Semiotic Systems Research Articles

QUAND LA TERMINOLOGIE MUSICALE ITALIENNE TRAVERSE LES ALPES, LA MANCHE ET LE DANUBE

The author analyses around 80 musical terms from Italian that appear in French, English, and Romanian. Music notation is a complex semiotic system in which linguistic signs occupy only a marginal place. Unlike other mixed semiotic systems, made up of words and specific scoring structures (the ‘formulas’ in mathematics, chemistry, physics, etc.), the musical sheets are not only a method of encoding the music text created by a composer, but also a set of directions for the interpreter, a kind of ‘instructions. The musical terms coined in Italian, which “travel” to other languages as loans, show remarkable semantic stability, having the same meaning in the four examined languages. In French and Romanian, the majority of Italian words were adapted to their own phonetic, morphological, and/or lexical systems. Such linguistic adaptions are rarely found in English. French occupies a special place in comparison with English and Romanian, being at times the pathway for the transfer of Italian musical terms. In some cases, the Italian words work as a model for a semantic extension of a similar word already existing in the target languages.

Requirements Meet Reality: Finnish Teachers’ Practices in Linguistically Diverse Classrooms

ABSTRACT The current Finnish core curriculum requires all teachers in basic education to be linguistically responsive. However, studies on the linguistically responsive practices used by teachers are scarce. The frequency with which teachers (N = 820) use 21 linguistically responsive practices was investigated through data that were gathered via an online survey. Based on factor analysis, teachers’ practices formed four categories: identifying language demands, linguistic scaffolding, explicit attention to language, and additional semiotic systems scaffolding. Teachers reported using the latter the most. Of teachers’ background factors, teaching experience of 2–5 years was linked to more frequent use of students’ interests to plan teaching compared to 0–2 or more than 10 years of experience. The results point out a need for more training in linguistically responsive teaching practices for in-service teachers, as experience is not linked to growth trajectories.

Potentials and Challenges in Students’ Meaning-Making via Sign Systems

The relationship between sign systems and the meaning potentials and affordances of multimodal technologies has received increasing attention in research on digital technology use in education. Students constantly adhere to and engage with semiotic shifts in sign systems when they work with digital technologies for learning purposes. This study explores students’ use of digital technologies in Swedish schools. We trace the way semiotic activity systems and cognitive processes are transformed and realized when students engage with shifts in sign systems into various meaning-making strategies. Methodologically, the study is based on a data set of video recordings, interviews, and observations of classroom practice in three primary schools. An analysis that draws on quantitative ethnography was applied to process and analyse the data. The main findings revealed that sign systems prompted by the technologies and the social space compete to some extent for students’ attention, and that technology design is monotonously rendering lower levels of mediation. These findings show that various sign system prompts need to be balanced and streamlined to support students in their meaning-making. This article conveys the importance of understanding sign systems, as they are the most common resources for technology-assisted learning, and change the prerequisites for meaning-making.

VISUALIZATION OF INFORMATION IN THE ENGLISH POLYCODE DICTIONARY ENTRY

The article is devoted to the study of the informational potential of the polycode dictionary entries in English learner’s lexicography. The communicative specificity of learner’s dictionaries consists in their targeting to a clear segment of the readership. These are non-native speakers of English, studying it as a foreign language and living outside the area of its functioning, and, therefore, outside the situational context. The features of users to whom learner’s dictionaries are addressed determine the content and presentation of lexicographic material, which is aimed primarily at expanding the vocabulary of the reader and, moreover, familiarizing him more closely with the culture of Englishspeaking society. The main task of a lexicographic article in an explanatory dictionary is to provide a certain amount of information necessary for the reader to adequately understand a particular word of interest. To solve this problem, compilers of dictionaries resort to using both typesetting and pictorial non-verbal communication means. A polycode lexicographic article is a combination of two definitions of the same sememe, which are made with signs of two different semiotic systems: symbolic (linguistic) and iconic (pictographic). In the explanatory dictionaries of the English language, two types of paragraphic characters are used: these are typed and depictive non-verbal means. Typed non-verbal communication means include font accents, background and font color, special icons and symbols (arrows, triangles, rulers, frames) that mark different quanta of information in the article. Depictive non-verbal means of communication include abstract-logical and pictographic ones. The analysis of the informational potential of polycode articles in English learners’ dictionaries gives grounds to claim that the appearance of the pictographic component in any case optimizes the transmission and perception of information.

