Charles Sanders Peirce

Roland Barthes

Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences, and economics, many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these...

Claude Levi-Strauss

Biosemiotics · Code Computational semiotics Connotation · Decode · Denotation Encode · Lexical · Modality Salience · Sign · Sign relation Sign relational complex · Semiosis Semiosphere · Literary...

Religious symbolism

This man in Rhumsiki, Cameroon, tells the future by interpreting the changes in position of various objects as caused by a fresh-water crab through nggàm[1]. Divination (Greek μαντεια, from μαντις "seer", anglicized in the suffix -mancy,...

An icon (from Greek εἰκών, eikon, "image") is an image, picture, or representation; it is a sign or likeness that stands for an object by signifying or representing it, or by analogy, as in semiotics; by extension, icon is also used, particularly...

Ferdinand de Saussure

Traffic sign

Sign or signing, in communication, refers to communicating via hand gestures, such as sign language.

Symbols are objects, characters, or other concrete representations of ideas, concepts, or other abstractions. For example, in the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain, a red octagon is a symbol for the traffic sign meaning "STOP". Common...

Representation

Mary Douglas

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally unrelated. In order to be synchronous, the events must be related to one another conceptually, and the chance that they would occur together...

Map-territory relation

Sign (semiotics), the basic units of meaning

An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek ἰδέα idea "idea" + γράφω grapho "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic...

Logotype summary and related information.

Signature, in history, a handwritten depiction observed on a document to show authorship and will

Icon (computing)

Sign (linguistics), a combination of a concept and a sound-image described by Ferdinand de Saussure

List of symbols

Gang signal

National symbol

A signboard.

Interpretation of dreams

Edmund Leach

For signing as in the placing one's name on a document, see Signature. For use of the term in mathematics, see signature (mathematics). For signing as a form of communication using the hands in place of the voice, see manual communication. For signing...

A sign is an entity which signifies another entity. A natural sign is an entity which bears a causal relation to the signified entity, as thunder is a sign of storm. A conventional sign signifies by agreement, as a full stop signifies the end of a sentence. (Contrast a symbol which stands for another thing, as a flag may be a symbol of a nation) The way in which a sign signifies is a topic in philosophy of language, see also Meaning (linguistic) Any given signifier or symbol is dependent upon that which is intended, expressed, or signified in a semiotic relationship of signification, significance, meaning, or import. Thus, for example, people may speak of the significance of events, the signification of characters, the meaning of sentences, or the import of a communication. These different relationships that exist between sorts of signs can help people and sorts of things that are signified can be called the modes of signification. The range of uses of signs are varied. They might include: the indication or mark of something, a display of a message, a signal to draw attention, evidence of an underlying cause (for instance, the symptoms of a disease are signs of the disease), a character for a mathematical operation, a body gesture, etc.

Semiotics, epistemology, logic, and philosophy of language are concerned about the nature of signs, what they are and how they signify. The nature of signs and symbols and significations, their definition, elements, and types, is mainly established by Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. According to these classic sources, significance is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they signify (intend, express or mean), where one term necessarily causes something else to come to the mind. Distinguishing natural signs and conventional signs, the traditional theory of signs sets the following threefold partition of things:

Thus there are things which may act as signs without any respect to the human agent (the things of the external world, all sorts of indications, evidences, symptoms, and physical signals), there are signs which are always signs (the entities of the mind as ideas and images, thoughts and feelings, constructs and intentions); and there are signs that have to get their signification (as linguistic entities and cultural symbols). So, while natural signs serve as the source of signification, the human mind is the agency through which signs signify naturally occurring things, such as objects, states, qualities, quantities, events, processes, or relationships. Human language and discourse, communication, philosophy, science, logic, mathematics, poetry, theology, and religion are only some of fields of human study and activity where grasping the nature of signs and symbols and patterns of signification may have a decisive value.

Sign, in astrology, often used to mean the Sun sign

Signedness, in computing, the digits where one bit among them denotes whether the number is either negative or non-negative, are called signed, otherwise unsigned. See also signed number representation

Sign, in divination and religion, an omen, an event or occurrence believed to foretell the future

Sign, in ontology and spirituality, a coincidence; see synchronicity

Sign, in mathematics, whether a number is negative or positive

Medical sign, in medicine, objective evidence of the presence of a disease or disorder, as opposed to a symptom, which is subjective

Information sign, a notice that instructs, advises, informs or warns people

Traffic sign, signs that instruct drivers; see also stop signs, speed limit signs, cross walk signs

Sign, in a writing system, a basic unit. Similar terms which are more specific are character, letter or grapheme

Commercial signage, including flashing signs, such as on a retail store, factory, or theatre