Semiosphere

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

Towards a darwinian biosemiotics. life as mutual understanding

Abstract: Contemporary understanding of the evolution of life prefers the existence of mutually isolated lineages which are indifferent to each other, and are interconnected only through their common descent. We argue that a necessary precondition for biosemiotics is communication between all coevals sharing the biosphere. It will embrace mutual custody of existing communication pathways and codes, and of common evolutionary heritage

Sustainability, cognitive technologies and the digital semiosphere

Abstract: The convergence of digital and multimodal cognitive technologies offers the possibility to interact in an ‘on-line’ cultural process mediated by new ways of representing our thoughts, emotions, ideas, beliefs, opinions and behaviours. Such technological integration not only alters and introduces innovations in the interactive and representational modes of networked media, perhaps inducing changes in our cognitive functions, but also conditions the global cultural dynamics by potentially organizing, funnelling, tagging and ‘semantically’ predigesting knowledge through the ‘intelligent’ digital technosphere. The ecology of ideas in such complex and accelerating semiotic space will present highly contradictory and dissonant tendencies in cultural processes. This may pose great difficulties for individuals, communities and whole cultural layers when trying to reconcile such tendencies with a sustainable direction that does not disrupt the life-support systems and the cognitive (and physiological) health of individuals and communities.

English in a Surveillance Regime: Tightening the Noose in New Zealand

Abstract: It is a contemporary commonplace that we live in a ‘text‐saturated’ environment – a semiosphere that complements those biologically rooted spheres our bodies inhabit. The neon cityscape of Tokyo in...

Between homeworld and alienworld : a primer of cultural semiotics

Abstract: Since it was first invented by the Tartu school, semiotics of culture has known very little theoretical development, with the exception of some articles by Roland Posner and by the present author. In this paper, we will have a look at the differences between these three approaches, and we will consider the theoretical reasons for going beyond not only the original Tartu school proposal, but also Posner's revision. Moreover, we will relate cultural semiotics to Husserlean phenomenology and to classical and contemporary theories of empathy. Semiotics of culture was invented by Jurij Lotman, Boris Uspenskij and a number of other scholars in the so-called Moscow-Tartu school in the sixties of the last century (Lotman et al. 1975). In the original version, it concerned the opposition of Culture to Non-culture, conceived as a difference between order and disorder, and many other binary terms. This early version, as well as the later, much vaguer variety, in which the semiosphere is substituted for culture (Lotman 1990), have often been applied, but hardly ever been subjected to any further theoretical development. One notable exception to this is a seminal article by Roland Posner (1989). I have myself also written a number of articles in which I try to extend the original framework of cultural semiotics, by means of clearer, qualitative definitions and more differentiations (Sonesson 1992; 1994; 1998; 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002a, b; 2003; 2004; 2007a, b). The original inspiration for my work was didactic: I wanted to present the Tartu school model in a more readily accessible way (Sonesson 1992). Soon I realised that, by way of making it more distinct, I also changed the theory. It was only at that point that I became aware of Posner’s work, with which my own proposal has affinities, at the same time as presenting notable differences. Since then I have tried to extend the framework by relating it to Peirce’s early triad in terms of personal pronouns, the hermeneutics of empathy, and much more. Meanwhile, at least two persons have applied my model, and thus thrown new light on it, one in the study of a historical material, the voyages of Mme de Stael (Cabak Redei 2007), and another in relation to the contemporary situation, viz

Lotman’s Semiosphere, Peirce’s Signs, and Cultural Processes

Abstract: This paper brings Lotman’s semiotic space to bear on Peirce’s concept of the sign with respect to broad cultural processes. Consideration of cultural processes in the Peircean mode calls for an extension of Lotman’s pair of terms, primary and secondary modeling systems, in view of Peirce’s notion of the sign as triadic. As a consequence of this extension, the premise in this inquiry has it that: (1) triadic signs within complex cultural processes are interdependent, interrelated and interactive, (2) triadic signs make up an interconnected, contradictory complementary convergent whole, which is inconsistent and/or incomplete, depending upon the cultural context, (3) inconsistency and incompleteness are of the nature of Peirce’s vagueness and generality respectively, the first being chiefly of the nature of the category of Firstness and the second chiefly of the nature of Thirdness, (4) the role of Secondness unfolds through acts of selection from the possibilities of Firstness, such acts of selection invol...