system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Wait, so what’s the difference between Semiotics and Semiology again?

I’ve read that semiology is to semiotics as a part is to its whole, but that really tells me nothing and makes me sort of upset, so can somebody give me a more exact insight into how these two fields differ?
gpt
Semiology was the name proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure as a specific name for "a science that studies the life of signs within society", and it would "show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them". He relates it to psychology, claims it to be about particularly human phenomena, and himself was interested in linguistics.

Semiotics is the general umbrella term which just refers to anything and everything to do with the study of signs (things that refer to something other than themselves), meaning making, and communication. It also refers generically to things like animal communication (and biosemiotics, e.g. Thomas Sebeok); Charles S. Peirce turned it into the foundation of logic, etc.

In general, Saussure is more applicable to cultural matters, and there are other theories for biology and for social stuff. But there are of course overlaps and mixing of perspectives and theories, in semiotics as much as everywhere else.

So in a sense there isn't much to the distinction. Semiology relates to semiotics like molecular biology relates to biology, or whatever. But today the word "semiology" is really not much used , even by those making use of Saussure's stuff.