Globalization is not a novel sociocultural process to be discussed in social and humanitarian sci... more Globalization is not a novel sociocultural process to be discussed in social and humanitarian sciences. Contemporary treatments of globalization are often related to the idea of the global village that has usually been associated with contemporary mass media. The following discussion, however, follows a di¤erent understanding, according to which globalization, on the one hand, has a complex historical background, and can, on the other hand, be noticed in early developments of European and world culture. The beginning of globalization as a sociocultural process has been associated with the fifteenth century (Robertson 1990), and can roughly be understood in both functional (from early Christian ideas to contemporary international movements) and structural (from Gregorian calendar to nuclear devices) developments. The following therefore tries to consider globalization as a process connecting social, economic, and semiosic aspects of shared values in terms concerning both artifacts and purely semiotic entities. Globalization has to do with both what has been called Fordism in economic and industrial spheres, and consciousness industry on the other. One could propose a set of stages connecting the two from the perspective of contemporary economy: (a) mass production, standardized product, (b) rigid standardized stable production, (c) necessity for stabile demand, (d) creation of driven needs and the necessity for increase in the number of customers, (e) intracultural consciousness industry, (f) extracultural (intercultural) consciousness industry, (g) globalization of understanding material values, [(h) globalization of understanding moral values, and (i) semiosic globalization]. These stages have to do with the shaping of understanding the world and representation of that knowledge, and apparently they can be detected much earlier in history than what are being called the modern times. Globalization has to do with making sense of time, space, identity, values, and distribution of such information. Therefore, semiotics has to turn to its original role of being a 'techne' by which to find answers to the how-questions concerning the techniques of semiotization of the named categories. One can see the
Contemporary sociosemiotics is a way to transcend borderlines between trends inside semiotics, an... more Contemporary sociosemiotics is a way to transcend borderlines between trends inside semiotics, and also other disciplines. Whereas semiotics has been considered as an interdisciplinary field of research par excellence, sociosemio tics can point directions at transdisciplinary research. The present article will try to conjoin the structural and the processual views on culture and society, binding them together with the notion of signification. The signification of space will illustrate the dynamic between both cultures and metacultures, and cultural mainstreams and subcultures. This paper pays attention to the practice of sociocultural semiotisation of space and territorialisation by diverse examples and different sociocultural levels that imply semiotic cooperation between several members of groups that can be characterised as socii. We analyse territorialisation by graffiti, by furnishing spatial environment through artistic manners, by shaping the semiotic essence of cities through naming, renaming and translating street names, by pinning and structuring territories with monuments, by landmarking and mapping cultural space through individualisation of cities. We will see how principles of semiotisation of space are valid on different levels (individual and social, formal and informal, democratic and hegemonic, cultural and subcultural) and how these principles form a transdisciplinary object of study as 'semiotisation of space', and how space can be regarded as a genuinely transdisciplinary research object. Individual, culture, and society are connected in such an object both as constituents and as a background of study. The current paper is a conscious experiment that aims at outlining sets of methods and objects in a transdisciplinary perspective.
What is sociosemiotics? It is not the easiest question to answer and any response will necessaril... more What is sociosemiotics? It is not the easiest question to answer and any response will necessarily be incomplete. However, the current special issue of Semiotica attempts to address the question, partly derived from a groundbreaking panel of some of the world’s leading sociosemioticians at the ISI conference in Imatra, Finland in 2001. To begin with, it is not clear what the name of the object in question is. Is it ‘sociosemiotics’ or is it ‘social semiotics’? The former term tends to be dominant in the European tradition although, ironically, it echoes the predominantly Anglophone tradition (notwithstanding Gumperz, among others) of sociolinguistics. The latter tends to be associated with the Anglo-Australian, Hallidayan perspective in communication and sign study, although not exclusively so. (One contributor to this special issue even insists on ‘social semiotics’ as the key term because ‘sociosemiotics’ is more closely associated with Greimas and Courtés’ idea of an isolated and subjectivist semiotics.) Since one of the aims of this special issue is to bring together endeavors in the field from a number of locations, especially those that are infrequently acknowledged in the Anglophone world, we have alighted on ‘sociosemiotics’ as our designation. It is possible that this will become the preferred designation. Certainly, it is a less unwieldy term in the sense that one seldom hears reference to ‘social linguistics’ (despite an occurrence of the term in one of the contributions in this special issue).
