The Quest for Meaning

Marcel Danesi is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto.

Preface

1. What Is Semiotics?

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Historical Sketch
1.3 The Science of Meaning
1.4 Two Fundamental Models of the Sign
1.5 The Current Practice of Semiotics
1.6 Semiotics in the Global Village
1.7 Further Reading

2. Signs

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Defining the Sign
2.3 Symptoms and Signals
2.4 Icons
2.5 Indexes
2.6 Symbols
2.7 Names
2.8 Body, Mind, and Culture
2.9 Further Reading

3. Structure

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Structure
3.3 Associative Structure
3.4 Structural Economy
3.5 Post-Structuralism
3.6 Modeling
3.7 Further Reading

4. Codes

4.1 Introduction
4.2 What Is a Code?
4.3 Opposition and Markedness
4.4 Types of Codes
4.5 Codes and Perception
4.6 Further Reading

5. Texts

5.1 Introduction
5.2 What Is a Text?
5.3 Narrative Texts
5.4 Visual Texts
5.5 Digital Texts
5.7 Texts, Mind, and Culture
5.8 Further Reading

6. Representation

6.1 Introduction
6.2 What Is Representation?
6.3 Representation and Myth
6.4 Online Knowledge Representation
6.5 Representation and Reality
6.5 Further Reading

7. Semiotics in the Internet Era

7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Simulacrum
7.3 Memes
7.4 Emojis
7.5 The Global Brain
7.6 Posthumanism
7.7 Further Reading

8. Applications

8.1 Introduction
8.2 Clothing
8.3 Food
8.4 Visual Rhetoric
8.5 The Quest for Meaning
8.6 Further Reading

Glossary of Technical Terms
Index