier'' is the "plane of expression". The idea was f ...

Symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...

Syntagmatic analysis In semiotics, syntagmatic analysis is analysis of syntax or surface structure (syntagmatic structure) as opposed to paradigms ( paradigmatic analysis). This is often achieved using commutation tests. "Syntagmatic" means that one element selects ...

Syntagmatic structure In linguistics, a syntagma is an elementary constituent segment within a text. Such a segment can be a phoneme, a word, a grammatical phrase, a sentence, or an event within a larger narrative structure, depending on the level of analysis. Syntagma ...

T

* Tropes (Imported from linguistics)

U

V

Values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of dif ...

W

Z

Zoosemiotics Zoosemiotics is the semiotic study of the use of signs among animals, more precisely the study of semiosis among animals, i.e. the study of how something comes to function as a sign to some animal. It is the study of animal forms of knowing. Cons ...

Wikipedia indexes * {{semiotics-stub