How is Ferdinand de Saussure's approach to the study of signs described?

Ferdinand de Saussure's approach to the study of signs is described as semiotics, the science of how signs carry meaning within language and social life.

Semantics studies word meaning specifically, a narrower field than Saussure's general science of signs.

Signification names the act by which a sign produces meaning, a process within semiotics rather than the name of his whole approach.

Meaningful systems is a loose phrase, not the established term for the study Saussure founded.

He split the sign into the signifier and the signified, its form and its concept.

This framework became a foundation of modern structuralist thought.