It is this cultural perspective, combined with linguistic analysis pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure and subsequently developed by followers such as Roland Barthes , that makes this branch of communication theory so useful. Reference to such terms as 'codes,' 'signs,' and 'signifiers,' is often made in this context of mainstream semiotic theory. Because semioticians believe that cultural behavior can be systematically analyzed, analysis can be focused on such codes of dress, music, advertising, and other forms of communication. Semiotics is a form of structuralism, for it argues that that we cannot know the world on its own terms, but only through the conceptual and linguistic structures of our culture.
Empiricism argues exactly the opposite.
While structuralism does not deny the existence of an external, universal reality, it does deny the possibility of humans having access to this reality. However, in more recent times, the study of semiotics has relied not just on structuralist linguistics but has also encompassed more fluid models that incorporate psychoanalytic elements. In contrast, for poststructuralists, such as Derrida , the signified is only a moment in a never-ending process of signification where meaning is produced not in a stable, referential relation between subject and object, but within an infinite, intertextual play of signifiers. Signs are thought of as reflecting basic reality. Signs mask reality.