Semioses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Processes through which signs and symbols are produced, interpreted, and understood within communication systems ; the dynamic interactions by which meaning is generated and conveyed through various signifiers ; the continuous activities involving encoding and decoding of messages via signs and symbols in semiotic frameworks
2. The mechanisms of signification involving sign creation, perception, and interpretation in social or cultural contexts ; the series of interpretive events whereby signs are used to produce significance ; the ongoing sequences in which symbols invoke and transmit meaning in communicative acts
3. The unfolding processes by which signs come to represent ideas or objects and are understood by interpreters ; the chain of semiosis constituting sign-mediated communication ; the interpretative cycles involving the exchange and recognition of symbolic content in linguistic and non-linguistic contexts

Etymology: Ancient Greek physicians used "sēmeiōsis" for the act of reading symptoms, noticing a sign in the body and inferring the illness behind it. The word grew from "sēma," a sign or mark, through the verb "sēmeioun," to indicate. The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce later adapted it to describe any process by which something comes to stand for something else to a mind. "Semioses" is the plural of semiosis, so it refers to many such processes at once. For Peirce, a sign works only because an interpreter produces another sign in response, which in turn prompts yet another. The plural points to these overlapping chains of interpretation.

Synonyms: sign processes, significations