This book deals with one of the most interesting aspects of human life: the search for meaning. It discusses how the science of semiotics is equipped to provide insight into what meaning is and how we produce it. Why is it that certain people routinely put their survival at risk by smoking? Why do some women make locomotion difficult for themselves by wearing high-heel footwear? Are there unconscious forces at work behind such strange behaviors? This book will attempt to answer these questions by claiming that these behaviors are meaningful in culture-specific ways. The discipline that studies such behaviors and their relation to meanings is called semiotics. Semiotics probes the human condition in its own peculiar way, unraveling the meanings of signs, which motivate not only the wearing of high-heel shoes but also the construction of words and art forms. Now in its third edition.