Importance of Semantic Information Based on Semantic Value

Semantic communication shows great promise in reducing network traffic and alleviating spectrum shortage. While many semantic theories have been put forward, how to measure the importance of semantic information theoretically remains an open issue. In this paper, we propose semantic value, a metric that measures the importance of semantic information, for text transmission. First, we model a semantic communication system for text transmission, in which semantic information is represented by semantic triplets. Then, we propose a hybrid communication mechanism to ensure the success of text transmission. Finally, we compare the performances of the conventional mode and the semantic mode in terms of latency and derive conditions leading to minimum latency.