The intersection between translation studies and semiotics has been addressed in numerous publications and approaches to researching translation. However, at least within translation studies, this intersection has been visible mainly in cases in which non-linguistic signs come into play, whereas genuine semiotic frameworks have proven to be too broad or abstract. This has led to a conceptual and ontological paradox: on the one hand, translation scholars have been struggling to move beyond linguistics, but, on the other hand, most of them still place a strong emphasis on lingual translation. As a result, ‘translation’ is no longer a precise term broad enough to include contemporary types of this activity. This paper is a proposal made to reconceptualize translation as a dynamic process of dialogue between relevant constraints. Situated between translation semiotics and translation studies, the theoretical model described here underlines the role of constraints as well as the universal semiotic nature of translation.
In the study of Russian émigré literature, an inherent Russian-centric perspective persists. Diaspoetics, with its meta-critical attributes, offers a means effectively to address this limitation. Central to its focus are the concepts of ‘imagination’ and ‘reality’ in diaspora identity. Across its developmental stages, diaspoetics alternately emphasizes objective identity definition and subjective identity construction, each approach presenting distinct strengths and weaknesses. However, from the perspective of Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotics, culture as a selfconscious individuality inherently unites subject and object. The tension between ‘imagination’ and ‘reality’ finds resolution in the literary creation of the metaphor “Harbin note”, which emerges from the unique diasporic space of Harbin. Consequently, within the interplay of the mythological geographies of “East” and “West”, the identity of the diaspora community simultaneously embodies opposition and achieves unity.
This study investigates the semiotic significance of water in Persian garden landscapes, revealing its cultural, spiritual, and religious roots. Drawing on Louis Hjelmslev’s theories and employing a semiotic model for landscape study, the paper conducts a holistic analysis of water’s physical and semantic dimensions in these gardens. The research adopts a triadic approach, starting with an examination of the form-to-substance ratio at the expression level to interpret the gardens’ physical and visual features. The article explores the connection between these features and the gardens’ cultural context and, finally, links structural concepts to broader societal ideologies. Qualitative content analysis of case studies, including Fin Garden and Dolatabad Garden, exposes the multifaceted meanings of water elements, from their geometric organization to their socio-cultural and ideological resonance. The findings disclose a triadic meaning system where water acts as a unifying symbol, reflecting Iranian societal values and enhancing the gardens’ lasting appeal. This study not only contributes to the semiotic discourse by applying Hjelmslev’s theories to the specific context of Iranian gardens but also enriches the understanding of cultural heritage and landscape design.
The following interview with John Joseph, a linguist specializing in the history of linguistics, applied linguistics, and the relationships between language and identity, is divided into two parts. The first part presents a small overview of Joseph’s academic trajectory, emphasizing the struggles faced by emerging fields in the linguistics of the 1980s (e.g. language standardization and history of linguistics itself), and then deals with the problems of doing history of linguistics, including questions of the methodology and epistemology of historical approaches. The second part of the interview touches upon the relationships between the history of linguistics and semiotics, the relationships between linguistics and culture, and the problems of subjectivity in linguistics and semiotics. The interview concludes with a small comment on relevant questions linguistics faces when it comes to the role of academics in helping to solve pressing social issues.
We propose a semiotic approach to understanding and assessing language technologies. Specifically, by adopting a recent semiotic and broad concept of translation, developed by Kobus Marais, we bring semiotic theory into the service of philosophy of technology. Our perspective reveals that commonly assumed expectations about language generative technologies are mistaken and misleading when shaped through an ideal of engineering humanlike interlocutors, which we illustrate with examples. We find that (software) engineering pursues this ideal, which, fuelled by classical humanism, assumes that language is an anthropic marker. By explaining (technological) emergence as a semiosic process, we develop a robust underpinning for the Mind–Technology Thesis, namely refuting mind-and-matter substance dualism through an evolutionist perspective that construes technology as mind-work. In this vein, semiotics corroborates with externalist theories of mind and postphenomenology in understanding mind and technology as mutually intrinsic. This leads to a semiotics-grounded advocacy of the view in philosophy of technology, championed by Elena Esposito, that for artefacts properly to communicate with biological organisms, they do not require “intelligence”.
