I learnt semiotics in class and I know that it is divided into 2 categories, which are signifier and signified. Signifier is the theory and signified is the concept. To explain this simply, refer to the image below:
A concept is an abstract idea, general idea or understanding of something and it is a mental image. There's no solid theory for a concept. A faint understanding of something without backed up evidence.
Theory
A theory is scientifically credible general principle that explains a phenomenon. For example, words. Something that are backed up by science and proven true.
According to sign salad (Sign Salad n.d.), "everyone is a semiotician, because everyone is constantly unconsciously interpreting the meaning of signs around them – from traffic lights to colours of flags, the shapes of cars, the architecture of buildings, and the design of cereal packaging". They also mentioned that semiotics doesn't necessarily has to be a visual, sound can also be considered a semiotic. For example, a police siren that signals a type of reaction.
Semiotics was defined by a Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure which is also the founder, as the study of “the life of signs within society” (Encyclopedia Brittanica n.d.). He discovered 3 types of signs and those are iconic, indexical and symbolic signs.
An iconic sign is often used to describe objects that has strong physical resemblance, for example an apple or a tree! A symbolic sign of a tree or a traffic light is an iconic sign.
An indexical sign is that the signifier(theory) has some relation to the signifier(concept). It's somehow directly connected to the concept. For example, sunlight or brightness is related to the sun. That is one of the reason we see a symbol of a sun when we adjust our smart phone's brightness.
A symbolic sign is that there are no inherent relationship between the signifier and the signified. This connection is culturally learned. For example, the fact that the sign of the cross is related to Christianity is culturally learned since the two concepts have no intrinsic relation (DifferenceBetween.com, 2017).
"Semiotics started out as an academic investigation of the meaning of words (linguistics), it moved into examining people’s behaviour (anthropology and psychology), then evolved to become an enquiry into culture and society (sociology and philosophy), following that it moved onto assisting with analyses of cultural products (films, literature, art – critical theory), and finally and more recently became a methodology for researching and analysing consumer behaviour and brand communications" (Sign Salad n.d.).
References
DifferenceBetween.com (2017) Difference Between Signifier and Signified (March 2) [online] Available at: https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-signifier-and-vs-signified/ [Accessed 28 June 2018]
Encyclopedia Brittanica (n.d.) Semiotics (n.d.) [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/science/semiotics [Accessed 28 June 2018]
Sign Salad (n.d.) What is Semiotics? (n.d.) [online] Available at: https://signsalad.com/our-thoughts/what-is-semiotics/ [Accessed 28 June 2018]
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