The general study of symbolic systems, including language. The subject is traditionally divided into three areas: syntax, or the abstract study of the signs and their interrelations; semantics, or the study of the relation between the signs and those objects to which they apply; and pragmatics, or the relationship between users and the system (C. W. Morris, Foundations of the Theory of Signs, 1938). The tradition of semiotics that follows Saussure is sometimes referred to as semiology. Confusingly, in the work of Kristeva, the term is appropriated for the non-rational effluxes of the infantile part of the self.
Philosophy dictionary. Academic. 2011.