ABSTRACT
Communication is a young field, yet it covers a broad area. Recently, to resolve much dispute about exactly what constitutes the definition of the field, Cronkhite (1986) proposed "the study ofhuman symbolic activity" as one emphasis shared by aH subfields. His definition has been noticed and is gaining acceptance, but one obvious implication remains undeveloped: the connections between communication and semiotics, the theoretical area most directly identified with the study of symbolic behavior. With others, it makes sense to me that Cronkhite's proposal points to a reasonable focus for the field of communication; 1 have no problem in identifying my research as contributing to the study ofhuman symbolic activity. Yet as others have previously studied this topic, we may find it profitable to discover what the semiotic literature contributes to our understanding of communication. 1
This chapter briefiy introduces semiotics: its origins, the definition of the field, and the connections between semiotics and the related field of linguistics, concluding with closely related definitions of culture, communication, and semiotics to demonstrate their areas of overlap. Semiotics is uncommonly broad; this volume makes no pretense of supplying a complete history even of the major ideas. Rather it presents a concise introduction to selected aspects, those that seem to me potentiaHy most valuable for the field of communication. This summary in no way substitutes for a more thorough reading of original sources, but as an introductory synthesis, it may provoke interest in particular authors or ideas. 2
ESTABLISHING THE FIELD OF SEMIOTICS
Independently, but at approximately the same point in time, Ferdinand de Saussure, a linguist in Switzerland, and Charles Sanders Peirce, a philosopher in the United States, described the need for a field ta study the meanings conveyed through signs and symbols (see Figs. 1.1 and 1.2).3 Both felt something important was missing in the currently existing fields of study and wanted to remedy the situation. For both authors the standard references are to books pubIished by others on their behaIf after their deaths; as a result their influence was greater on future generations than on their contemporaries.
