The 20th century Swiss linguist and semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure defines semiotics as the systematic science of signs. Although the idea has been both praised and ridiculed, the linguist has successfully demonstrated that signs influence the way we see the world we live in. Where language was once how we understood society, signs have taken their place. Consider the “M” for McDonald’s or the Castle for Disney, even the “Disney character.” We rarely recognize these companies from what we have heard about them and above all from the symbols we see and associate them with. The study of signs proves laborious but rewarding. Introduction Various amounts of research point to the fact that humans have an innate ability to imagine something after hearing a word. We often think about the sign without realizing that there is a signifier and what is signified. Semiotic theory is a basis for understanding how this happens. This is not to be confused with semiology. Semiotics is the study of signs and codes, signs that are used to produce, transmit and interpret messages and the codes that govern their use, according to Roman Jakobson, writer of “Linguistics and Poetics”. Semiology is the study of signs and sign processes. Although a difference emerges between semiotics and semiology, the two approaches to the theory or a theory of signification complement each other and are related to each other. One cannot be expected to work without the other, otherwise a link will be missing. In this article I intend to discuss how semiology and semiotics work in the process of human word and image recognition, how this affects media, and to answer the question "How does something represent something else?" Theory or... middle of paper... the image of a swastika for a crowd of people, most of that crowd who immediately imagine Nazi Germany. This image would come to mind without first considering that the swastika had meaning before Nazi Germany. There is a story behind that symbol that goes beyond the twentieth century, that goes beyond the end of the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s. Another example of a sign with multiple meanings across cultures and continents is the cross. Although it is the symbol of Christianity, there are people who do not respect this symbol. For them it has no meaning. There are many signs and symbols throughout history and in today's world that have multiple meanings in different cultures, both accepted and rejected. Works Cited The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction by Jonathan D. Culler, 1981, Cornell University Press, New York, USA, Print, Book