Of cigarettes, high heels, and other interesting things [electronic resource] : an introduction to semiotics / Marcel Danesi.

Formerly CIP. Uk

Includes bibliographical references (p. [219]-227) and index.

In this volume, Marcel Danesi shows us that the discipline that endeavors to understand the human quest for meaning is known as semiotics. He demonstrates how semiotics unravels the meanings of signs that make up the system of what we call a culture or society. This book will engender in the reader the same kind of analytical and inquisitive frame of mind with which a semiotician approaches the subject matter of meaning. As Danesi argues, perhaps the greatest skill possessed by Homo sapiens, literally the "knowing animal," is the ability to know itself. This book reveals how semiotics helps to sharpen that ability considerably.