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semiosis

semiosis

1 9.9
A way people use signs and symbols to make and understand meaning
  • noun
  • /sɪˈmiːəsɪs/
  • Specialized
: semiosis
  • The study of semiosis reveals how we use signs to create and understand meaning.

Examples

  • Peirce's core example of a purely triadic relation comes from semiosis, which relates object, sign, and interpretant.

    Academic text (1994)
  • Note here that truth is both discovered and made by the activity of signification or semiosis.

    Academic text (2017)
  • What, to sum up, were the social tendencies associated with the first semiosis?

    Academic text (1991)
  • And by this process, we take note of a semiosis that converts life to death-in-life.

    Academic text (1995)
  • It is through the purposeful embrace of the public and communal character of semiosis that the self finds its ultimate meaning.

    Academic text (1994)
  • In light of this study's analysis of semiosis during the authoritarian regime, several hypotheses can be formed.

    Academic text (1991)
  • Visual culture objects are sites; they are the nexus of makers and viewers in a repeated and changing manner across the chains of history and semiosis.

    Academic text (2005)
  • But all such personal struggles with habit are part of a continuum of semiosis and, as such, of a web of sign relationships whose meaning resides in practical bearings that go beyond us.

    Academic text (1994)
  • The first semiosis was characterized by government monopoly of the mass media and by the omnipresence of the monological authoritarian discourse.

    Academic text (1991)
  • The ideological process in Chilean society changed significantly during the period just prior to the plebiscite: that period represents a transition from one form of social semiosis (the first semiosis) to a second one.

    Academic text (1991)

Surface Forms

semiosis singular
semioses plural

Morphology

semiosis = semio + sis

Formed from the Greek combining form 'semio-' (sign) + the noun-forming '-sis'; this technical formation is not transparently interpretable by average learners and can be confused with the productive English prefix 'semi-' (half).

Etymology

Semiosis comes from the Greek root semeion meaning 'sign', the same idea as the everyday English word 'sign', and the ending -osis meaning 'process'. So semiosis literally means the 'process of signs' and explains how signs and symbols create and carry meaning in communication.