With the fast growth of semiotics and the expansion of the scope of its research, some semioticians are worried that it will become impossible for anyone to define the borders of this new science. What is really worrying is that the scope of interest of semiotic science is getting infinite and what is more – unattainable to anyone.
This fear of the semioticians leads them to the idea that semiotics is not exactly science. Some claim it is more of a method of scientific research. It is useful when applied to other sciences.
There are, of course, other semioticians who prefer to look for a new criterion to define semiotics. They managed to find that criterion in the theory of communication. The claim is that semiotic facts are only the facts that have communicative meaning and directionality.
Therefore we now have two main approaches to semiotics.
1.2.1. Epistemological Approach
The epistemological approach to semiotics is based on the theory of knowledge. In 1923 Ernst Cassirer said that “[…] the general theory of knowledge in its prior form […] is not enough […]”
According to this approach, each reflection is a semiotic fact. For example, the reflection of the trajectory of one physical body when colliding with another is interpreted as a semiotic phenomenon. But with such an approach the semiotics is being equalized to epistemology and, therefore, its borders and fields of interest are being expanded to infinity. This, naturally, makes it so that the scientific status of semiotics is refused, and therefore it is proclaimed a method.
This approach is usually called semiotics of meaning and among its most prominent representatives are Ernst Cassirer, Roland Barthes, Jacques Marie Émile Lacan, and Julia Kristeva.
1.2.2. Communicative approach
The communicative approach to semiotics is based on the theory of communication. This approach defines as “semiotic” every manifestation or action that is a result of a communicative intent.
This approach limits the scientific field of semiotics and makes it more specific. Thus, semiotics could be viewed as a science with its own method. This approach is called Semiotics of communication.
The creator of the Semiotics of communication is Eric Buyssens. A Belgian representative of the Functional linguistics. To him each and every phenomenon in which there is no communicative intent, recognized by public convention, should stay outside of the fields of interests of semiotics.
Eric Buyssens’ closest ideological followers are Louis Pietro (Spaniard), and the French semioticians Georges Mounin and Jean-Martine.
1.2.3. In Conclusion
Both the communicative and the epistemological approaches to semiotics are in a way limited and finite. The first excludes every unintentional sign, which in turn means that the index signs are excluded from the field of semiotics.
According to Charles Peirce, index signs are one of the three main categories of signs Yet, the communicative approach to semiotics leaves indexes out of its scope of interest.
On the other hand, the epistemological approach claims that everything is a sign.
After all, contemporary semiotics usually considers the communicative process in its wholeness. Not only the intent of communication, the production of signs, but also their interpretation are a subject of semiotics.
In 1975 Umberto Eco combined the two approaches and claims semiotics to be a unified research of all phenomena of meaning and or communication.
Currently, whether semiotics is a science or a method is no longer a central question. It looks like semiotics is a science as it has its own method, based on its own theory.
