Semiosphere

About: Semiosphere is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 219 publications have been published within this topic receiving 2698 citations.

A Note on M. Barbieri’s “Scientific Biosemiotics”

Abstract: Arecent article in this journal 1 caught my attention, and prompted me to voice reservations I initially had reservations about voicing. Upon quoting the fairly noncommittal definition of the sign as nothing more than a triadic relation — “A interprets B as representing C” 2 — Marcello Barbieri questions whether this (Peircean) model is still appropriate for the “extension of semiosis to the animal world and to the entire living world”. That statement, as it stands, is quite puzzling. What “extension” could he possibly be talking about, given the model’s wide applicability? If the definition contained some reference to strictly human use, professor Barbieri’s worry would make more sense. But it seems to me that something has gone amiss when one claims that the very thesis which warranted the study of non-human sign-use in the first place is not suited for the study of non-human sign-use. If ever there was a case of ladder discarding, this is it. Pondering this issue in greater depth eventually dispelled my puzzlement. When T. Sebeok wrote that “semiosis presupposes the axiomatic identity of the semiosphere with the biosphere”, the official narrative has been that he was carrying semiotics into bold new fields of application. Barbieri, however, 3 interprets Sebeok as rather limiting semiosis to a new enclosure. To be sure, this territory is far more expansive than the one Saussure originally envisioned. What matters is not the area allotted, but the fact that in either case the boundaries that were set reflect the comfort zone of a particular theorist, not the internal demands of an inquiry into signs proper. Barbieri,

Translation in the Albanian communist and post-communist context from a semiotic perspective

Abstract: In the semiotic perspective of Lotman, a semiosphere goes through a series of explosive and gradual changes. Explosive moments generate innovation in unpredictable ways while gra- dual progress ensures novelty via succession. The fact that the Albanian semiosphere developed from stagnation to explosion is demonstrated through emblematic translation cases. With regard to these milestones, the study analyses the relationship between the writer Ismail Kadare and his translator Jusuf Vrioni during the time when the control exercised by the regime had reached its harshest point. Then, the focus is placed on the feminist author- translator Diana Culi and on the impact that her activism and her translations had during the post-communist time. Together with other young translators, Culi has brought some of the greatest and provocative writers into the Albanian culture and has employed their motifs and themes to raise awareness on gender issues in order to improve women’s life.

Lotman's semiosphere : a systems thinking approach to students' meaning-making practices with digital texts

Abstract: This thesis is concerned with Lotman's concept of semiosphere and its relevance to systems thinking in education. It examines the dialogue between education, digital technologies and society exemplified in students' meaning-making practices with digital texts in the UK secondary school Science classroom. The thesis has four aims: to theorise a systemic approach to the conceptualisation of semiosphere; to develop a semiospheric framework for systemic analysis; to explore how this framework can be applied to technology-mediated learning in UK schools; and to consider the implications of this framework for educational systems design. The thesis draws on the Lotmanian and semiospheric literature on the study of culture as an integral system. This literature is used to develop a framework for semiospheric analysis. I call this the Semiospheric Analytical Framework. This framework provides a systemic conceptualisation of Lotman's semiosphere on three levels: Semiosphere, Cultural Text, and Semiospheric Text. Six sub-concepts are also identified: core, periphery, boundary, dialogue, translation and explosion. The analytical utility of the framework is evaluated in an empirical study which focuses on students' meaning-making with digital texts in the secondary school Science classroom. The emergent themes of boundary-setting, boundarycrossing and boundary-blocking in students' negotiation of disparate sign systems (e.g. the Science classroom and the World Wide Web) are identified. The implications of these themes for an understanding of the dialogue between education, digital technologies and society are explored. The thesis demonstrates that the conceptualisation of culture as a semiospheric system offers a useful method for analysing the complex dialogue between education, digital technologies and society. It further suggests that, whilst students' meaning-making practices with digital texts in the school setting have the potential to transform teaching and learning, the 'reculturing' of school systems is, above all, a socially-shaped endeavour.

Borders and translation: Revisiting Juri Lotman’s semiosphere

Abstract: Abstract In the framework of the theory of the semiosphere elaborated by Juri Lotman in the 1980s, the notion of translation acquires a new, broadened meaning and is used to describe a general mechanism of cultural dynamics. This is a direct consequence of the understanding of the semiosphere as a “continuum of semiotic systems” of which heterogeneity and polyglotism are constitutive features. If the “smallest functioning semiotic mechanism” is not an isolated system, but always a (at least) binary system, translation will play a central role in communication not only between different cultures, but also within every single culture. The article focuses on the different places of translation within the semiosphere as a system of systems and its relations to the notion of border. It argues that in Lotman’s theory, translation can function both as a homogenizing and a heterogenizing semiotic force, depending on its position at the center or the periphery of a given semiotic system. The first part of the article develops a theoretical argument on the relation between translation processes and cultural borders, which acquire different meanings and functions within Lotman’s theory of the semiosphere corresponding to differently oriented kinds of translation. The second part of the article develops a close analysis of Giacomo Leopardi’s poem “L’Infinito,” where the tension and dialogue between the different functions of the Lotmanian borders and the different kinds of cultural translation become devices for the generation of new meanings. Finally, the article briefly considers the significance of Lotman’s semiospheric understanding of the relation between borders and translation for contemporary translation and border studies.

The Street Artist as Translator

Abstract: In the article, the position of the street artist as translator is analyzed on the basis of the concept of the semiosphere developed by the Russian-Estonian semiotician Yuri Lotman. The methodological framework of the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics is applied to the phenomenon of contemporary public art. The process of translation between texts in urban space is illustrated by examples of works of art that use modifications of the same object—a telephone booth.