Multiple Perspectives in Semiotics, Illustrated with Tagmemic Analysis of Tic-Tac-Toe

A semiotic analysis of tic-tac-toe illustrates the use of multiple perspec­tives in human understanding of signs. Tagmemic theory is a semiotic framework that pays explicit attention to multiple perspectives. It can generate multiple complementary analyses of the same semiotic system. We illustrate using the game of tic-tac-toe. Our analysis illustrates how three distinct perspectives or views (particle, wave, and field) can be applied to the same semiotic system, resulting in radically different textures in analysis. At the same time, each analysis is in a sense complete, because all the information in the other analyses can be deduced in principle from the analysis using only one view. The result is suggestive for evaluating the strengths and limitations inherent in monoperspectival programs used for artificial intelligence.

Dynamic and spatial variables in data visualization systems

Jacques Bertin’s groundbreaking work, Sémiologie Graphique, has remained definitive for the more than half a century since its initial publication (1967). His formal description of graphic variables is fundamental for information design because it offers a way to understand how visual entities can be used to create a semiotic system with clear and distinct categories. According to Bertin, color, texture, value, pattern, shape, position, and orientation can each be assigned a specific role within a signifying system in accord with logical rules of representation. However, given the technology of the time in which Bertin was writing, features of dynamic display were not included in his discussion. These include elements of animation (such as direction, speed, acceleration, transformation, and rate of change) as well as some features of perspectival and spatial systems (including point of view, scale, projection, folding) that did exist but were not much used. The critical question is whether these graphical features can be formalized to the same degree as Bertin’s seven graphic variables, andincluded within the operation of semiotic systems. While these variables are not associated with fixed values any more than Bertin’s original ones, their use in information display suggests that they would benefit from the same kind of descriptive analysis he applied to static ones. This paper describes dynamic and spatial variables, offers some preliminary thoughts about their specific contribution to visualization of big data, and addresses the way they produce meaning within a graphical semiotic system.

The issues of meta-narrative structure in tom Stoppard’s play and film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead

Tom Stoppards play and film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead are analyzed in the article as metatexts at different levels of their semiotical and narratological structure. The specificity of dealing with dramaturgical praetextae of a film reinterpreted through a different semiotic system, in which sound, montage (film editing), frames and frame boundaries are significant, is presented. Particular attention is paid both to the theoretical grounding of metacinema as a genre and to the film analysis from the indicated viewpoint. The authors identify the manner in which both the play and the film reveal the core issue of the relationship between life and art, as well as provide their own analysis of the principles of interaction between the author, the text, and the reader. It is pointed out in the conclusions that the text of the cinema is structured as a complex cinematic game enjoying a multitude of semantic layers. Numerous oppositions such as fictional world vs. real world, traditionalism vs. the non-classical paradigm of aesthetics, etc. together with the use of a-text-within-a-text technique, allow to have the boundaries between theatre and cinematography outlined.

Re-contextualising advertising through re-creation: the recycling and translation of advertisements in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic completely reconfigured the semiotic landscape. When the crisis was at its height, a whole series of words, images and sounds (or their absence) became representative symbols of the context we found ourselves in, not only in the media, but also in public and private spaces. This article analyses how these semiotic systems were renegotiatedin order to acquire new meanings in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It takes as a case study two Coca-Cola brand advertisements based on the same creative idea, which circulated in 2002 and 2020 respectively. Through a comparative analysis of the elements that make up each version of this multimodal text, it shows how the original advertisement was semiotically translated in order to adapt it to the needs of a new target context (the pandemic situation). We conclude that concepts drawn from intersemiotic and audiovisual translation studies can help shed light on these processes of recontextualization and meaning reconstruction in the case of multimodal texts.

Main strategies for conceptualization of musical meaning

The object of this research is music as a semantic process. The subject is problematization of the concept of meaning in music. The goal lies in outlining the main strategies for conceptualization of the musical meaning within the framework of the history of music-aesthetic teachings. The authors pursue the following tasks: conduct critical analysis of the basic music-aesthetic concepts, explore their metaphysical origins and ideological prerequisites, determine the conceptual boundaries of the concept of musical language. The acquire results lie in determination of the fundamental strategies for rationalization of music: music as mathematics, and music as language. Within the framework of these strategies, analysis is conducted on various concepts of the meaning in music and their metaphysical prerequisites. Among these concepts are musical ethos, world harmony, music affects, musical expression, and semiotics of music. The author clarifies the concept of music as language from the perspective of a range of discursive attitudes: musical language as a natural language of feelings (theory of musical expression), and musical language as a semiotic system. The scientific novelty of consists in application of the new approach towards reconsideration of the basic music-aesthetic concepts from the standpoint of the development of autonomization of the musical meaning. The research results justify drawing a clear boundary between the scientific and nonscientific discursive use of such common comparisons as “music as language” and “music as mathematics”. The conclusion is made the solution to problem of the specificity of formation and functionality of the autonomous musical meaning requires going beyond the narrow field of consideration of music as a semantic process towards the holistic experience of aesthetic perception.