Starting from critical points of the research agenda on emotions, this paper aims to present and discuss a dynamic field model of the interaction between affective semiosis and perceptual semiosis. Conceptually, the model is grounded in the epistemological contribution of Ignacio Matte Blanco’s psychoanalytic theory, which formalizes two kinds of logic at the foundation of human experience: asymmetrical (the basis of the activity of conscious rational thought and functioning through distinction and separation processes) and symmetrical (the basis of unconscious processes, aimed at homogenization and generalization). Accordingly, affective semiosis is characterized by a predominance of symmetrizing and generalizing modalities, tending to homogenize differences and render all stimuli indistinct and undifferentiated according to a function of pertinentization (i.e. by the definition of a ground – à la Peirce). This ground offers a temporary stability to discretize the elements of experience. Conversely, perceptive semiosis focuses on discretization and identification, operating through the recognition of differences within the pertinentized field. Perceptual semiosis, which seeks to identify differences, can only function if a background serving as an element of continuity remains stable. Finally, the study explores specific dynamics that illustrate the necessary intertwining of affective and perceptual semiosis through the application of non-linear descriptive models, characterized by oscillatory and complementary trends.
History interpretations have long shaped national identities, yet they also serve to legitimize (geo)political agendas and deepen societal divisions. This article investigates the cases of Estonia and Latvia, where Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has rekindled contestations over Soviet-era symbols (monuments, symbolic decoration, etc.) in public spaces. Through a semiotic analysis of the removal of Soviet, or so-called “red” monuments, we explore the discursive mechanisms of re-signification and the dominant meanings that emerge. Central to our inquiry is how the replacement or transformation of these monuments interacts with political contexts – particularly how such changes resonate with diverse audiences and redefine symbolic functions of these monuments. We analyse political statements both supporting and opposing the dismantling of Soviet monuments, focusing on how national security has been mobilized as a central legitimizing discourse in 2022. Drawing on the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory, we incorporate insights from cultural semiotics and semiotic cultural psychology, emphasizing the affective dimensions that drive re-signification and hypersecuritization. Finally, by employing the concept of deproblematization, we examine how these affective strategies serve political ends, which allows us to uncover the political aims embedded within these securitization discourses, as well as the semiotic mechanisms of meaning-making through which these discourses were constructed.
The following notes are a commentary on Luis J. Prieto’s text “A semiology: Problems and routes”, an English translation of “Une sémiologie: problems et parcours”. The notes begin by introducing the different versions under which “A semiology…” was originally published, and then explain some problems faced when working on the English translation. After that, the introduction provides a historical and theoretical contextualization of the original text, focusing on Prieto’s disagreement with Cesare Luporini’s views on (scientific) knowledge from a materialist (Marxist-Leninist) perspective. The notes then move on to Prieto’s own theory and examine the interrelations between knowledge, practice and subjectivity as they are treated in “A semiology…” and in related texts written by Prieto around the same time. Finally, the notes close with a brief observation of how Prieto’s theory could be developed and what its shortcomings are, especially regarding contemporary semiotic theory.
The following paper examines the metaphysics of signification in John Deely’s work and presents two arguments: (1) that Deely’s metaphysics sanction backwards causation in signification, and (2) that there may be a more parsimonious view that can be defended. The paper briefly examines the background of Peirce’s metaphysics and then addresses his specific notion of semiotic causality, including the relevance of the vis a prospecto in his work. I will argue, however, that in accounting for signification, appealing to past states changed by future states can only be done in a weak, epistemological manner, as opposed to what I see as a modal view in Deely. As Deely’s metaphysics has profoundly influenced the philosophical discourse of current semiotics, it is important to assess the ontological commitments made in order for signification to take place. His account of semiotic causality as a teleological phenomenon may offer a powerful explanatory framework for how signification takes place (and with it, how signs come to be), but its consequences may result in counterintuitive ways of thinking about meaning-making. I offer a positive deflationary account of how to preserve a weaker sense of semiotic causality to avoid the risks posed by the vis a prospecto in Deely’s proposal.
This paper is dedicated to the intersections between folding and semiotics, serving as a meta-commentary on Howard Pattee’s “Symbol grounding precedes interpretation” (2021), a response to Terrence Deacon’s work, that was further elaborated in 2023. Framed within a context of recursive self-reflection, the paper scrutinizes folding as a fundamental semiotic activity and elementary semiotic modelling, drawing connections to Pattee’s proposition regarding protein folding as a precursor to semiosis and interpretation. Central to this discourse is the assertion that folding serves not only as a foundational prerequisite for semiosis but also as a potent modelling system. Through a multidisciplinary lens, the paper elucidates how folding manifests as a modelling mechanism across diverse domains from biology to syntax. Notably, the paper proposes an application of folding principles in AI. By navigating the framework of folding as semiotic modelling, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the foundational mechanisms of signification and interpretation in semiotic systems.
