Cultural Semiotics Research Articles

Translational Fabric of Mission and Culture

Within theological circles Robert J. Schreiter stands out for his extensive culture theory and theology engagement. Interestingly, therein, the area of cultural translation has not figured prominently in his scholarship, despite having enjoyed a certain pride of place at the times of his early career, both in mission studies and in cultural semiotics, his favorite theory of culture. What is suggested here then is to review the missional discourse of cross-cultural translation (Andrew Walls, Lamin Sanneh and Kwame Bediako), on the one hand, and its critiques from contextual theology (Stephan Bevans and Robert Schreiter) on the other, explaining his reservation. Additionally, the essay elaborates on translation in cultural semiotics (Yuri Lotman) and recent translation studies with its foundational as well as fluid concept of translation, not dissimilar to Schreiter's understanding of globalized culture, suggesting it as potential terrain for future theologies of crosscultural translation.

Культурная семиотика В. Н. Топорова как ресурс систематики усадебных исследований

Культурная семиотика В. Н. Топорова как ресурс систематики усадебных исследований

МОВНИЙ І КУЛЬТУРНИЙ КОД: ЇХ ВЗАЄМОДІЯ В ЛІНГВОКУЛЬТУРНОМУ ПРОСТОРІ

For a long time, the study of ethno-language and ethno-culture was conducted based on the use of different conceptual and terminological devices, despite the significant commonality and the research possibilities in mutual connection with applying a single system of instrumental categories – universal methodological basis – semiotics. The semiotics of culture made it possible to interpret the phenomena of language and culture as phenomena of the same order. Culture is explored as a polyglot phenomenon, as a system of sign systems. In the dynamic aspect, culture, formed in the process of socio-historical development of the people, appears as a set of schemes or programs of subject-practical and spiritual-theoretical behaviour of people. By analogy with biological heredity, we refer to cultural heritage, in the frame of which individual behavioural programs are considered as a kind of “cultural genes”, whose systems, like genetic codes, form cultural codes. In this article, we consider the language and cultural code, namely their interaction in the linguo-cultural space. Thus, behavioural programs function in society in a signed form: in the form of social symbolism systems, in the form of etiquette signs, various kinds of signals, in the form of language. From these perspectives, we consider language as a mega program that regulates human thinking and behaviour. This approach allows us to identify the connection between language and culture. From the standpoint of the semiotics of culture, verbal speech is the main, nuclear sign system of ethno-culture, over which all other sign systems of this culture are built as its auxiliary mechanisms. The article deals with the connection between the concepts of language and code, as well as a number of related concepts. The concept of “linguistic image” is specified. The cultural code is divided into subcodes with a multi-level hierarchy. The system of cultural codes with its “vertical” and “horizontal” relations represents the figurative system of culture. Units of linguo-cultural code are formed under the interaction of cultural codes with the generally accepted code. A unit of linguo-cultural code consists of any number of lexemes, but it is a natural language embodiment of only one unit of cultural code (a separate image). Figurative codes of culture are embodied only in such linguistic units that have a figurative basis.

Deep Ecosemiotics: Forest as a Semiotic Model1

Many concepts used in semiotics today are derived from linguistics, philosophy, literature studies and other fields. Yet a genuinely ecosemiotic approach, requires modelling tools that go beyond imagery based on human culture and communication. In this paper, I develop an ecosemiotic research model that uses “forest” as its primary ground. Basing myself on the Tartu-Moscow school of cultural semiotics, I introduce modelling as an analytic method. Then I describe properties of the forest as an ecosystem as well as its experiential meaning for humans. The forest model can be applied in studying common objects of ecosemiotics, but it can also be mirrored back to the objects of general, cultural or social semiotics. The paper concludes with suggestions on developing the forest model in practical research.

Rethinking literary education in the digital age

This paper discusses the perspectives of literary education in the context of the transforming of the notions of literature, reading, and learning. While everyday semiotic practices are becoming increasingly digital and multimodal, school education in most countries is still largely focused on mediating original literary texts in print and their established interpretations. Less conventional sources of literary information – brief retellings, comic strips, memes, social media posts – tend to make up a large part of the students’ semiotic environment; yet these are usually dismissed by school education as inaccurate and irrelevant. Cultural semiotics, however, allows regarding pulverized versions of texts as a part of a natural educational system – the culture itself. A holistic approach allows not only integrating everyday semiotic practices into a school curriculum, but also revealing the inherent multimodality, transmediality, and creativity of the literary experience. The paper explores possible implications of semiotics in three aspects of literary education: multimodality and heterogeneity of literary experience; influence of digital media on the perception habits; reading as a creative building of a whole from different fragments. The overarching goal is to enrich school education through a deeper understanding of literary experience and a widening of the spectrum of acknowledged tools, formats and media. The theoretical survey is supported by real-life examples from school practice and recreational reading.

