- a difference between two completely opposite ideas or things: There is often a dichotomy between what politicians say and what they do. Various theoretical dichotomies can be extracted from Saussure’s work. This has become a tradition. He made a clear distinction between several new concepts: signifier/signified langue/parole, synchronic/diachronic studies, and syntagmatic/paradigmatic studies.
Semiotics The shortest definition: semiotics is the study of signs. - tendency to be largely theoretical, its theorists mostly trying to establish its scope and general principles. - Peirce and Saussure concerned with the fundamental (basic)definition of the sign. - Peirce developed logical taxonomies of types of signs - Saussure’s theories - a starting point for the development of various structuralist methodologies for analysing texts and social practices. - not widely institutionalized as an academic discipline - specialists involved in semiotics include linguists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, literary, aesthetic and media theorists, psychoanalysts and educationalists. ...