Stasiosemiotics is made of two concepts: ‘stasis’ and ‘semiotics’. Stasis is a concept that refers to both the division of society and a suspension of time. As a branch of general semiotics, its specific focus, or object, is semiosis stasis, or semiostasis, which is technically impossible: by definition, semiosis is evergoing, continuous and infinite. Though paradoxical, semiostasis can nevertheless inspire a method to study sign systems and objects of which the meaning form is profound- ly intricate and temporally stratified. Among such inextricably complex objects shaping constellations of signs are phantasms and political fictions, or ‘group phantasms’ in Guattari’s terminology. Although on different levels, they both act as meaning condensers partaking in social subjectivation and alienation. Leaning on Deleuze and Guattari’s semiotics of phantasm, political philosophy and anthropology, and poetics, ‘stasis’ can be understood both in the political sense (civil strife, division of the political body) and in the aesthetical sense (standstill – as in ecstasy, ek-stasis: being out of oneself, out of ego, in suspended time). Stasiosemiotics aims to virtually suspend the motion of semiosis (or what Guattari calls ‘semiotic fluxes’) for the profit of an inquiry on the intricacies of signs formation and operation. The conclusion suggests ethical consequences regarding the consciousness of habit and implications for radical politics.
Around the turn of the millennium, a paradigm shift took place in Western arts and humanities. (Post)structuralism, which had focused on language, the signifier, the epistemological, receded, and both academic and artistic attention turned to the real, the material, the ontological, the object, or the so-called “thingin- itself ”. In Estonia, discussions of this shift started as recently as in the 2010s, and then mostly in the context of art and ethnology; however, in retrospect, changes in this direction can be observed earlier and also in other areas of life. The work of the author Valdur Mikita, who had started to write in the 1990s and became extremely popular in Estonia in 2013, is a characteristic example of this paradigm shift. The shift from language games to the real is illustrated by Mikita’s interest in what Gilles Deleuze has called ‘any-spaces-whatever’.
This interview with Silvana Rabinovich, a philosopher working at the crossroads of ethics, discourse analysis, decolonial thought and political theology, presents an overview of Rabinovich’s positions regarding the study of language and languages. It then proceeds to the philosophical problems of translating and observes the connections between translation and interreligious dialogue by looking at the case of Judeo-Arabic language. The conversation then moves on to explore Rabinovich’s idea, drawing on Levinas, of building a heteronomous relationship with language. In its closing part, the interview presents an apt comment on how academics might contribute to the solving of social problems.
The article offers a new interpretation of the notion of shock in Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy, with respect to his conception of the sign and semiotics. My perspective is based on the presupposition that shock is the condition of experience and knowledge, and that it is an operative concept that runs through Deleuze’s entire work. Deleuze argues against the idea that humans have a natural tendency to think – on the contrary, thinking occurs in a situation of violence when something forces us to think. I then move on to an account of the relation between sign, cognition and shock, focusing in particular on how Deleuze connects the notion of shock to affect: this connection is present in Deleuze’s interpretation of Spinoza, and also appears in his books on the cinematic image. Affect becomes an important link between the formation of subjectivity, the experience of the world and the transformation of thought. There is no shock without affect, and there is no affect that does not presuppose shock.
In this essay I explain a radical version of structuralism and concept of the sign, put forward by Deleuze. My aim is to create a model of Deleuze’s structuralism, called Interpretative Structuralism, that can be applied to the world and everything in it (bodies). My explanation of Deleuze could be called structuralist because I take a systematic approach to explaining his structuralism and produce a model for future application. I maintain, however, that the model of Interpretative Structuralism is not an interpretation of Deleuze’s work, a reading. That means, despite being a model, it enables a perspective on bodies and world that sees immanence and difference – in line with Deleuze’s own radical structuralism and philosophy of difference. I focus my analysis on the Deleuze–Parnet essay “On the superiority of Anglo-American literature”. This essay explains Deleuze’s structuralist approach, and, in terms of its own structure, shows Deleuze’s structuralism in action. The concept of the sign outlined in this text is vital, but most salient is the semiotic mediator of structuralism, which (from Deleuze’s concept of external relation) I call ‘the joker’. Crucially important to Deleuze’s radical structuralism is “seeing”, and thinking with, the joker.
