Course Description
Semiotics is the study of signs and sign systems. According to the founder of modern linguistics Ferdinand de Saussure, it is a “science that studies the life of signs within society.” However, the objects of this science of signs do not merely form a class of phenomena besides other non-semiotic objects, but they are the very materials that our cognition, thought and even ourselves are based upon, if seen from the cognitive perspective and pan-semiotic view of the universe proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of the modern theory of signs: “The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.” Hence, the inquiry into how signs and significances are constructed and delivered can trace back to the Graeco-Roman period. Not only does semiotics enjoy a long history, the field of semiotics covers a broad range of disciplines, such as narrativity, history, culture, sociology, multimedia communication, anthropology, logic, folklore, etc. In this course, the study of the codification of signs, the construction of meanings, and the process of sign functions will be the focus. Linguistic approaches and semantic models proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure, C. S. Peirce and A. J. Greimas will be discussed as the aim of this course is to include both theoretical and applied semiotic theories and disciplines.