LESSON 1.

PRAGMATICS AS A DISCIPLINE
By Fredy Limachi choque

1. The science of sign in relation to their interpreters.

Semiotics is the theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of
language or other systems of communication. Common examples of semiotics include
traffic signs, emojis, and emoticons used in electronic communication, and logos and
brands used by international corporations to sell us things—"brand loyalty," they call it.

Semiotics Takeaways

 Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, in particular as they communicate things
spoken and unspoken.
 Common signs that are understood globally include traffic signs, emojis, and
corporate logos.
 Written and spoken language is full of semiotics in the form of intertextuality, puns,
metaphors, and references to cultural commonalities.

Signs are all around us. Consider a set of paired faucets in a bathroom or kitchen. The
left side is almost certainly the hot water tap, the right is the cold. Many years ago, all
taps had letters designating the temperature of the water—in English, H for hot and C
for cold; in Spanish, C for hot (caliente) and F for cold (frio). Modern taps often have no
letter designations or are included in one tap, but even with a single tap, the semiotic
content of faucets still tells us to tilt or turn left for hot water and right for cold. The
information about how to avoid being burned is a sign.

What is the main purpose of semiotics?

The most important purpose of semiotics is to study semiosis (i.e., the formation and
comprehension of signs); semiosis can be studied in both human and nonhuman
spheres. The sphere of semiosis wherein sign processes are at work is called the
semiosphere.

The meaning systems

We can use five broad semiotic or meaning making systems to talk about how we create
meaning: written-linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, and spatial patterns of
meaning.

Written/linguistic meaning concerns spoken and written language through use of

vocabulary, generic structure and grammar.

Audio meaning concerns music, sound effects, noises, ambient noise, and silence,
through use of volumen, pitch and rythm.

Visual meaning concerns still and moving images through use of color, saliency, page
layouts, vectors, viewpoint, screen formats, visual symbols; shot framing, subject
distance and angle; camera movement, subject movement.

Gestural meaning concerns movement of body, hand and eyes; facial expression,
demeanours, and body language, and use of rhythm , speed, stillness and angles.
Spatial meaning concerns environmental spaces and architectural spaces and use of
proximity, direction, layout, position of and organization of objects in space.

Multimodal meaning is the combination of two or more modes in various combinations

2. Linguistic behavior.

Linguistic behavior as a cultural potential consists of a multitude of congenital and

acquired individual features such as actual human qualities realized through
communicative abilities and unique psychophisiological qualities of a person, expressed
in the attitude to the language and linguistic activity.

An example of how this works is when a baby is making garbled sounds to its parent.
When the baby makes a sound that seems like a word (mama, dada, baba) the parent
will respond by repeating the sound and giving the child affection and encouragement
for saying the 'word'.