Abstract This article provides an overview of the 8th Tartu Semiotics Summer School (in the serie... more Abstract This article provides an overview of the 8th Tartu Semiotics Summer School (in the series of summer schools established in 1964 by Juri Lotman). The event took place at Kääriku, Estonia, August 18-23, 2013, and was dedicated to the publication of the collective manifesto (titled Theses on the Semiotic Study of Cultures) that in 1973 established the field of the semiotics of culture. The scientific focus of the discussions and presentations concerned, from a semiotic point of view, the processes of autocommunication
Contemporary scholarship has, both in the domain of humanities and social sciences, as also in th... more Contemporary scholarship has, both in the domain of humanities and social sciences, as also in the so-called hard sciences, passed a fairly clear transition from monodisciplinary studies towards transdisciplinarity. Between the two there have been developmental stages like cross-, poly-, multi-, and interdisciplinary studies. Ideas about binding and combinining disciplines and eventually dropping disciplinary boundaries have been rooted in understanding scholarly analysis as departing not from narrow paradigmatic principles, but from objects of research themselves. This means that the analysis of cultural, societal, or natural phenomena departs from necessities, not from avalabilities of taking diverse viewpoints at them. Transdisciplinary studies have an object-centred essence, and can apply toolkits from an unlimited number of disciplines. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that such understanding of conducting scholarship is not a novel thing, and dates back way longer than the second half of the twentieth century, to the time when several publications, associations and other institutions for interdisciplinary studies were founded. Secondly, it is useful to recall the proximity of interdisciplinary studies and interdisciplinary education as proposed by American pragmatism. The semiotic context of the latter points at an extremely noteworthy effort to gather all science under one umbrella at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of course, that was the enterprise of International Encyclopedia of Unified Science introduced in 1938 by O. Neurath, N. Bohr, J. Dewey, B. Russell, R. Carnap, and C. W. Morris. It was probably neither by chance nor because of the editorial role of C. W. Morris what led to selecting semiotics as the first main principal and methodological way of theorising about things in the universe (Morris 1938). Semiotics, alongside with its methods and vocabulary, quests about its status either as a method or an individual paradigm of thought, has been and probably will be the most favourable candidate for basing transdisciplinary studies. The nature of human communication and the seeming universality and understandability of the semiotic vocabulary used to describe it makes
Abstract This article provides an overview of the 8th Tartu Semiotics Summer School (in the serie... more Abstract This article provides an overview of the 8th Tartu Semiotics Summer School (in the series of summer schools established in 1964 by Juri Lotman). The event took place at Kääriku, Estonia, August 18-23, 2013, and was dedicated to the publication of the collective manifesto (titled Theses on the Semiotic Study of Cultures) that in 1973 established the field of the semiotics of culture. The scientific focus of the discussions and presentations concerned, from a semiotic point of view, the processes of autocommunication
Globalization is not a novel sociocultural process to be discussed in social and humanitarian sci... more Globalization is not a novel sociocultural process to be discussed in social and humanitarian sciences. Contemporary treatments of globalization are often related to the idea of the global village that has usually been associated with contemporary mass media. The following discussion, however, follows a di¤erent understanding, according to which globalization, on the one hand, has a complex historical background, and can, on the other hand, be noticed in early developments of European and world culture. The beginning of globalization as a sociocultural process has been associated with the fifteenth century (Robertson 1990), and can roughly be understood in both functional (from early Christian ideas to contemporary international movements) and structural (from Gregorian calendar to nuclear devices) developments. The following therefore tries to consider globalization as a process connecting social, economic, and semiosic aspects of shared values in terms concerning both artifacts and purely semiotic entities. Globalization has to do with both what has been called Fordism in economic and industrial spheres, and consciousness industry on the other. One could propose a set of stages connecting the two from the perspective of contemporary economy: (a) mass production, standardized product, (b) rigid standardized stable production, (c) necessity for stabile demand, (d) creation of driven needs and the necessity for increase in the number of customers, (e) intracultural consciousness industry, (f) extracultural (intercultural) consciousness industry, (g) globalization of understanding material values, [(h) globalization of understanding moral values, and (i) semiosic globalization]. These stages have to do with the shaping of understanding the world and representation of that knowledge, and apparently they can be detected much earlier in history than what are being called the modern times. Globalization has to do with making sense of time, space, identity, values, and distribution of such information. Therefore, semiotics has to turn to its original role of being a 'techne' by which to find answers to the how-questions concerning the techniques of semiotization of the named categories. One can see the
