Semiotics : an introductory anthology /

Semiotics is the study of the signs and how they interact to communicate meaning. The approach is not simply interdisciplinary, but multidisciplinary. Innis brings together 15 scholars reflecting this diversity: Among those presented are C.S. Peirce, deSaussure, Langer, Levi-Strauss, Bateson, Morris, Eco, Barthes, and Sebeok. The essays concern themselves with varied linguistic questions: What is a sign? Where do they come from? What are their types and kinds? How powerful are they? Innis provides in his introduction a brief statement about each of the authors and how the work selected fits into his schema, later amplified in essays that precede each selection. There is, happily, a subject index, which enables one to track a given topic through the articles. This is not an ``introduction'' to semiotics. Indeed, a satisfactory one does not exist. The articles are demanding but illuminating. (One should prepare by first reading Thomas Sebeok's The Sign & Its Masters (CH, Sep '79.) But the effort is well spent and the bringing together of such a representative cross-section of thought on this emerging discipline is to be applauded.-R.C. O'Hara, University of South Florida