Semiotics is the science of signs. Semiology proposes that a great diversity of our human action and productions - our bodily postures and gestures, the social rituals we perform, the clothes we wear, the meals we serve, the buildings we inhabit - all convey "shared" meanings to members of a particular culture, and so can be analysed as signs which function in diverse kinds of signifying systems. Linguistics (the study of verbal signs and structures) is only one branch of semiotics but supplies the basic methods and terms which are used in the study of all other social sign systems. Major figures include. Major figures include Charles Pierce, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault, Umberto Eco, Gerard Genet, and Roland Barthes.