WELCOME TO THE "WORLD-FAMOUS" UC SAN DIEGO SEMIOTIC ZOO!
The UC San Diego Semiotic Zoo (UCSZ) is proud to present a special exhibition of exotic specimens and fabulous mutations, captured live in the jungles of academic discourse, and assembled here with great care for your entertainment and edification. The tour begins by clicking on one of the "Semiotic Introduction" lines below; you will then be guided through a series of exhibits in an area of the zoo; you can return to this homepage from any exhibit and then click the appropriate line to view your favorite specimens again out of order. You should tour Area I first.




I love the UC San Diego Semiotic Zoo.

Background information for the zoo, particularly the notion of semiotic morphism (which is technically speaking what all these little beasties are - or rather, in Area I are not), can be obtained in the first semiotic introduction; more technical details are available in the on-line document Semiotic Morphisms, and in still more detail, in the basic technical paper, An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Application to User Interface Design. A more leisurely introduction to the ideas of algebraic semiotics may be found on the website of the course CSE 271. See also The Literary Mind, by Mark Turner (Oxford 1997) for an excellent informal description of the approach to stories, parables and projection taken in this zoo.

AREA I: MUTANTS, MONSTERS & OTHER SEMIOTICALLY CHALLENGED BEINGS Although these creatures are already installed in their cages for your viewing pleasure, Area II is not yet open to the public. We hope that what you learn from your visit to the zoo will help you to communicate better in a variety of media, including natural language, Java applets, algebraic notation, and graphical illustrations. We believe that semiotic morphisms are a new fundamental concept for user interface design, media studies, computer graphics, semiotics, linguistics, and similar fields, and we hope that you will join in our quest for further insight. Please visit the zoo again.
AREA II: TRANSFORMERS, PROJECTERS & OTHER SEMIOTICALLY NORMAL BEINGS

NOTE: THIS AREA OF THE ZOO IS NOT YET OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

With sincere apologies to the real San Diego Zoo, which for some reason is usually prefixed with "world-famous," with the hyphen and without the quotes. Special thanks to Dr Akira Mori for help with caging some of the animals. The panda was captured at the Yale Style Manuual, which in turn captured it from Jones and Jones, Architects.
To Tatami project homepage.
To UCSD Meaning and Computation Lab homepage.
To my homepage.
19 May 1998; slightly modified 24 January 2000.