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Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010
Juri Lotman – Universe of the Mind
Texts and Codes
Vesa Matteo Piludu
University of Helsinki
Yuri Lotman
Strong interest in art: Russian Literature, poetry, folklore
The cultural field is classic, but the interpretation is innovative
Problem of actors (artist), interpretation: emergence of individuals,
will, transformation
Individual aren’t passive as in Lévi-Strauss structures or in Barthes’
popular culture
Universe of the Mind
Preface by Lotman
1990. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture.
(Translated by Ann Shukman, introduction by Umberto Eco.) London
& New York
Intelligence
Transmission of available information (texts / communication)
Creation of new information
Memory: capacity to preserve and reproduce information (texts /
communication)
The 3 function are present in all kind of text, but:
In common texts (informative messages) the first function
predominate
Media, short and fast messages
In artistic texts (poetry) the capacity of generate new information
predominate
Self-reflection, innovative thought
Culture: always complex and multi-layered
The culture should be at list binary: two or more untranslatable
languages-codes (music / written world) connected by intertexuality
Culture is incomprehensible taking in consideration only a language
(music, visual art, architecture)
The culture is always produced in communication processes
(dialogism): an intelligence need another intelligence, message
senders need interlocutors
Double dialogism
The interlocutor need another interlocutor
The text-generating mechanism needs a text from the outside
Binary structures or message should be considered both
asymmetrical and unitary
Three aspects
Semiotics is the scientific discipline adumbrated by Ferdinand de
Saussure
Semiotic communication: the signs are part of social life and social
psychology
Semiotics is a method of the humanities, relevant to various
disciplines
The same object could be studied by a semiotic or non-semiotic point
of views
Scientific mind of the researcher: the semiotician built up his
consciousness, potentially everything became semioticized in his
hands
Mida effect
Saussure
Opposition between language (langue – code for Lotman) and
speech (parole – text for Lotman)
Language is a grammatical system potentially present in every
brain or in brains of groups of individuals sharing the same
languages
Language is never complete in a single individual, it exists only
in collectivity
Language is collective
Speech is (more) individual, less essential, more casual and
accidental
De Saussure
Language is a social contract, individuals are powerless to create it
or to modify it
(this statement has been obviously criticized)
Language should be studied independently from speech
Even dead language could be studied
Lotman’s critics
The idea that language is completely opposed to all that is
accidental, unstable, extra-systematic, able to function is spite of the
damage caused on them
Is rejected by modern semioticians
Chapter 1: The tree function of the text
Sassure focused his studies on language, not speech
Code more important than texts
Everything relevant in speech/text is pre-given in language/code
Science of language without speech analysis
Lotman:
All that is based on a non-scientific ideas about the function of
language
The everyday receiver of information is concerned with the
contents of messages
the text/messages is considered valuable
Scheme
Thought (content of message) (addresser)
Encoding mechanism of language (addresser)
Text –speech (addresser)
Decoding mechanism of language (addressee)
Thought (content of message) (addressee)
Reaction: other speech ? (the addressee become addresser)
The process of thinking and speaking are two different activities,
combined for the purpose of communication
In the speech the though is formulated by language that call for an
interpretation
Meaning
In perfect, ideal communication: the meaning of the thought remain
the same in the process
The content doesn’t change
Problem: all the linguistic structures are imperfect, it’s
practically impossible than addressee and addressee has
wholly identically codes
The code have multi-dimensional hierarchies
Share the same language doesn’t mean share the same
linguistic experiences, memory, culture, values
Structuralistim language
The classic structuralistic language and communication exist only as
a model, as an ideal
Creative function
Classic structuralism forgot an important point:
The creative function of communication
Communication generate also new messages and new texts
Translation:
Text 1 from language 1 is translated in language 2 and create the
Text 2 that is never identical to the original one
Reverse translation can’t recreate Text 1
Translation of poetry: different syllabic verses/lines
What about when a novel is transformed into a film?
Creation of new texts
When text 1 is translated into Codes 2,3, 4
It creates Texts 2,3,4
Language is inseparable from meaning and the contents, and from
texts
Art
First the document is acquired, and then the language is
reconstructed
Archaeologists and relics of ancient art
Contemporary art: the language can be unknown to the audience
and has to be reconstructed and mastered by the addressees, that
should be capable of self-tutoring
In any individualized languages (arts), not everything is individual
Inevitably there are levels that are commons to both the participants
Even what is individual and new derives from some tradition,
memory
Artistic texts are individual and self-reflective
Informational point of view
Language is a machine to transmitting invariant messages
But: humans aren’t machines!
Poetic theory
The creative function is a universal quality of language and poetic,
creative language is regarded as the most typical manifestation of
language as a such
Debate Saussure- Jakobson
Saussure: informational function more important
Positivism, XIX century
Knowledge is good and ignorance is absolute evil
Zola and Gouncourts, universal literacy
Jakobson
Avant-garde, Russian Futurist art … was the most consistent
realization of the structure of language
Text is memory and sum of other texts
Condenser of cultural memory
Any culture is bombarded by isolated texts from different ages that
fall like meteorites
There are always remnants of other civilizations
Invasions are important factors of cultural dynamics
Hamlet today is not just a play by Shakespeare, but also the memory
of all his interpretations