Globalization is not a novel sociocultural process to be discussed in social and humanitarian sci... more Globalization is not a novel sociocultural process to be discussed in social and humanitarian sciences. Contemporary treatments of globalization are often related to the idea of the global village that has usually been associated with contemporary mass media. The following discussion, however, follows a di¤erent understanding, according to which globalization, on the one hand, has a complex historical background, and can, on the other hand, be noticed in early developments of European and world culture. The beginning of globalization as a sociocultural process has been associated with the fifteenth century (Robertson 1990), and can roughly be understood in both functional (from early Christian ideas to contemporary international movements) and structural (from Gregorian calendar to nuclear devices) developments. The following therefore tries to consider globalization as a process connecting social, economic, and semiosic aspects of shared values in terms concerning both artifacts and purely semiotic entities. Globalization has to do with both what has been called Fordism in economic and industrial spheres, and consciousness industry on the other. One could propose a set of stages connecting the two from the perspective of contemporary economy: (a) mass production, standardized product, (b) rigid standardized stable production, (c) necessity for stabile demand, (d) creation of driven needs and the necessity for increase in the number of customers, (e) intracultural consciousness industry, (f) extracultural (intercultural) consciousness industry, (g) globalization of understanding material values, [(h) globalization of understanding moral values, and (i) semiosic globalization]. These stages have to do with the shaping of understanding the world and representation of that knowledge, and apparently they can be detected much earlier in history than what are being called the modern times. Globalization has to do with making sense of time, space, identity, values, and distribution of such information. Therefore, semiotics has to turn to its original role of being a 'techne' by which to find answers to the how-questions concerning the techniques of semiotization of the named categories. One can see the
Contemporary sociosemiotics is a way to transcend borderlines between trends inside semiotics, an... more Contemporary sociosemiotics is a way to transcend borderlines between trends inside semiotics, and also other disciplines. Whereas semiotics has been considered as an interdisciplinary field of research par excellence, sociosemio tics can point directions at transdisciplinary research. The present article will try to conjoin the structural and the processual views on culture and society, binding them together with the notion of signification. The signification of space will illustrate the dynamic between both cultures and metacultures, and cultural mainstreams and subcultures. This paper pays attention to the practice of sociocultural semiotisation of space and territorialisation by diverse examples and different sociocultural levels that imply semiotic cooperation between several members of groups that can be characterised as socii. We analyse territorialisation by graffiti, by furnishing spatial environment through artistic manners, by shaping the semiotic essence of cities through naming, renaming and translating street names, by pinning and structuring territories with monuments, by landmarking and mapping cultural space through individualisation of cities. We will see how principles of semiotisation of space are valid on different levels (individual and social, formal and informal, democratic and hegemonic, cultural and subcultural) and how these principles form a transdisciplinary object of study as 'semiotisation of space', and how space can be regarded as a genuinely transdisciplinary research object. Individual, culture, and society are connected in such an object both as constituents and as a background of study. The current paper is a conscious experiment that aims at outlining sets of methods and objects in a transdisciplinary perspective.
What is sociosemiotics? It is not the easiest question to answer and any response will necessaril... more What is sociosemiotics? It is not the easiest question to answer and any response will necessarily be incomplete. However, the current special issue of Semiotica attempts to address the question, partly derived from a groundbreaking panel of some of the world’s leading sociosemioticians at the ISI conference in Imatra, Finland in 2001. To begin with, it is not clear what the name of the object in question is. Is it ‘sociosemiotics’ or is it ‘social semiotics’? The former term tends to be dominant in the European tradition although, ironically, it echoes the predominantly Anglophone tradition (notwithstanding Gumperz, among others) of sociolinguistics. The latter tends to be associated with the Anglo-Australian, Hallidayan perspective in communication and sign study, although not exclusively so. (One contributor to this special issue even insists on ‘social semiotics’ as the key term because ‘sociosemiotics’ is more closely associated with Greimas and Courtés’ idea of an isolated and subjectivist semiotics.) Since one of the aims of this special issue is to bring together endeavors in the field from a number of locations, especially those that are infrequently acknowledged in the Anglophone world, we have alighted on ‘sociosemiotics’ as our designation. It is possible that this will become the preferred designation. Certainly, it is a less unwieldy term in the sense that one seldom hears reference to ‘social linguistics’ (despite an occurrence of the term in one of the contributions in this special issue).