Semiose em Peirce e Lotman

The aim of this work is to discuss the notion of semiosis in the context of Peirce and Lotman’s semiotics, clarifying their similarities and differences, in order to point out a possible dialogue between this two important authors for the history of semiotics. For this, we will first present the concept of semiosis within the theoretical framework of Peirce, discussing the main notions of its phenomenology, category theory, the notion of triadic identity (teridentity), which are important for understanding what Peirce understood as sign and semiosis. In a second moment, we discuss some of the main concepts of Lotman’s culture semiotics, bringing to light concepts such as text, modeling system, modeling, semiosphere, frontier. Finally, we compare the notions found in each theory, considering the dissonances and consonances between them.

Semiotics of Hairstyles and Its Communicative Role in Contemporary Everyday Culture

.

Productive perils: on metaphor as a theory-building device

AbstractMetaphors constitute a relevant method for both building and making sense of theories. Semiotics is not exempt from their influence, and an important range of semiotic theories depends on metaphors to be meaningful. In this paper, we wish to examine the place of theory-constitutive metaphors considering the interaction view and the extent to which some areas of semiotics, particularly, the semiotics of culture and biosemiotics, are enriched by having metaphors dominate the way we think about them. The intention of the paper is not to document the different metaphors that have built semiotic theory, but rather to observe through a number of examples that semiotic research contains theory-building metaphors and that these are productive means of developing semiotic thinking further, with the caveat that theory change can be unexpected based on how we build metaphors for our theories.

Ready for the Homeland

The article analyzes nationalistically motivated online hate speech on selected right-wing public Facebook pages in Croatia. The rise of historical revisionism and populism paved the way for the growing presence of hate speech, with the most salient example being the resurfacing of the World War II fascist salute Za dom spremni (“Ready for the Homeland”) across different communicative situations. We account for the online dynamic of Za dom spremni as well as for the most frequent expressions of xenophobia that accompany the salute by presenting data gathered between 2012 – 2017 using Facebook Graph API. From the total of 4.5 million postings published by readers, those containing Za dom spremni and its variations were filtered and followed by the frequency and prevalence of the accompanying notions. By relying on cultural semiotics, we highlight the socio-communicative functions of hate speech on two levels. Firstly, the notion of the semiosphere helps us illustrate how hate speech is used to reproduce the idea of Croatianness as the dominant self-description. Secondly, we examine how the dominant self-description maintains the boundary between us and the other by merging diverse textual fragments and how their perseverance depends on the communicative situations they enter online.

Semiotics of Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde in the light of the ideas of Lviv-Warsaw Philosophical school. O. Bogomazov - artists of "Krakow group": from Cubism and Futurism to expressive and lyrical abstrac-tion (Article 4)

