Showing papers on "Semiosphere published in 2003"

Conversations with Lotman: Cultural Semiotics in Language, Literature, and Cognition

Abstract: Conversations with Lotman is a critical analysis of Russian cultural historian and theoretician Jurij Lotman's central contributions to the study of semiotics, including his writings on the .semiotics of culture. and the .semiotics of artistic space,. and his efforts to model the production of cultural knowledge and how it is shared in any functioning semiotic space. Edna Andrews builds a narrative around Lotman's work by presenting the major principles of his cultural semiotic theory, including his doctrine of signs, his definition of the .semiosphere,. and his modelling of communication as a means to create new knowledge and to share old knowledge. Andrews also examines how Lotman's semiotic constructs relate to structuralist and post-structuralist semiotic theories, the work of other theorists of semiotics such as Charles S. Pierce and Thomas A. Sebeok, to twentieth-century Russian literary texts, and to the cognitive sciences. Andrews grapples with Lotman's difficult, sometimes contradictory, theories of human language, perception, and memory, offering semioticians the opportunity to read the first sustained study of Lotman's work in English.

Thomas A. Sebeok and biology: Building biosemiotics.

Abstract: The paper attempts to review the impact of Thomas A. Sebeok (1920–2001) on biosemiotics, or semiotic biology, including both his work as a theoretician in the field and his activity in organising, publishing, and communicating. The major points of his work in the field of biosemiotics concern the establishing of zoosemiotics, interpretation and development of Jakob v. Uexkull’s and Heini Hediger’s ideas, typological and comparative study of semiotic phenomena in living organisms, evolution of semiosis, the coincidence of semiosphere and biosphere, research on the history of biosemiotics.

Is language a primary modeling system? On Juri Lotman’s concept of semiosphere

Abstract: Juri Lotman’s well-known distinction of primary modeling system versus secondary modeling system is a lasting legacy of his that has been adhered to, modified, and refuted by semioticians of culture and nature. Adherence aside, modifications and refutations have focused on the issue whether or not language is a primary modeling system, and, if not, what alternatives can be made available to replace it. As Sebeok would concur, for both biosemiosis and anthroposemiosis, language can only be a secondary modeling system on top of the biological experience of Umwelt or human sensory system. This paper proposes to explore the possibility of a “preverbal” modeling system suggested by Lotman’s spatial concept of semiosphere, and discuss its implications in cross-cultural dialogue. The well-known distinction of primary modeling system versus secondary modeling system suggested by Lotman and others (Lotman 1977) is a lasting legacy of the Tartu School’s that has been adhered to, modified, and refuted by semioticians of culture and nature (Sebeok 1991; 1994; Sebeok, Danesi 2000). Adherence aside, modifications and refutations have focused on the issue whether or not language is a primary modeling system (hereinafter PMS) and, if not, what alterna1 It would be inaccurate to attribute this distinction to Lotman. Sebeok (1991: 49) identifies A. A. Zaliznjak, V. V. Ivanov, and V. N. Toporov (Zaliznjak et al. 1977 [1962]) as the original users of the terms in their joint paper for the Moscow-based Academy of Sciences. It must be noted, however, that Sebeok and Danesi do not explicitly make the PMS and SMS distinction; instead, they suggest the gradational and hierarchical relationships among strata, for example, a situation in which natural language mediates between the most abstract mathematical model and the least abstract but most connotated religious model (Zaliznjak et al. 1977: 47).but most connotated religious model (Zaliznjak et al. 1977: 47).