Every moment we are bombarded by signs, words, symbols and so forth.  Each has a certain meaning to us.  They may even influence us to engage in a certain behavior.  In semiotics, these are referred to as “signs”.  A symbol.. A word.. An object… All are simply mental representations of the actual “thing.”  The word “dog” can represent the whole species of “canine” or one type of “dog”.

There are three specific branches of semiotics.  Those being: Semantics, Syntactics, and Pragmatics.  In syntactics, words are combined to form sentences.  The arrangement of the words within the sentence can affect the meaning it represents.  For example, “Dog bites man” versus “Man bites dog.”  Each has the same words, just a different arrangement and hence, a different meaning.

How each person interprets the words, symbols, objects will lead to what it means to them.  The “Swastika” originally came from Ancient Egypt, India and China.  The meaning back then represented opposites that created harmony.  In a sense, it is like the balancing that many life coaches and motivational trainers use with the “Wheel of Life.”  Being able to create harmony.  Today the “Swastika” represents something of evil because of it being revived by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party for use as a symbol of white power or supremacy.

Here are a couple of videos that discuss more on semiotics:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEgxTKUP_WI]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5FZRa7h99A]

Memetics is another area that seems to have derived from Semiotics.  First coined by Richard Dawkins in his book ‘The Selfish Gene’ in 1976, he stated that certain ideas can be replicated as “Mind Viruses” and live long past the originator and the originator’s genes.  Called “memes” for short and a take off of genes, memetics grew a huge following during those early years.  Though most of those followers have since fallen off the bandwagon.

Many in the semiotic community has stated that memes are simply a simple part of semiotics and certainly not as advanced.  I’m not going to argue one way or another and will only state that they both compliment each other.  We are all affected by the meaning of many different things we come upon.  Meanings will change in each generation.  What may have been endearing in one generation may be just the opposite in another and visa versa.  Who would have thought that bad can mean good today?

Alfred Korzybski focused on semantics when he created his work in General Semantics.  The bottom line here is that we are all affected by things in every day life.  We may say a word that has a certain meaning to us and have it completely mean something different to another person or another culture.

Certain signs may affect us emotionally due to our interpretation.  Heck, I may even write something here and you may interpret it completely differently.  It’s simply my point of view and your understanding from your point of view.  Hence, probably one of biggest “quagmires” that has shut down our political system and created arguments across the country.  Misunderstandings from each other’s signs.

For more information on semiotics, here’s an online short course for beginners: Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler.

Semiotics helps to give simplicity to complexity.  That’s pretty much it “in a nutshell.”

Have fun!

Bob