Concept formation and the text in digital culture

During cultural-historical development, our learning processes have evolved to using diverse “symbolic artifacts – signs, symbols, texts, formulae” (Kozulin et al. 2003: 15) as mediators of knowledge and meaning. The phenomenon of a text became one of the most advanced of these mediators, as it goes beyond the mere mediation of knowledge. According to Lotman, the text is a semiotic system “capable of transforming messages received and generating new ones, a generator of information” (1988: 57). The evolution of digital culture and the new media environment have shaped the representation and interaction with texts by “changing the static printed text into a dynamic one” (Ojamaa and Torop 2020: 52). Digitality, multimodality and transmediality became intrinsic characteristics of texts in the new media environment. While this emphasizes the value of acquiring the concept of the text within formal and informal education as an “intellectual device” (Lotman 1988: 55) and a cultural tool for accessing knowledge in digital culture, the semiotic and cognitive processes beyond the acquisition of the concept of the text remain under-researched. The paper represents the first step in the broader study of how young learners acquire the concept of the text in contemporary digital culture. The research aims to identify semiotic processes behind acquiring the concept of the text in digital culture. To this purpose, we introduce Vygotsky's theory of concept formation (2012) as a methodological tool for semiotic research in learning and education.

Строительство Александро-Невской церкви в городе Петрозаводске в XIX в. как пример обращения старообрядцев в православие

This paper explores conversion into Christianity of Old Believers, who were working at the Aleksandrovsky factory in the city of Petrozavodsk in the 19th century, and were heavily influenced by members of the religious commune of the Vygovskaya monastery. The Aleksandrovsky cannon factory was an important strategic object for the Russian Empire. This is why the Old Believers working there were not repressed, but subjected to ideological re-education. One of the measures of the latter was the construction of the Church of Alexander Nevsky in 1826–1832 in Petrozavodsk. The study of the culture of local Old Believers and their relations with the Russian authority and Orthodox Church based on the academic works of N. A. Basova, V. V. Efimova, N. Y. Kuznetsova, M. V. Pulkin, I. N. Ruzhinskaya and T. V. Sorokina. The description of religious, ideological and aesthetic aspects of the Church’s architecture drew on an article by K. E. Tyukova and archive documents published in featured compilations by the National Archive of the Republic of Karelia, as well other archive materials academically introduced by the author of the article. Their interpreting was in keeping with the context of semiotic approach designed by Y. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspensky. The researchers homologated the notions of culture and text; they suggested viewing Russian culture of the Empire period as an area of interaction between two traditions: Russian Orthdox culture and imperial culture founded by Peter I. The scholars established that interaction between these two was happening in the process of interpretation of every cultural opposition of “ours” and “theirs”, where “ours” was defined through contraposing it against “theirs”. The present paper is the first to study the construction of the Church of Alexander Nevsky in Petrozavodsk as a textual activity of the authority aimed at converting the Old Believers working at the Aleksandrovsky factory into Christianity, and the image of the church itself as a cultural text that reflected the concepts, values and narratives of the first trimester of the 19th century. The author came to a number of conclusions. The semiotic analysis or rites performed by Orthodox priests in the process of the construction of the church, and actions taken by the administration of the cannon factory, showed that a new semiotic system had been formed amongst the Old Believers working at the factory. The focus of that system of symbols was the idea of the empire. A number of religious and state symbols had been incorporated into the design of the temple and the temple activities, which transferred the image of the holy Alexander Nevsky onto the image of Emperor of Alexander the First. The transformation of the culture of Old Believer factory workers was being performed by the authorities on the basis of the cultural code of the times of Peter the Great, where “ours” was the idea of the empire, and the contraposed “theirs” was Old Belief. Discrepancy between the two radical members of the opposition would be alleviated by homologating the Old Believers idea of revering the spiritual guide with the idea of deification of the Emperor.