The purpose of the research. In the first article on the semiotics of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde, his philosophical aesthetic and cultural context was considered, in particular, in light of the ideas of the Lviv-Warsaw Philosophical School. To continue this problem, the semiotic parallels (homology) in the works of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-gardists of the first third of the XXth century are being analyzed. On the basis of the unity of cultural, aesthetic-semiotic and art-study analysis of artistic achievements of artistic avant-gard in Ukraine and Poland, an understanding of the cultural and historical peculiarities of the creative dialogue of artists working in similar ideological and aesthetic paradigms is achieved. Research methodology. The research is based on the aesthetic-semiotic concepts of the representatives of the Lviv-Warsaw School of Philosophy (S. Baley, R. Ingardin, S. Lisse, L. Hvysteck) and the founders of the semantic philosophy of art (K. Bell, B. Croce, S. Langer, G. Rickert) and modern semiotics of culture (Y. Mukarzhovsky, Y. Loman, U. Eko). Interdisciplinary synthesis of philosophical and cultural, aesthetic and art-study approaches is used. Scientific novelty. From the standpoint of modern semiotics, for the first time, symbolic complexes and semantic contents in the works of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde are analyzed. Models of semiotic parallels (homologies) are created in the works of leading artists of Ukraine and Poland of the first third of the XX century. The method of extrapolation of the aesthetic-semiotic ideas of the Lviv-Warsaw School of Philosophy is used to understand the similarity and dialogism in the artistic imagery of individual artists. Conclusions. Phenomenological, intuitive, neo-positivist orientations of scientific and artistic and aesthetic thinking have caused cubistic, futuristic, abstract, and constructivist quests of avant-garde artists. The aesthetic principles of the semiosis of avant-guardism in Ukraine were laid by V. Kandinsky, K. Malevich, O. Bogomazov, in Poland - T. Piper, V. Steshinsky, G. Stazhevsky. The development of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde of these times is, in particular, a kind of "dialogue" between artistic groups and individual artists in Warsaw and Kiev, Krakow and Lviv. The intellectual atmosphere of these creative "competitions" is symptomatic of the scientific and philosophical positions of the Lviv-Warsaw School of Philosophy with its neo-positivist and phenomenological orientations, and especially - the semantic philosophy of art, which corresponded to the establishment of a new semiosphere of avant-garde imagery. The peculiarities of the dialogue of the artists are analyzed on the examples of aesthetic-semiotic and artistic parallels between V. Kandinsky and Y.T. Pyper (theoretical justification of the avant-garde in art), K. Malevich and V. Stshinsky and G. Stazhevsky (the search for suprematist and constructivist artistic language), O. Bogomazov and artists of the "Krakow group" (the path from Cubism and Futurism to expressive and lyrical abstraction). It is summarized that the semiotics of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde of the first third of the 20th century coincides in the sphere of "significant forms" of non-classics in fine arts.

A Semiotic Interpretation of Online Selfie Culture

Abstract The awakening or crisis of individual self-consciousness has been frequently included in the study of online selfie culture, while the reinforcement of public self-consciousness, the strengthening of civil confidence, and even the resurgence of national confidence can be detected from its popularity when studied with the application of Lotman’s cultural semiotics, especially the unique dialogic mechanism as well as Lotman’s viewpoint on the space–time structure of the semiosphere. With dialogue situation created and meaning generated, textual dialogues help the construction of self-consciousness through the “I–I” and “I–s/he” system; cultural dialogues make it ultimately welcomed by mainstream culture, which embodies the enhancement of mass self-consciousness. In the semiosphere, selfies reconstruct our self-consciousness in the time–space structure of cultures. The shift of self-consciousness from low-profile to high-profile represents the booming confidence of the Chinese. As a work of art is a finite model of an infinite universe, a “picture of the world,” selfies are also the pictures of growing national confidence.

From the Formalist to the Semiotic Theory of Literature

Cet article examine les origines de la sémiotique littéraire dans la théorie formaliste russe, se fondant sur deux cadres scientifiques majeurs pour définir la sémiotique de la littérature : son statut disciplinaire en lien avec la sémiotique culturelle, et le problème de la traduction et de la médiation sémiotiques. Ce travail porte notamment sur « Problèmes des études littéraires et linguistiques » de Jakobson et Tynjanov (1928), sur « De l’évolution littéraire » de Tynjanov (1927) et sur « Qu’est-ce que la poésie ? » de Jakobson (1933-1934). Il met en lumière deux conceptions de la sémiotique de la littérature, dont on peut faire remonter l’origine au formalisme russe : les sémiotiques littéraires et culturelles externe et interne. Ces deux approches complémentaires de sémiotique culturelle du discours littéraire sont formulées dans les termes de la médiation, des modèles de processus d’évolution historique et des structures intersémiotiques. Dans le cadre de ces deux méta-systèmes de sémiotique culturelle, les approches de la pragmatique sémiotique de Peirce et de la pragmatique sémiotique structuraliste forment un ensemble harmonieux.

Interpretation of Undefined Legal Concepts and Fulfilling of Legal Gaps, in Juri Lotman’s Semiotic Framework

The article examines whether the structure of meaning proposed in cultural semiotics by the Tartu–Moscow School of Semiotics is applicable for the interpretation of undefined legal concepts and to the filling of legal gaps. With the assistance of Lotman’s cultural semiotics, one is able to formulate the regularities that operate in legal interpretation in the same way as in culture. One of these is the binary structure of legal concepts and gaps. In interpreting norms and striving to overcome legal gaps, it is necessary to define the external reference (‘utterance’) and the self-reference (‘text’) in law. The article clarifies and examines these in the legal context and reiterates the value of bearing in mind throughout the process that interpretation always takes place in relation to this binary structure.

Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture or Laclau’s political ontology?

AbstractThe present article concentrates on the main discrepancies that should arise in the discussion between Lotman’s semiotics of culture and Laclau’s discursive theory of hegemony. Some significant – but still abstract – commonalities conceal fundamental disagreements which I would group around four topics. Firstly, Lotman’s semiotic method is at odds with Laclau’s ontological way of thinking. Secondly, although both Lotman and Laclau subscribe to the openness of signification, it is impossible to incorporate their accounts of this openness without loose ends. In order to substantiate this claim, I examine Lotman’s concept of “boundary” and Laclau’s concept of the “limit.” Thirdly, we should avoid reading too much into Lotman and Laclau’s agreement on the similar – but still formal – model of a self-signification. And finally, Laclau’s valorization of social antagonism is in conflict with Lotman’s appraisal of dialogue. Confronted with these discrepancies, we are enforced to decide whether to endorse Lotman’s cultural semiotics or Laclau’s political ontology.

La traducción como acto doble de comunicación. Entre semiótica cognoscitiva y semiótica de la cultura. Parte I: De la comunicación a la traducción

Si la traducción es un acto de transacción de sentidos, la semiótica debeser capaz de definir su especificidad en relación con otros actos semióticos. En lugar de eso, siguiendo a las sugerencias de Roman Jakobson, de la escuela de Tartú y, de forma implícita, de Charles Sanders Peirce, la noción de traducción ha sido generalizada para cubrir más o menos todas las operaciones que se pueden llevar a cabo dentro de un recurso semiótico y entre varios recursos semióticos. En este trabajo partimos de una definición de la comunicación que nos permite caracterizar la traducción como un doble acto de significación, tomando en cuenta los casos de emisión y recepción de ambos actos involucrados, el primero en el nivel de la cognición, y el segundo en el nivel de la comunicación.

Semiotics of ukrainian and polish waggard in the light of the ideas of the lvvivsk-warsaw philosophical school. K. Malevich - V. Steshinsky and G. Stazhevsky: search for suprematist and constructivist avant-garde art (Article 3)

Purpose of the article . In the first article on the semiotics of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde, his philosophical aesthetic and cultural context was considered, in particular, in light of the ideas of the Lviv-Warsaw Philosophical School. To continue this problem, the semiotic parallels (homology) in the works of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-gardists of the first third of the twentieth century are being analyzed. On the basis of the unity of cultural, aesthetic-semiotic and art-study analysis of artistic achievements of artistic avant-garde in Ukraine and Poland, an understanding of the cultural and historical peculiarities of the creative of artists working in similar ideological and aesthetic paradigms is achieved. Methodology. The research is based on the aesthetic-semiotic concepts of the representatives of the Lviv-Warsaw School of Philosophy (S. Baley, R. Ingardin, S. Lisse, L. Hvysteck) and the founders of the semantic philosophy of art (K. Bell, B. Croce, S. Langer, G. Rickert) and modern semiotics of culture (Y.Mukarzhovsky, Y.Loman, U.Eko). Interdisciplinary synthesis of philosophical and cultural, aesthetic and art-study approaches is used. Scientific novelty. From the standpoint of modern semiotics, for the first time, symbolic complexes and semantic contents in the works of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde are analyzed. Models of semiotic parallels (homologies) are created in the works of leading artists of Ukraine and Poland of the first third of the XX century. The method of extrapolation of the aesthetic-semiotic ideas of the Lviv-Warsaw School of Philosophy is used to understand the similarity and dialogism in the artistic imagery of individual artists. Conclusions. Phenomenological, intuitive, neo-positivist orientations of scientific and artistic and aesthetic thinking have caused cubistic, futuristic, abstract, and constructivist quests of avant-garde artists. The aesthetic principles of the semiosis of avant-guardism in Ukraine were laid by V. Kandinsky, K. Malevich, O. Bogomazov, in Poland - T. Piper, V. Steshinsky, G. Stazhevsky. The development of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde of these times is, in particular, a kind of dialogue between artistic groups and individual artists in Warsaw and Kiev, and Lviv. The intellectual atmosphere of these creative competitions is symptomatic of the scientific and philosophical positions of the Lviv-Warsaw School of Philosophy with its neo-positivist and phenomenological orientations, and especially - the semantic philosophy of art, which corresponded to the establishment of a new semiosphere of avant-garde imagery. The peculiarities of the of the artists are analyzed on the examples of aesthetic-semiotic and artistic parallels between V. Kandinsky and Y.T.Pyper (theoretical justification of the avant-garde in art), K. Malevich and V. Stshinsky and G. Stazhevsky (the search for suprematist and constructivist artistic language ), O. Bogomazov and artists of the Krakow group (the path from Cubism and Futurism to expressive and lyrical abstraction). It is summarized that the semiotics of the Ukrainian and Polish avant-garde of the first third of the 20th century coincides in the sphere of significant forms of non-classics in fine arts.

