Signs in Society takes up Ferdinand de Saussure's challenge to study the "life of signs in society" by using semiotic tools proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce. Richard J. Parmentier focuses on linkages between text and context, linguistic and non-linguistic signs, semiotic and metasemiotic levels, and elementary and complex semiotic phenomena in analyzing ethnographic and philosophic data. He explicates Peirce's fundamental semiotic concepts and evaluate their potential for cultural analysis. After considering the possibility of using complex semiotic processes, Parmentier examines the relationship between social action and theoretical discourse. Throughout Signs in Society Parmentier focuses on links between text and context, linguistic and nonlinguistic signs, semiotic and metasemiotic levels, and elementary and complex semiotic phenomena.