Semiotics: The BasicsFollowing the successful Basics format, this is the book for anyone coming to semiotics for the first time. Using jargon-free language and lively, up-to-date examples, Semiotics: The Basics demystifies this highly interdisciplinary subject. Along the way, the reader will find out what a sign and a text are, what codes we take for granted, how semiotics can be used in textual analysis and who Saussure, Peirce, Barthes and Jakobson are and why they are important. Features include a glossary of key terms and realistic suggestions for further reading.

This volume consists of two studies. The first is a joint essay presenting a critical survey of the author's views on phonology, a theory of sound patterns, and their stratification. The second is an individual contribution from Roman Jakobson ranging widely over many problems of language and its disturbances, literature and general symbolic behaviour.