Abstract This article provides an overview of the 8th Tartu Semiotics Summer School (in the serie... more Abstract This article provides an overview of the 8th Tartu Semiotics Summer School (in the series of summer schools established in 1964 by Juri Lotman). The event took place at Kääriku, Estonia, August 18-23, 2013, and was dedicated to the publication of the collective manifesto (titled Theses on the Semiotic Study of Cultures) that in 1973 established the field of the semiotics of culture. The scientific focus of the discussions and presentations concerned, from a semiotic point of view, the processes of autocommunication
Contemporary scholarship has, both in the domain of humanities and social sciences, as also in th... more Contemporary scholarship has, both in the domain of humanities and social sciences, as also in the so-called hard sciences, passed a fairly clear transition from monodisciplinary studies towards transdisciplinarity. Between the two there have been developmental stages like cross-, poly-, multi-, and interdisciplinary studies. Ideas about binding and combinining disciplines and eventually dropping disciplinary boundaries have been rooted in understanding scholarly analysis as departing not from narrow paradigmatic principles, but from objects of research themselves. This means that the analysis of cultural, societal, or natural phenomena departs from necessities, not from avalabilities of taking diverse viewpoints at them. Transdisciplinary studies have an object-centred essence, and can apply toolkits from an unlimited number of disciplines. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that such understanding of conducting scholarship is not a novel thing, and dates back way longer than the second half of the twentieth century, to the time when several publications, associations and other institutions for interdisciplinary studies were founded. Secondly, it is useful to recall the proximity of interdisciplinary studies and interdisciplinary education as proposed by American pragmatism. The semiotic context of the latter points at an extremely noteworthy effort to gather all science under one umbrella at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of course, that was the enterprise of International Encyclopedia of Unified Science introduced in 1938 by O. Neurath, N. Bohr, J. Dewey, B. Russell, R. Carnap, and C. W. Morris. It was probably neither by chance nor because of the editorial role of C. W. Morris what led to selecting semiotics as the first main principal and methodological way of theorising about things in the universe (Morris 1938). Semiotics, alongside with its methods and vocabulary, quests about its status either as a method or an individual paradigm of thought, has been and probably will be the most favourable candidate for basing transdisciplinary studies. The nature of human communication and the seeming universality and understandability of the semiotic vocabulary used to describe it makes
Abstract This article provides an overview of the 8th Tartu Semiotics Summer School (in the serie... more Abstract This article provides an overview of the 8th Tartu Semiotics Summer School (in the series of summer schools established in 1964 by Juri Lotman). The event took place at Kääriku, Estonia, August 18-23, 2013, and was dedicated to the publication of the collective manifesto (titled Theses on the Semiotic Study of Cultures) that in 1973 established the field of the semiotics of culture. The scientific focus of the discussions and presentations concerned, from a semiotic point of view, the processes of autocommunication
Globalization is not a novel sociocultural process to be discussed in social and humanitarian sci... more Globalization is not a novel sociocultural process to be discussed in social and humanitarian sciences. Contemporary treatments of globalization are often related to the idea of the global village that has usually been associated with contemporary mass media. The following discussion, however, follows a di¤erent understanding, according to which globalization, on the one hand, has a complex historical background, and can, on the other hand, be noticed in early developments of European and world culture. The beginning of globalization as a sociocultural process has been associated with the fifteenth century (Robertson 1990), and can roughly be understood in both functional (from early Christian ideas to contemporary international movements) and structural (from Gregorian calendar to nuclear devices) developments. The following therefore tries to consider globalization as a process connecting social, economic, and semiosic aspects of shared values in terms concerning both artifacts and purely semiotic entities. Globalization has to do with both what has been called Fordism in economic and industrial spheres, and consciousness industry on the other. One could propose a set of stages connecting the two from the perspective of contemporary economy: (a) mass production, standardized product, (b) rigid standardized stable production, (c) necessity for stabile demand, (d) creation of driven needs and the necessity for increase in the number of customers, (e) intracultural consciousness industry, (f) extracultural (intercultural) consciousness industry, (g) globalization of understanding material values, [(h) globalization of understanding moral values, and (i) semiosic globalization]. These stages have to do with the shaping of understanding the world and representation of that knowledge, and apparently they can be detected much earlier in history than what are being called the modern times. Globalization has to do with making sense of time, space, identity, values, and distribution of such information. Therefore, semiotics has to turn to its original role of being a 'techne' by which to find answers to the how-questions concerning the techniques of semiotization of the named categories. One can see the
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