Sign Systems Studies Research Articles

The problems of the theory of the reference of signs in modern linguistics

The subject of the study is the history of the development and current state of the theory of reference, which reflects a variety of approaches and concepts. Some researchers believe that reference is a purely semantic phenomenon, while others emphasize the importance of context and pragmatics for understanding referentiality. The issue of the influence of cultural and social factors on reference in various languages is also being actively investigated. The history of the development of the theory of reference began with the works of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell at the beginning of the 20th century. Frege introduced the concept of semantic reference, arguing that every word has its own referent in the world. Russell developed this idea by proposing a theory of descriptions, according to which words indicate objects by describing their characteristics. The works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Donald Davidson played an important role in the further development of the theory of reference. Wittgenstein proposed the concept of language games, arguing that reference depends on the context and use of a word in a certain situation. Davidson developed the theory of truth, according to which reference is determined through the connection between language and the world. The pragmatic and cognitive aspects of research methodology are important for the successful conduct of scientific research. The referential nature of signs plays a key role in this process, ensuring effective presentation and communication of research results. The scientific novelty of the research lies in a comprehensive examination of the classical works of philosophers, semiotics and linguists, including Plato, Aristotle, Charles Pierce, Ferdinand de Saussure and Umberto Eco, on the theory of reference. One of the key concepts in the study of sign systems is referential. Referentiality allows to associate words with specific objects and understand their meaning. One of the most relevant areas of research in the field of reference is the study of ways in which linguistic units interact with the context and situation of communication. This allows for a deeper understanding of the processes of notation and interpretation in language, as well as the development of new theoretical models explaining these processes. Thus, scientific novelty in the study of the referentiality of signs continues to be relevant and important for the development of linguistics and related disciplines. The author's contribution in this area may lead to new discoveries and understanding of the mechanisms of linguistic communication.

Fifty volumes of Sign Systems Studies

The article gives a brief overview of the publication of the journal Sign Systems Studies. Throughout its publication period that started in 1964 the journal has been edited by a group of Tartu semioticians; the publisher has been the University of Tartu Press. While the first 25 volumes mainly contained articles in Russian, the next 25 volumes have predominantly been given out in English. We provide a list of thematic issues and a complete bibliography of the articles that have appeared in the journal during its entire publication period from 1964 to 2022.

Biosemiotic Approaches in Cultural Studies: General and Specific

The article explicates new conceptual approaches to the study of culture, language, semantic, and communicative processes, focusing on the importance of the role of the natural environment and various living systems in cultural semiosis. The author substantiates the relevance of the main biosemiotic approaches in the study of sign systems of culture and the problems of semiosis, and also determines their specificity, main problems and prospects for use. The author explicates the biological roots of sign formation and meaning, establishes the main mechanisms for their formation, draws attention to similarities, rather than differences, in the manifestations of culture and the natural world, reveals the local contexts of the functioning of the process of semiosis, which are related to the interests of living organisms, their interactions with the environment. The article considers the possibility of using biosemiotics as an interdisciplinary basis that unites the natural and human sciences in the field of studying semiotic processes, identifies the main obstacles to the development of this direction. The perspective of the research proposed in the article allows us to talk about new prospects for the use of biosemiotic approaches in the study of culture and society, taking into account the influence of the natural environment and living systems on the process of sign formation. It also makes it possible to establish the integrative and explanatory functions of biosemiotic positions associated with the unification of the biological and sociocultural aspects of semiosis. The results of the study may be important for the development of modern cognitive sciences and non-classical epistemology, focused on the study of various forms of cognition, for the search for ecological methods and approaches to the study of sign systems of culture, for the creation of new hybrid methods and models for the study of semiotic systems, for the solution of a number of epistemological and metaphysical issues that require philosophical reflection.