"Сделать правду правдоподобнее": к проблеме интерсемиотического перевода произведений Ф.М. Достоевского

The paper investigates the peculiarities of meaning-making in multimodal texts as products of intersemiotic translation of Dostoevsky's works. The research aims to analyse key ideas and semiotic means used by the interpreters, reveal the cultural specifics of interpretations and ways to deliver the key ideas to the target audience. The material of the study includes 30 foreign and 4 Russian screened adaptations, as well as comics, animations, operas and ballets based on Dostoevsky's works. The starting point of the discussion is U. Eco's idea about translation as a representation of illusions striving to replace the signs of the original text. The paper discusses different forms of intersemiotic translation; reveals the role of such factors as the choice of the language of the adaptation and the film title in the cinematographic interpretation of the original; as well as the plot modification. The study shows that the leading strategy is domestication that involves three main parameters: time, place and characters' ethnicity. The specifics of intersemiotic translation manifests itself in the asymmetry between the verbal and multimodal texts; peculiar intertextual connections between works belonging to different semiotic systems, historical periods, genres and cultures; the ability of the products of intersemiotic translation to express both significant universal ideas and trivial meanings.

МОЯ КІБЕР-ОСОБИСТІСТЬ: ПРЕЗЕНТАЦІЯ ІДЕНТИЧНОСТІ В МЕРЕЖІ TIK TOK

TikTok is a social network that has provided its users with a unique combination of communicative tools and, as a result, has laid the foundation for a new communication context for self-expression and identity presentation. The article examines how TikTokers' discourse, with the help of the app's technology, uses language means and other semiotic systems to present their self, to construct their online identities and to attract like-minded audiences. The study is based on 45 TikTok videos uploaded by different bloggers who were selected with the help of continuous sampling. The videos are analyzed by applying Critical Discourse Analysis and, in particular, Multimodal Discourse Analysis as frameworks for critical examination of verbal and nonverbal (images, soundtracks, clothes, etc.) means as well as contextual and intertextual structures of the TikTokers' texts aimed at online self-expression and identify-presentation. The research reveals that the TikTokers avail themselves with syntactic patterns typical of self-presentation in order to assert their preferred selves and construct their identities by purposefully breaking away from conventional master identities, e.g., they claim either to be sex-neutral, or to be able to combine stereotypically incompatible identities, or to deny having any identity at all. To reflect on their selves and convey their message to the audience, the TikTokers use texts that feature intertextuality and multimodality. The merge of multimodal semiotic means helps the bloggers to create a complex of techno-semio-linguistic materiality typical of social media. The bloggers succeed in combining these diverse means so as to develop the intended meaning, to mediate their identities to their audience and, finally, to create their own communities rallied around the constructed identities.

Визуализация перехода к метамодерну: семиотический анализ архитектурного проекта Эсма Султан (Стамбул)

The subject of this article is a visual manifestation of the transition to metamodern architecture in the reconstruction of Esma Sultan's palace in Istanbul. Its architectural and design solution was created in the framework of the new urban paradigm of the XXI century. The project solves a whole range of tasks from the preservation of historical heritage to the creation of an attractive commercial real estate facility. The objective of the article is to conduct a semiotic analysis of the Esma Sultan architectural complex which will demonstrate the transition from the paradigm of the urban culture of postmodernism to metamodernism. Esma Sultan's semantic analysis reveals the meanings that remain not articulated in the special literature about this project. The method of historical retrospection is applied to the analysis of the object. This made it possible to assess the general trends in the production of urban space at the early the twenty-first century. A comparison of Esma Sultan's palace to the projects that are close in style and overall design showed the prospect of creating a modern mental image of the city. The authors concluded that the semiotic system of this architectural object is focused on the presentation of a multi-level semantic space. The loft-style palace not only organizes space, but creates a lifestyle with its egocentric hedonistic notes. The article proves that the reconstruction of Esma Sultan declares a new style of life and a type of urban culture in which spatiality becomes an expression of a multi-layered meaning. Rebuilding is not the same as reconstruction because its goal is not to return the past in the image of the building but to “hang” between experiencing the past and its awareness in the present. Thus, the Esma Sultan project became an example of a generalization of paradigm shifts in human perceptions of the 1990s - 2000s and a demonstration of the transition to the sociocultural situation of metamodern. We see how metamodern eliminates the very principle of dichotomy of choice, evaluation and functionality. The technological leap of the beginning of the 21st century, the changing nature of sociocultural practices, the abandonment of the policy of multiculturalism (the practice of social collage) influenced the formation of a new understanding of the problem of meanings manifested through spatiality, contingency and contextuality of any phenomenon.

