The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure is considered the father of semiotics, or the study of signs. He proposed looking at language from what is called as synchronic (non-historical) perspective as against the diachronic (historical). Here language is studied as a system:

Signs are what we human beings use in the creation and interpretation of meaning. How is meaning constructed? Saussure would say that meaning is constructed with the interpretation and creation of signs.