Specifics of the color solution of the modern coworking center

The purpose of the article is to determine the features of the color component of interior design and to identify the aesthetic and artistic features of the color scheme of a modern work area on the example of the capital's coworking centers. Methodology. Art and art analysis in the aspect of design creativity is applied; structural-semiotic analysis, which involves the identification of symbolic, differentiating functions that are embedded in the color of the interior of the coworking center; the method of structural analysis, which contributed to the study of sign systems of the color of the interior of coworking centers with the decoding of the meanings embedded in them; method of comparative analysis, which establishes common features in the perception of color by modern man, identified the characteristics of the role of color in the interior design of the workspace. Scientific novelty. The semantic significance of color in the interior design of a coworking space is studied; the informativeness of color is analyzed on the basis of three parameters (tone, saturation, and brightness); the compositional and decorative function of color is considered; the aesthetic and artistic features of the color scheme of the modern work area are revealed on the example of Kyiv coworking centers and the priority color scale is determined, which contributes to the increase of working capacity. Conclusions. The basis of color perception – physiological, psychological, and aesthetic factors that determine color associations, semantics, and symbolism of color – are ancient archetypes formed under the influence of socio-economic and sacred factors. A variety of color harmonies are widely used in modern workspaces, in the process of organizing production processes, to create psychological accents that improve performance and reduce fatigue. In the context of coworking center design, the approach to color interior design is based primarily on the desire to create an atmosphere that promotes positive emotions, inspires workers to cooperate and productivity. The study found that the rich creative source of the artistic image of the interior of the coworking center is played by archetypes, which involve the image-associative thinking of designers. The color component is not limited to the characteristic scales that meet the latest trends – it is much wider and demonstrates the diversity of design searches. Key words: coworking center, interior design, colors, semantics, color, working capacity.

#HuelgaUPR: The Kidnapping of the University of Puerto Rico, Students Activism, and the Era of Trump

For the past 100 years, Puerto Rico as an unincorporated territory of the United States, has underwent economic hardship. In 2016, President Barack Obama signed into law a bill known as PROMESA (promise) to assist Puerto Rico in the reconstruction of the economy hoping to relieve the island from its 74 billion dollar debt. PROMESA proposed to cut funds to the island’s university system totaling roughly $450 million over three years. In the wake of the presidential administration changing from President Barack Obama to Donald Trump, Puerto Rico filed for bankruptcy. The University of Puerto Rico (UPR), the main public university system of the island, has become a site of protests and strikes for students due to proposed cuts in the fiscal plan submitted by Gov. Ricardo Rossello Nevares to the Fiscal Oversight & Management Board. All the universities in the UPR system are considered Hispanic Serving Institutions, producing college graduates that work on the island, but also stateside contributing to the United States economy. This study examines the #HuelgaUPR (strike UPR), adopted by student activists that attend college in the University of Puerto Rico system. We examine newspapers (local and national),and twitter as primary documents to understand student demands, UPR, and government responses to those demands. Through a content analysis, which is the study of sign systems intersecting with power, we seek to understand the activism that has always been a part of the culture within the UPR system. Our analysis uses Chicana/Latina feminist cultural studies and the four tenets: intersectionality and global solidarity, breaking down dualisms, the embracing of ambiguity, and the project of tracking decolonial agency. Our findings suggests that #HuelgaUPR movement illuminates how student activism issues of free speech have proliferated since the election of Trump, and how the students of UPR resist the “kidnapping” of their institution through civil disobedience and the use of social media.

A semiosic translation of the term “Bild” in both the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and The Philosophical Investigations

Abstract This paper introduces and defends a way to translate Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations from a semiotic standpoint. This turn builds on Semiosic Translation (Torres-Martínez 2015, Semiosic translation: A new theoretical framework for the implementation of pedagogically-oriented subtitling. Sign Systems Studies 43(1). 102–130), a framework that advances the interaction of sign systems as a necessary point of departure in the translation process. From this vantage, the key term “Bild,” is analyzed, explained and retranslated into English. This term evinces high levels of complexity and variability that cannot be captured by traditional linguistic translations. In applying a semiotic approach, any iteration of Bild is characterized as reflecting the author’s intentions at a given moment (PI: 108). This semiotic reading seeks to provide semioticians, translators, and philosophers with new conceptual tools leading to an understanding of translation as a systemic operation not confined to the realm of subjective interpretation.

The biosemiotics of Aldo Leopold

Responding to Jean-Claude Gens’ article, “Uexküll’s Kompositionslehre and Leopold’s ‘land ethic’ in dialogue”, which appeared in Sign Systems Studies in 2013, the article further develops a direct connection between Aldo Leopold’s approach to ecology and Jakob von Uexküll’s umwelt theory. The connection between Uexküll and Leopold is especially evident in Leopold’s descriptions of animal behaviour that he presents in the first part of his seminal work, A Sand County Almanac. In this work specifically, Leopold illustrates the biosemiotic processes described by Uexküll, and does so with a purpose: to reshape our understanding of the biotic community as a place of semiotic interaction.

