Semiotics and a desire to make sense of signs has been going on since ancient times,
"One of the most notable debates on signs in the Ancient world took place between the Stoics and Epicureans (around 300 BCE in Athens).
The crux of the matter concerned the difference between "natural signs" (freely occuring throughout nature) and "conventional" signs (those designed precisely for the purpose of communication)" (Paul Cobley, Introducing Semiotics, 1999, Cambridge, Icon Books LTD, 3rd ed., Page 5)
However by the middle ages St. Augustine had developed the theory of "Signa Data" which in summary is:
"The difference between naturalia and data, Augustine says, is that the latter occur by the will of a sign-user while the former do not. Given this voluntarist emphasis, it makes sense to translate "signa data" not as "conventional signs" but "given signs."" (leithart, 07 November 2007)
This provided the foundation for western semiotics, pointing people away from natural signs and towards conventional signs as the proper signs to study. However it wasn't until many years later that Semiotics became the science we know it as today, thanks to Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914).
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