"Introducing Semiotics" (Amazon: www.amazon.com/exec/obido...499-3153721 isn't a bad start. It's cheap (< $10), brief (< 200 pages), and a decent overview of the subject. It's a cartoon-like book, much in the style of The Cartoon Guide to Statistics. If you enjoy that sort of thing, then this book will be a bonus. In addition, the pictures help reduce beginner's whiplash of the dense and abstract subject otherwise known as semiotics. Angelina posted one of the other decent resources for beginners, which also turns out to be available as dead trees if that's easier to work with.

This site is a jumping off point to several other resources: carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/...tics.html

Perhaps this void is something we can try to fill in this group?

Marcel Danesi's _Sign, Thought, and Culture_. Easy to read, great for people without knowledge of the field. It has 5 or so chapters linked to everyday life titled Semiotics of Food, Semiotics of Clothes, Semiotics of TV etc.

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obid...84-3015014


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mika

I recommend that people avoid getting embroiled in later confusion by starting with Roger Bacon, _De Signis_.

But that's just me...

I like Roland Barthes S/Z. Well, it is a good supplement. His "Elements of Semiology" is also good.