Build your nation in 5′25″: social constructions of Italy in official and user-generated videos on YouTube

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the differences between the official video clip of a song dedicated to the nation and the remakes uploaded on social media by anonymous users. It argues that social media act as the semiosphere boundary, on which, for Lotman [2005. “On the Semiosphere.” Sign Systems Studies 33 (1): 205–229] central dominant texts and peripheral structures meet to generate new meaning. The work draws on Lotman's semiosphere, on nation-building, and on the bottom-up construction of reality of social media. Methodologically, semiotic analysis is applied to the images of all the videos. Results show that the peripheral elements theorised by Lotman adapt to and renew the language of the centre. In fact, they adopt the same structure of the official video but expand, revitalise and deconstruct the sedimented versions of Italy that it offers. As in Lotman, the periphery challenges the dominant hierarchy. Finally, all the videos agree on relegating the woman to a secondary role.

Recent studies on signs: Commentary and perspectives

In this commentary, I reply to the fourteen papers published in the Sign Systems Studies special issue on Peirce’s Theory of Signs, with a view on connecting some of their central themes and theses and in putting some of the key points in those papers into a wider perspective of Peirce’s logic and philosophy.

The importance of Lotmanian semiotics to sign theory and the cognitive neurosciences

The following paper is based on a presentation given as the Juri Lotman Lecture at the University of Tartu conference “Creative Continuity: 50 years of Sign Systems Studies”, on December 5th, 2014. The focus of the current analysis is to bring to light important new directions in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive neurolinguistics and how Lotman’s work contributes to deepening our understanding of the complex relationship of language(s) and brain(s) and the ever present dynamic cultural context.

Juri Lotman in English: Updates to bibliography

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Lady Gaga as (dis)simulacrum of monstrosity

Lady Gaga’s celebrity DNA revolves around the notion of monstrosity, an extensively researched concept in postmodern cultural studies. The analysis that is offered in this paper is largely informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of monstrosity, as well as by their approach to the study of sign-systems that was deployed in A Thousand Plateaus. By drawing on biographical and archival visual data, with a focus on the relatively underexplored live show, an elucidation is afforded of what is really monstrous about Lady Gaga. The main argument put forward is that monstrosity as sign seeks to appropriate the horizon of unlimited semiosis as radical alterity and openness to signifying possibilities. In this context it is held that Gaga effectively delimits her unique semioscape; however, any claims to monstrosity are undercut by the inherent limits of a representationalist approach in sufficiently engulfing this concept. Gaga is monstrous for her community insofar as she demands of her fans to project their semiosic horizon onto her as a simulacrum of infinite semiosis. However, this simulacrum may only be evinced in a feigned manner as a (dis)simulacrum. The analysis of imagery from seminal live shows during 2011–2012 shows that Gaga’s presumed monstrosity is more akin to hyperdifferentiation as simultaneous employment of heterogeneous and potentially dissonant inter pares cultural representations. The article concludes with a problematisation of audience effects in the light of Gaga’s adoption of a schematic and post-representationalist strategy in the event of her strategy’s emulation by competitive artists.

Lady Gaga as (Dis)Simulacrum of Deleuzian Monstrosity

Lady Gaga’s celebrity DNA revolves around the notion of monstrosity, an extensively researched concept in post-modern cultural studies. The analysis that is offered in this paper is largely informed by Deleuze & Guattari’s notion of monstrosity, as well as by their approach to the study of sign-systems that was deployed in Thousand Plateaus (1987). By drawing on biographical and archival visual data, with a focus on the relatively underexplored live-show, an elucidation is afforded of what is really monstrous about Lady Gaga. The main argument that is put forward is that monstrosity as sign seeks to appropriate the horizon of unlimited semiosis as radical alterity and openness to signifying possibilities. In this context it is held that Gaga effectively delimits her unique semioscape, however any claims to monstrosity are undercut by the inherent limits of a representationalist approach in sufficiently engulfing this concept. Gaga is monstrous for her community insofar as she demands of her fans to project their semiosic horizon onto her as simulacrum of infinite semiosis. However, this simulacrum may only be evinced in a feigned manner as (dis)simulacrum. The analysis of imagery from seminal live shows during 2011-2012 shows that Gaga’s presumed monstrosity is more akin to hyperdifferentiation as simultaneous employment of heterogeneous and potentially dissonant inter pares cultural representations. The article concludes with a problematization of audience effects in the light of Gaga’s adoption of a schematic and post-representationalist strategy in the event of her strategy’s emulation by competitive artists.

Sign Systems Studies and the Semiotic Journals of the World

Abstract This article provides a brief overview of the journal Sign Systems Studies, apparently the oldest journal of semiotics in the world. It was established by Juri Lotman in 1964, produced in Tartu and published by the University of Tartu Press. In addition, we provide a list of all semiotic journals currently published in the world, which includes 46 titles; from these 39 are printed on paper (among them 6 international journals on general semiotics, 14 specialized in some branch of semiotics, and 19 regional semiotics journals). Seven journals appear exclusively on the web. Altogether these journals publish articles in 16 languages.

