  Given that theoretical analysis and empirical validation is fundamental to
any model, whether conceptual or formal, it is surprising that these two tools
of scientific discovery are so often ignored in the contemporary studies of
communication. In this paper, we pursued the ideas of a) correcting and
expanding the modeling approaches of linguistics, which are otherwise
inapplicable (more precisely, which should not but are widely applied), to the
general case of hypermedia-based communication, and b) developing techniques
for empirical validation of semiotic models, which are nowadays routinely used
to explore (in fact, to conjecture about) internal mechanisms of complex
systems, yet on a purely speculative basis. This study thus offers two
experimentally tested substantive contributions: the formal representation of
communication as the mutually-orienting behavior of coupled autonomous systems,
and the mathematical interpretation of the semiosis of communication, which
together offer a concrete and parsimonious understanding of diverse
communication phenomena.
