A development direction of Semiotics

Abstract

This article summarizes a development direction of Semiotics. Inheriting Saussure's Semiotics foundation, authors such as Hjelmslev, Halliday, Martin,... have developed it into the Social Semiotics with  Systemic Functional Semiotics as its great achievement. The present article discusses the nature and development of language in the following aspects: (i) The object of language is the relationship between the signifier and the signified; (ii) Language is form rather than material; (iii) Language is a stratified semiotic system; and  (v) The development of the form in Semiotics.