One school of thought argues that language is the semiotic prototype and its study illuminates principles that can be applied to other sign systems[citation needed].
Whichever may be right, a preliminary definition of semiosis is any action or influence for communicating meaning by establishing relationships between signs which are to be interpreted by an audience.
As an insect (or any animal, human or otherwise) moves through its environment (sometimes termed the umwelt), all the senses collect data that are made available to the brain.
This would suggest that, in the semiosphere, the process of semiosis goes through the following cycle: In biology, scout bees and ants will return home to tell the others where food is to be found, the fact of fertility must be announced to prospective mates from the same species, and the presence of danger must be passed as a warning to others in the group.
There is a new field of research activity termed biosemiotics, and Jesper Hoffmeyer claims that endosymbiosis, self-reference, code duality, the availability of receptors, autopoiesis, and others are the general properties of all living systems.
When two individuals meet, the ways in which they think, the specific identities they assume, the emotional responses they make, and the beliefs, motives, and purposes they have, will frame the situation as it develops dynamically and potentially test the legitimacy of the outcomes.