Verse as a semiotic system

Poetry is an important challenge for semiotics, and a special area of study for the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school, since the first volume of Sign Systems Studies was Juri Lotman’s monograph Lectures on Structural Poetics (1964). From then on the concept of poetry as one of the secondary modelling systems has evolved, since in relation to poetry, the primary modelling system is natural language. In this paper, the concept of semiotic system has been re-examined and the treatment of primary and secondary semiotic systems has been significantly revised. A semiotic system can be characterized not only by its internal structure and other systems to which it is related, but also by the field upon what it is realized. The latter aspect has gained almost no attention in any treatment of semiotics; the execution of a sign is understood in the spirit of Saussure and Hjelmslev as a material realization of an abstract element (for instance, a chess piece knight can be realized with wood or plastic, but it can also remain purely virtual). At first, distinction is made between language and sign system. Every sign system consists of language and field. There are three different kinds of fields: 1) just a background – footprints on sand are a sign on the background of sand; 2) a material structured field (a football ground or a chess board in the game called Chapayev) and 3) an abstract structured field, which in its turn consists of other fields (for instance, the chess board which consists of 64 fields). Differently from a football ground, a chess board can be a purely virtual one on which virtual pieces are moved (for instance, in case of blindfold or correspondence chess). The field in its turn can be language and one language can use another language as its field. In this case we speak of primary and secondary sign systems. For instance, the prosodic system of language is a field for a verse metre, while the semantic system of language is a field for a narrative.

The place of art among other modelling systems

This article by Juri Lotman from the third volume of Trudy po znakovym sistemam (Sign Systems Studies) in 1967, deals with the problem of artistic modelling. The general working questions are whether art displays any characteristic traits that are common for all modelling systems and which could be the specific traits that can distinguish art from other modelling systems. Art is seen as a secondary modelling system, more precisely, as a play-type model, which is characterised simultaneously by practical and conventional behaviour and constant awareness of the possibility of alternate meanings to the one that is currently being perceived. At the same time art has play-like elements but is not the same as play, since play is inherently rule-bound, whereas art is a more flexible model the purpose of which is truth. Art is a special type of modelling system, since it is on one hand suitable for storing very large amount of complex information, but on the other hand it can increase the stored information and transform the consumer.

Introduction

This issue of Sign Systems Studies includes twelve papers on semiotics of resemblance. Readers competent in semiotics may argue that there is no such field as semiotics of resemblance and they would indeed be right. In this case, resemblance should be considered to be an umbrella term that covers various concepts, such as iconicity, iconic signs, similarity, analogy, categorization, metaphors, mimesis, mimicry, onomatopoeia, and others. These terms are used in different fields within and outside of semiotics. Accordingly, semiotics of resemblance should be treated as a possibility for establishing commonalities between different paradigms, from aesthetics to evolutionary biology and from theoretical semiotics to literary studies.

On the semiosphere

This article, first published in Russian in 1984 in Sign Systems Studies, introduces the concept of semiosphere and describes its principal attributes. Semiosphere is the semiotic space, outside of which semiosis cannot exist. The ensemble of semiotic formations functionally precedes the singular isolated language and becomes a condition for the existence of the latter. Without the semiosphere, language not only does not function, it does not exist. The division between the core and the periphery is a law of the internal organisation of the semiosphere. There exists boundary between the semiosphere and the non- or extra-semiotic space that surrounds it. The semiotic border is represented by the sum of bilingual translatable “filters”, passing through which the text is translated into another language (or languages), situated outside the given semiosphere. The levels of the semiosphere comprise an inter-connected group of semiospheres, each of them being simultaneously both participant in the dialogue (as part of the semiosphere) and the space of dialogue (the semiosphere as a whole).

Invariance, Markedness and Distinctive Feature Analysis: A Contrastive Study of Sign Systems in English and Hebrew

This volume provides a new kind of contrastive analysis of two unrelated languages — English and Hebrew — based on the semiotic concepts of invariance, markedness and distinctive feature theory. It concentrates on linguistic forms and constructions which are remarkably different in each language despite the fact that they share the same familiar classifications and labels. Tobin demonstrates how and why traditional and modern syntactic categories such as grammatical number; verb tense, aspect, mood and voice; conditionals and interrogatives; etc., are not equivalent across languages. It is argued that these so-called universal concepts function differently in each language system because they belong to distinct language-specific semantic domains which are marked by different sets of semantic features. The data used in this volume have been taken from a wide range of both spoken and written discourse and texts reflecting people's actual use of language presented in their relevant linguistic and situational contexts.