“Monument” versus “dilapidation”: the discursive marking of local history as a factor of the “production of space” in Siberian cities (in the example of Irkutsk)

The article analyzes the practices of the discursive marking of “places of memory” and their role in the construction of urban spaces of Siberian regional capitals. The author describes the areas of high-rise residential development formed in the 19th-20th centuries, defined in Russian urban narratives as the “private sector”. The latter is considered as a “nodal point” in the urban semiotic system. It is shown that some communities consider the “private sector” to be an empty space devoid of established content but which can be filled by implementing their project here. Others, on the contrary, appreciate the local history and the specifics of the place, basing alternative projects on these ideas. As a result, conflicts arise, the specifics of which become an emphasis on the theme of the past: the parties put forward different interpretations of the past and try to make them conventional. The aim of the study is to determine the role of formalized representations of local history in these processes. The article is based on 20 semi-formalized interviews with architects, public figures, local residents, officials, and entrepreneurs conducted in the period from 2017 to 2021. Using the results of these interviews, a hypothesis is formulated according to which the groups involved in conflicts tend to interpret the past as a value or a harmful anachronism, and then achieve the formalization of a version that is favorable to them. The representation of local history reflected in the normative language (the status of a “dilapidated / dilapidated building” or the status of a “cultural monument”) is used as a justification for the project to “develop” the place. The greatest success is achieved not so much by the actor who has managed to formalize the interpretation of local history that is beneficial to them, but by the one who has retained the ability to ignore the restrictions associated with the corresponding status. It creates a compromise between the formalized and informal languages of describing “memory places”, which ultimately determines their content.

“If One Human Mind Has Come up with Something, Then Another Can Unravel It”. On the Centenary of the Birth of Yu.V. Knorozov

The article deals with the scientific heritage of the great Russian scientist Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov (1922–1999). He is best known as the decipherer of the script of the ancient Maya Indians, who created one of the most distinctive civilizations of pre-Columbian America. This landmark discovery brought the scientist well-deserved glory and fame. Now his name is forever inscribed in the annals of domestic and world science. But the range of Knorozov's scientific interests and research was not limited to this topic. The scientist fearlessly took on difficult tasks, he believed that there were no unsolvable problems, it was only necessary to choose the right path of research. And he found such ways, relying on his encyclopedic knowledge, the intuition of a scientist and titanic efficiency. Knorozov studied different historical writing systems, which he considered as complex semiotic systems, perceiving them as a secondary code in relation to the language. Among them are the Proto-Indian script, the Easter Island script Kohau Rongo-Rongo, the Khitan script, the ancient Andean script, and the Ainu pictography. In his research, the scientist relied on the theoretical and methodological base he created in the process of deciphering the Mayan script. In fact, Knorozov built a general theory of decipherment, which is important for the study of any writing system. The scientist's interests also included theoretical problems, because the study of historical scripts was one of the particular tasks in the general problem of studying sign systems. This article discusses four areas of Yu.V. Knorozov's work: the decipherment of the Mayan script, the study of Proto-Indian texts, the Rapa Nui script Kohau Rongo-Rongo, and the Ainu pictography. The purpose of the article is to recreate some features of the multifaceted image of a ingenious scientist.

<i>Structural-Systematic Philosophy</i> in the Realism-Antirealism Debate

This paper presents some contributions of Structural-Systematic Philosophy (SSP) to the realism-antirealism debate. The debate seems to have come to a dead end in recent decades, with nothing new to spur progress or any synthesis between the two positions. The purpose of this paper is to present a well-elaborated theoretical framework that helps us to rethink the foundations of the debate and our conception of language, which should be understood not just as a concrete semiotic system, but also as a dimension of reality itself. After we present some features of the realism-antirealism debate, we introduce the essential factor in overcoming the impasse between realists and antirealists, that is: the ultimate dimension, beyond which there is absolutely nothing and through which the gap between mind/language and the world is overcome. According to SSP, the ultimate dimension cannot be other than the “unrestricted universe of discourse,” namely, the all-embracing dimension of Being as Such and as a Whole. This conception implies the thesis that mind/language is intentionally coextensive with Being. The conclusion will show how the theoretical framework can assure that Being as Such and as a Whole is intelligible and expressible in itself, and how the very structure of the world/Being can be captured by mind/languages.