Applying cartosemiotics to rock art: an example from Aspeberget, Sweden

ABSTRACTThis study aims to shed new light on the petroglyphs found at the site of Aspeberget 12 at the World Heritage site of Tanum, Sweden, from a semiotic perspective. We demonstrate the semiotics of power inherent in the arrangement of the petroglyphs. We start by describing the site in an archaeological way, in order to give an overview of the empirical material used in this case study. Against the backdrop of the overview, we introduce our analytical tools with reference to cartosemiotics, cultural semiotics and, Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of signs. We suggest, in a tentative conclusion, that Aspeberget 12, as a type of “map”, displays a clear “Ego-culture” and a possible journey. We also suggest that the visual narratives at Aspeberget 12 represent the authority of the Ego-culture and its development. Details of the figurative images such as ships, axes and spears might have been displayed as markers of the high technological standard of the Ego-culture, and thus of power.

Semiotic Analysis of Culture in ELT Curriculum through EIL: ‘Prospect series’

The current study intended to examine the representation of culture in Iranian locally developed ‘Prospect series’ textbooks in light of English as an international language (EIL). The study engages EIL and Cultural Semiotics adapted by Dinh (2016b) as the theoretical and analytical frameworks to explore culture across texts, visuals and tasks. The conversation sections of ‘Prospects 1, 2, and 3’ including texts, visuals, and tasks were investigated. The findings reveal that 1) culture is evident in both implicit and explicit manners in texts and visuals; however, it is limitedly represented in the tasks, 2) expanding circle cultural content dominates the textbooks, 3) cultural diversity has not much been attended to, and in-depth levels of culture belonging to ‘small’ c categories and socio-cultural awareness are neglected, 4) there is indexical relation between texts and visuals, and occasional detached mismatch between texts and visuals, and 5) majority of questions are language and information-based while speculative and comparative questions addressing culture are extremely limited. The findings are discussed in light of existing studies, and some recommendations are suggested for textbook writers, curriculum developers, and researchers in the field.

On the analysis of power and politics from the perspective of Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture

Review of Juri Lotman’s Cultural Semiotics and the Political [Series Reframing the Boundaries: Thinking the Political] by Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, 228 pp.

Text dynamics: Renewing challenges for semiotics of literature

The paper examines the problem of textual/cultural dynamics linked to the issue of semiotic literariness, to be further investigated by the authors in later papers on literary semiotics. This scientific project aims to get closer to reaching an adequate disciplinary identification for semiotics of literature and a relatively precise definition of the status of this field in relation to semiotics of culture. The first step for the project is to reveal the interrelationhip between text and culture using the notion of dynamics that can be reconstructed from a historical perspective through some essential components of Formalist and Structuralist theory (Tynyanov’s ‘function’, Jakobson’s ‘dominant’) and also works by Lotman (the ‘text–culture’ relationship) and Bakhtin (‘dialogue’). The notions of inclusiveness/integration, distancing and hierarchization, leading to transformation, are interpreted in some detail in the context of these theories. On these grounds, three basic categories of the analysability of textual/cultural dynamics are set up with the indication of further aspects of the dynamic function: (1) mediation; (2) transposition; (3) temporality–spatiality. The suggested classification and the implied conceptual segmentation are expected to contribute to a synthesis between “Structuralist” and Peircean theoretical and methodological orientations in semiotic literary studies. This also reveals the need for a coexistence of approaches (a) moving from particular cultural fields (literary culture tradition) towards general semiotics of culture, and (b) returning from universal transfield concepts to literary culture, including the historical traditions both in art (object-level) and its scientific interpretation (meta-level).