Course Description
Semiotics is the study of signs and sign systems. The French semiologist Algirdas Julien Greimas, through structuralist and semiotic analysis, tries to articulate and analyze the various human sciences, including social and literary works, through relating them to the study of semiotics to search for the hidden significances and sign processes functioned and covered by the usage of language and the practices of social regulations. Greimasian semiotic analysis has been applied to various areas such as the cognitive discourse in the social sciences, the mythological, legal, topological and psychological discourses and the study of the passions are also part of the broad Greimasian semiotic studies. In this course, two major works of A. J. Greimas’ will be studied so as to set forth Greimas’ distinctive interpretation of the social science and literary works and also to learn to find out the power of signs while applying the Greimasian structures to other literary works.