Semiotic Analysis — Reading Signs, Symbols, and Cultural Meaning

Semiotic analysis is a qualitative method for interpreting how signs — words, images, sounds, gestures, and objects — produce and communicate meaning within a cultural context. Drawing on the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the triadic sign theory of Charles Sanders Peirce, and popularised as a research tool by Roland Barthes, semiotics moves beyond surface denotation to expose the connotative and ideological meanings embedded in texts and visual culture.