Biosemiotics
While traditional semiotics focuses on human communication and culture, biosemiotics integrates this perspective with biology. It studies how living beings produce and interpret signs through channels such as vision, sound, movement, and chemical cues like smell.[100] It does not restrict sign processes to conscious mental activities and explicitly includes nonintentional processes within its scope.[101] Biosemiotics has branches dedicated to different types of organisms, such as zoosemiotics (animals), phytosemiotics (plants), bacteriosemiotics (bacteria), mycosemiotics (fungi), and protistosemiotics (protists).[102] Anthroposemiotics, which addresses humans, is sometimes included in zoosemiotics or treated as a distinct branch.[103]
The scope of biosemiotics covers semiotic activities on different levels of organization, ranging from cellular information processes to communication between distinct individuals. At the microlevel, there are sign activities within individual organisms. For example, genes encode information about hereditary traits, and diverse biological processes decode and activate this information. Similarly, hormones function as signaling molecules that control physiological functions by conveying information over long distances in the body. Biosemioticians also study how nerve cells communicate with each other and how neurotransmitters regulate this process.[104] This topic is more closely examined by neurosemiotics, which investigates neural processes involved in sign interpretation and meaning-making.[105]
At the macrolevel, there are sign processes between distinct organisms. They happen primarily between individuals of the same species as forms of cooperation or coordination.[106] For example, birds use calls to attract mates, warn of predators, and maintain territorial boundaries.[99] Similar semiotic processes also happen in the plant kingdom, such as airborne chemicals released by maple trees as a warning signal of herbivore attacks.[107] In some cases, communication happens between members of distinct species.[108] For instance, flowers use symmetrical shapes and vivid colors as signs to guide insects to nectar.[109] Because of the pervasive nature of sign processes, biosemioticians typically argue that semiosis is not a rare phenomenon limited to specific biological niches but an intrinsic feature of life in general.[110]
Culture
Several branches of applied semiotics study cultural phenomena, which encompass systems of beliefs, values, norms, and practices shared in society. The semiotics of culture analyzes sign systems used in cultural practices by examining the meanings and ideological assumptions they embody. It integrates findings from fields such as psychology, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and neuroscience. It addresses both the fundamental characteristics of culture in general and the distinctive features of specific cultural formations, such as myths, aesthetics, cuisine, clothing, rituals, and artifacts.[111] On a more general level, the semiotics of culture explores how culture differs from nature and which processes are responsible for the emergence of cultural formations.[112] Social semiotics, a related field, studies sign practices as social phenomena in cultural contexts.[113] It also investigates the social construction of reality. This includes semiotic practices that establish social meanings, categories, and norms shaping how people perceive the world and what they take for granted.[114] Related fields include semiotic anthropology, which analyzes how sign systems reproduce, transmit, and change culture,[115] and ethnosemiotics, which examines and compares semiotic phenomena in specific ethnic groups.[116]
Semioticians have been particularly interested in cultural myths, which they understand as structures of meaning that codify ideologies. In this sense, myths are not only a specific genre of literature but encompass widely shared views about human nature or the world. For example, pervasive ideological myths in Western culture include the idea of progress, which frames history as a linear series of improvements, and individualism, which conceives individuals as autonomous and self-reliant agents. Myths help people make sense of experience and guide behavior through common frameworks that conceptualize phenomena. Semiotic analysis sees myths as secondary sign systems that use other signs as vehicles to convey their ideas, often in the form of metaphors. For instance, the image of a child represents a child on the literal level. However, it can at the same time embody a myth of childhood associated with innocence and purity, motivating social arrangements associated with protection and parenting. Semioticians analyze this secondary level of signification across diverse media, such as literature, film, and advertising.[117]
In specific areas of culture, semiotics examines the codes and conventions they employ and the meanings they produce.[118] The semiotics of clothing studies clothing as a nonverbal sign system. Clothes are often implicitly interpreted as signs of the personality and social status of the wearer, covering features such as gender, age, and political beliefs. Different social occasions are associated with distinct dress codes, such as uniforms for sport, the military, and religious rituals.[119] Similarly, the semiotics of food analyzes food items as bearers of cultural meanings. It explores how culinary practices reflect social organization and belief systems, like cooking methods, table etiquette, taboos against eating certain items, the cultural roles of fasting and feasting, and food symbolism.[120] Research topics in popular internet culture include the codes and conventions of emojis and internet memes.[121]
Literature
Text semiotics studies the meanings of linguistic texts. It typically focuses on larger fragments of discourse, leaving the analysis of smaller units, like phonemes, to linguistics.[122] Text semiotics plays a central role in literary criticism by exploring the codes, conventions, and tropes employed in literary texts. It situates these insights within broader cultural and semiotic frameworks.[123]
Central schools of thought in text semiotics include structuralism and poststructuralism.[124] Structuralism assumes that structural relations within sign systems are the primary source of meaning and understanding. It examines how texts employ these patterns, such as binary oppositions between good and evil or nature and culture, often with the goal of identifying ideological biases.[125] Post-structuralism argues that sign systems are self-referential and cannot provide a stable representation of reality. The post-structuralist method of deconstruction aims to reveal contradictions and ambiguities within texts, for example, by showing how a text unintentionally undermines a binary opposition on which it relies.[126]
A historically influential tradition in text semiotics is hermeneutics—the study of interpretation. Hermeneutics originates in the examination of mythological and religious texts. It was used by medieval Christian philosophers to decode the theological and moral doctrines of the Bible, for instance, by distinguishing literal from spiritual meanings and analyzing symbolic structures associated with allegories. Modern hermeneutics extends these practices to secular texts. The hermeneutic circle is a central concept in this field. It is the idea that understanding involves a circular movement in which preconceptions guide interpretation and interpretation shapes preconceptions. It is sometimes explained as an interplay where understanding the text as a whole depends on understanding its parts and vice versa.[127] It is debated whether there is a single correct interpretation of every text or whether incompatible interpretations can be valid at the same time.[128]
Narratology is a branch of semiotics that studies narrative texts, such as tales and stories. It assumes that there is a universal narrative code of the different elements found in narratives, meaning that individual texts only express variations of the same underlying code. For example, according to Algirdas Julien Greimas's actantial model, these elements include a subject, such as the hero of the story, an entity that they desire, and an opponent or obstacle to their goal.[129] Other research directions in text semiotics are stylistics and rhetorics, which compare different styles and explore how texts persuade.[130]
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