Human communication from the semiotic perspective

Winfried Nöth

pp. 97-119

in: Fidelia Ibekwe-San Juan, Thomas M. Dousa (eds), Theories of information, communication and knowledge, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

Semiotics is the study of signs, sign systems, and sign processes. There are can be noncommunicative and noncommunicative sign processes. The paper focuses on sign processes which serve the purpose of communicating an addresser's messages to an addressee. It examines the models and theories of communication processes proposed within the framework of semiotic theories since the early twentieth century (Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles S. Peirce, Umberto Eco, Yuri Lotman, and Algirdas Greimas). The study of human communication, according to the theories presented in this paper, is not only a matter of communication theory but also of semiotics. A special focus is on Peirce's theory of communication, which postulates that signs are not only communicated by the agency of an addresser who conveys them to an addressee but also act with a semiotic agency of their own.

Cited authors

Eco Umberto

de Saussure Ferdinand

Peirce Charles Sanders

Greimas Algirdas