Kultuur, identiteet ja enesekirjeldus
Culture, Identity and Self-Description

Summary/Abstract: In my paper I will focus on the semiotic mechanisms of identity formation and the relationships between identity and cultural self-descriptions. The process of identity formation and cultural self-descriptions that manifest and reify some aspects of identity, are inseparably intertwined, yet it is methodologically important to draw a heuristic distinction between the two. This distinction implies a further differentiation of individual and collective identity on the one hand and actual and declared identity on the other hand. Collective identity that is manifest in cultural self-descriptions can be understood as an instrument that serves to organize both diachronic and synchronic dimensions of cultural reality. In this context, identity formation can be reformulated in terms of semiotic modelling.

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