Semiotics is the scientific study of signs and sign functions. While semiotics has most often focused on human phenomena, it has been suggested that the field should be broadened to include elements of the system of signs from the entire continuum of living reality. Such an approach is to make explanatory in a relatively "universal" way what a classification of notions, principles, and procedures means for understanding the unique phenomenon of human semiosis. Semiotics is a unifying matrix that underlies most of the humanities and many of the social and behavioral sciences and impinges upon important segments of the hard sciences. One aspect of semiotics, which may be termed "semiolinguistics," pertains to intentionality with regard to the selection and application of linguistic structures and how the decision to communicate in language relates to the semiotic world. An analysis of Shakespeare's use of terms concerning fabric demonstrates the connection between an objective form and its subjectively experienced social function. Meaning may be understood as the product of the processes of symbolization achieved by a structure and formulation of rules. The semiotic approach mandates a politics of synthesis that allows for an ever more coherent level of analysis of human communication. (Thirty-one references are attached.) (SG)