Semiosis
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Semiosis (from
Ancient Greek σημείωσις (sēmeíōsis), from σημειῶ (sēmeiô) 'to mark'), 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. The meaning can be intentional such as a word uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, such as a symptom being a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or taste.
The term was introduced by
semiology, following on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure
(1857–1913).
Overview
Peirce was interested primarily in
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[citation needed]. 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 verbal language[citation needed]. 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
.
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.
As an insect (or any animal, human or otherwise) moves through its environment (sometimes termed the
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:
- The plant, insect, or animal with the need to communicate (e.g., to recognise an object of food) will know what needs to be said and assess the best means of saying it (e.g., starting a searching behaviour);
- This information will then be 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
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, i.e., whether it has semiosis. This has been called the Sebeok's Thesis.
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
values
are being applied. Consequently, where the line is drawn between semiosis and semiotics will always be somewhat arbitrary.
See also
- Index of semiotic terms
References
- Bains, Paul. The Primacy of semiosis: An ontology of relations. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (2006)
- Hoffmeyer, Jesper. Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (1996)
- Kull, Kalevi. Choosing and learning: Semiosis means choice. Sign Systems Studies 46(4): 452–466. (2018]