Semiotics and Verbal Language: Complete Study and Analysis

Introduction to Semiotics and Verbal Language

This topic is divided into three main blocks: semiotics or semiology, verbal language, and non-verbal language in human communication. The development starts with semiotics, defining its general study points. Then, it addresses verbal language and non-verbal language to establish practical relations and the fusion of these two languages in human communication.

Before diving into the development of the topic, we will define the capacity of language as a common mechanism to transfer or share information by means of shared signs and/or articulated sounds.

1. Semiotics and Semiology

This science studies the history, currents, and classification of signs.

1.1. Object of Study and Definition of the Science

Semiotics studies the system of signs, which includes aspects of social and cultural life. There are several trends defining this science:

• Semiotics of signification: Emerged in the 1960s, focusing on the use and interpretation of signs.
• Semiotics of communication: Promoted by Prieto, focusing on the process of dimension between interlocutors with communicative intention. Semiology is considered equivalent to semiotics. Some critics include linguistics within semiology, while others separate them (following Saussure).

1.2. Key Figures and Foundations of Investigation

Peirce and Saussure are the main pioneers. Saussure deals with linguistic signs (signifier + signified), while Peirce goes further, dealing with the relation of the sign-object and the defined sign.

Typology of Signs

Signs can be natural or artificial, linguistic or non-linguistic (signals, icons, symbols), and act as cognitive processes acting as indicators between reality and humans.

• a) Icons: Resemble the material object (e.g., a photograph). There are three levels of iconic images: images, diagrams, and metaphors.
• b) Indices: Based on a relation of contiguity (e.g., smoke indicating fire).
• c) Symbols: Based on a conventional relation (e.g., words).

Today, considering Peirce's theory of signs, three main currents stand out:

• Communication semiotics: Represented by Buyssens, Prieto, and the Saussurean school. They study codes whose elements are organized by opposition with a communicative intention.
• American school of semiotics: Founded by Morris, stating that the sign is what governs conduct similar to the form it would otherwise replace.
• Semiotics of signification: Promoted by Umberto Eco, stating that every cultural phenomenon is a semiotic study (emerging in the 1960s).

1.3. Elements of the Sign

There are three fundamental elements in a sign:

• Saussure's model: Signified, signifier, and the excluded referent.
• Peirce's model: Referent, signified, and signifier.

1.4. Classification of Signs

Umberto Eco defines nine criteria for classifying signs:

• a) According to the source: Everything that communicates in some way.
• b) According to origin: Natural (e.g., clouds announcing rain) or artificial (created with communicative intent, which includes linguistic systems like languages, Morse, Braille, and non-linguistic systems like symbols, signals, and icons).
• c) According to the degree of specific signification: Some signs signify directly, while others require interpretation.
• d) According to the speaker's degree of consciousness: Communicative signs (intentional) and expressive signs (spontaneous).
• e) According to the receptor channel apparatus: Visual, olfactory, auditory, gustatory, and tactile.