This study investigates the semiotic significance of water in Persian garden landscapes, revealing its cultural, spiritual, and religious roots. Drawing on Louis Hjelmslev’s theories and employing a semiotic model for landscape study, the paper conducts a holistic analysis of water’s physical and semantic dimensions in these gardens. The research adopts a triadic approach, starting with an examination of the form-to-substance ratio at the expression level to interpret the gardens’ physical and visual features. The article explores the connection between these features and the gardens’ cultural context and, finally, links structural concepts to broader societal ideologies. Qualitative content analysis of case studies, including Fin Garden and Dolatabad Garden, exposes the multifaceted meanings of water elements, from their geometric organization to their socio-cultural and ideological resonance. The findings disclose a triadic meaning system where water acts as a unifying symbol, reflecting Iranian societal values and enhancing the gardens’ lasting appeal. This study not only contributes to the semiotic discourse by applying Hjelmslev’s theories to the specific context of Iranian gardens but also enriches the understanding of cultural heritage and landscape design.

This paper is dedicated to the intersections between folding and semiotics, serving as a meta-commentary on Howard Pattee’s “Symbol grounding precedes interpretation” (2021), a response to Terrence Deacon’s work, that was further elaborated in 2023. Framed within a context of recursive self-reflection, the paper scrutinizes folding as a fundamental semiotic activity and elementary semiotic modelling, drawing connections to Pattee’s proposition regarding protein folding as a precursor to semiosis and interpretation. Central to this discourse is the assertion that folding serves not only as a foundational prerequisite for semiosis but also as a potent modelling system. Through a multidisciplinary lens, the paper elucidates how folding manifests as a modelling mechanism across diverse domains from biology to syntax. Notably, the paper proposes an application of folding principles in AI. By navigating the framework of folding as semiotic modelling, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the foundational mechanisms of signification and interpretation in semiotic systems.

Technological futures in semiotics: The year 2024 in review

The following interview with John Joseph, a linguist specializing in the history of linguistics, applied linguistics, and the relationships between language and identity, is divided into two parts. The first part presents a small overview of Joseph’s academic trajectory, emphasizing the struggles faced by emerging fields in the linguistics of the 1980s (e.g. language standardization and history of linguistics itself), and then deals with the problems of doing history of linguistics, including questions of the methodology and epistemology of historical approaches. The second part of the interview touches upon the relationships between the history of linguistics and semiotics, the relationships between linguistics and culture, and the problems of subjectivity in linguistics and semiotics. The interview concludes with a small comment on relevant questions linguistics faces when it comes to the role of academics in helping to solve pressing social issues.

In the study of Russian émigré literature, an inherent Russian-centric perspective persists. Diaspoetics, with its meta-critical attributes, offers a means effectively to address this limitation. Central to its focus are the concepts of ‘imagination’ and ‘reality’ in diaspora identity. Across its developmental stages, diaspoetics alternately emphasizes objective identity definition and subjective identity construction, each approach presenting distinct strengths and weaknesses. However, from the perspective of Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotics, culture as a selfconscious individuality inherently unites subject and object. The tension between ‘imagination’ and ‘reality’ finds resolution in the literary creation of the metaphor “Harbin note”, which emerges from the unique diasporic space of Harbin. Consequently, within the interplay of the mythological geographies of “East” and “West”, the identity of the diaspora community simultaneously embodies opposition and achieves unity.

The following paper examines the metaphysics of signification in John Deely’s work and presents two arguments: (1) that Deely’s metaphysics sanction backwards causation in signification, and (2) that there may be a more parsimonious view that can be defended. The paper briefly examines the background of Peirce’s metaphysics and then addresses his specific notion of semiotic causality, including the relevance of the vis a prospecto in his work. I will argue, however, that in accounting for signification, appealing to past states changed by future states can only be done in a weak, epistemological manner, as opposed to what I see as a modal view in Deely. As Deely’s metaphysics has profoundly influenced the philosophical discourse of current semiotics, it is important to assess the ontological commitments made in order for signification to take place. His account of semiotic causality as a teleological phenomenon may offer a powerful explanatory framework for how signification takes place (and with it, how signs come to be), but its consequences may result in counterintuitive ways of thinking about meaning-making. I offer a positive deflationary account of how to preserve a weaker sense of semiotic causality to avoid the risks posed by the vis a prospecto in Deely’s proposal.

The following notes are a commentary on Luis J. Prieto’s text “A semiology: Problems and routes”, an English translation of “Une sémiologie: problems et parcours”. The notes begin by introducing the different versions under which “A semiology…” was originally published, and then explain some problems faced when working on the English translation. After that, the introduction provides a historical and theoretical contextualization of the original text, focusing on Prieto’s disagreement with Cesare Luporini’s views on (scientific) knowledge from a materialist (Marxist-Leninist) perspective. The notes then move on to Prieto’s own theory and examine the interrelations between knowledge, practice and subjectivity as they are treated in “A semiology…” and in related texts written by Prieto around the same time. Finally, the notes close with a brief observation of how Prieto’s theory could be developed and what its shortcomings are, especially regarding contemporary semiotic theory.

Starting from critical points of the research agenda on emotions, this paper aims to present and discuss a dynamic field model of the interaction between affective semiosis and perceptual semiosis. Conceptually, the model is grounded in the epistemological contribution of Ignacio Matte Blanco’s psychoanalytic theory, which formalizes two kinds of logic at the foundation of human experience: asymmetrical (the basis of the activity of conscious rational thought and functioning through distinction and separation processes) and symmetrical (the basis of unconscious processes, aimed at homogenization and generalization). Accordingly, affective semiosis is characterized by a predominance of symmetrizing and generalizing modalities, tending to homogenize differences and render all stimuli indistinct and undifferentiated according to a function of pertinentization (i.e. by the definition of a ground – à la Peirce). This ground offers a temporary stability to discretize the elements of experience. Conversely, perceptive semiosis focuses on discretization and identification, operating through the recognition of differences within the pertinentized field. Perceptual semiosis, which seeks to identify differences, can only function if a background serving as an element of continuity remains stable. Finally, the study explores specific dynamics that illustrate the necessary intertwining of affective and perceptual semiosis through the application of non-linear descriptive models, characterized by oscillatory and complementary trends.

Vilmos Voigt, folklorist and semiotician (1940–2025)

A semiology: Problems and routes