Treatise on general semiotics

A Treatise on General Semiotics was written by Umberto Eco (Alessandria, Piedmont (Italy) 1932). Its first edition was in 1975.

As its name indicates, this essay aims to be -like Saussure's General Linguistics Course-, a treatise whose purpose is to define and constitute semiotic science, its terminology and its contents, starting from the general concept with which Saussure himself intuits that this must be the end of this science, outlining its purposes and its limits. It is, up to now, the most serious and well-founded project to undertake this study.