Theorizing Medieval Visual Art by Means of Information and Communication Sciences

For about thirty years now, transdisciplinarity revitalised the history of art almost completely: cultural and visuall studies, and among them French Visual Anthropology has brought cultural history within iconographic and stylistic analysis. The aim of this paper is to offer some thoughts about innovation in the approach of Art History with a particular reflexion on if et how it is possible to bring about visual arts theory and cultural history through the prism of information and communication sciences, by experimenting this way of analysing on late Middle Ages occidentale images. This communication intends to fit in the thematic section studying medieval and early modern art from an interdisciplinary theorisation and methodology of research. It dwells on the break-through offered by the works of Hans Belting and Jean-Claude Schmidt, but also reflecting on artefacts issues about power (Freedberg), performativity (Bartholeyns and Golsenne) and agency (Gell). First, we will see an artistic image can be understood as an audio-visual socio-cultural “dispositive”, instead of just apprehend them as stylised representations. There is indeed a completing and cumulative aspect in the semantic links between liturgy, architecture, and iconography. The image builds itself as transitive dispositif of cultural and informational contents (Jeanneret, 2008), that can be experimented as a cognitive semiotic system (Régimbeau, 2007). Then, we will question multimodality and agency for ancient images, based on information reception theory from the “spect-actor”, rather than comparative and attributive approach of artefacts producers, like in classic art history. The goal here is to investigate uses and purposes, rather than functions. We can see that the receiver of an image establishes a complex individual relationship with it, which stratification can be decoded through rational relations, symbolic investments and cathartic emotional responses that are all often operating in this precise time period of the Middle Ages. This can put into perspective networks, communication and information circulations and see producers, patterns, and ideas as transcultural and transmissive carriers (Mucchielli, Corbalan et Ferrandez, 2004; Proulx, 2015).

«Фауст-кантата» Альфреда Шнитке и философия полистилистики

For Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998), a representative of the Soviet musical avant-garde, the story of Faust was a life-defining text. A particularly important role in his biography was played by the novel Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, which became a kind of encyclopedia of the composer’s life and works. Mann’s novel reflects his philosophy of music, which was greatly influenced by Theodor Adorno’s reflections on modern music. Schnittke considered Mann’s main char­acter Leverkuhn to be his musical alter ego and throughout his life followed the musical pursuits of this fictional composer. This article describes in parallel the musical evolution of Leverkuhn and Schnittke. The Soviet composer has re­alized in his life Leverkuhn’s musical pursuits: the important elements in the de­velopment of Schnittke’s music, such as serialism, monogram and polystylism, were a reflection of Leverkuhn’s musical experiments in the novel. The author of this article, analyzing the peculiarity of genre and musical, as well as meta-musical structure of Schnittke’s Faust Cantata, explains the composer’s polystylism as a polyphony and also investigates his philosophy of music. For Schnittke, mu­sic was not so much an imitation of natural sounds, an expression of human feel­ings and emotions, or a representation of absolute harmony, as a kind of semiotic system within which there happens a free dialogue between musical forms, meta-musical reflections on musical languages, intellectual plays with abundant musical material. The pinnacle of Schnittke’s musical evolution Faust Cantata was a realization of his philosophy of music as a polyphony not only in art, but also in life.

Chinese ideographic writing as a picture of the world: theoretical approach

The paper deals with an ideographic writing presented from the standpoint of systems theory, grammatology and semiotics. Ideographic writing is regarded as a natural linguistic semiotic system with its own picture of the world.Ideographic writing as a spacereflects a whole set of writing signs as the ethno-linguistic and cultural reflection of the external physical space of the world and its fixation in the graphic component of the semiosphere as they are perceived by the Chinese ethnic group. Writing as a system focuses on the hierarchical and structural aspects, on establishing its semiographic framework, formation and interpretation models of character components. Ideographic writing as a picture of the world has a semiographic framework that reveals types of knowledge structures that can be seen behind the structure of the characters. The ideographic picture of the world forms a graphic metamodel of Chinese ethno-linguistic semiosphere. Authors propose a graphic metamodel of ideographic writing system based on the semiographic approach. This approach is applied to represent a semiographic framework of the Chinese ideographic writing space, a framework that consists of 540 bushou systematised by Xu Shen in the first Chinese dictionary “Shuo wen jie zi”.