Grupiportree kunstiline struktuur ja Velázqueze sacra conversazione “Las Meninas”

Author(s): Linnar Priimägi / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 6/2009

There are 3 degrees of likeness in portraiture: (F1) the type (the exponent of a social group — Arturo Martini’s “Sitting boy”), (F2) the character (the exponent of a psychological group — Guido Reni’s “Ecce homo”), (F3) the individuality (the unique person with a proper name — Velázquez’s “Innocent X”). There are 4 degrees of homogeneity of the internal space in the work of art, created by 5 kinds of activity: (H0) individual activities in separate spaces [ill. 1], (H1) parallel activities (human ornament [2, 3]), (H2) distantly combined activities creating loci (event areas) and marked compositions [4–6], (H3) common activities of participants in an integrative atmospheric and compositional locus [7, 13], (H4) joint activities as the mutual situational physical dependence. The group portrait in the European painting developed through spacial association of singular type and character portraits of Christian saints (H1 → H2). The sacra conversazione was the first completed form of it. It is a spacial assemblage of certain religious characters united by some collective parallel psychological activity (Latin conversari means ‘to deal with somebody’) and with vague loci boundaries (H1/H2). The best known example of it is the San Zaccaria altar piece by Giovanni Bellini [ill. 11]. The later development of sacra conversazione resulted in more and more homogeneous pictorial space [12, 13] and — because of the aesthetical antagonism between the portraiture and the grouping — ended in the retreat of individual portrait [F3 → (F2/F1)] in the genre painting [14]. Velázquez’s painting “Las Meninas” highlights the border between the collective loneliness of a sacra conversazione group (H1/H2) and its distantly combined activities in a concrete genre interior, a shared pictorial space (H3) with blurred loci borders in it. The depicted persons also tend to be more characterized than individualized. Thus, the artistic structure of “Las Meninas” could be described as: H3 {[(H1/H2) <> H2] + [F3 > (F2/F1)]}. It is impossible to analyze “Las Meninas” as a genre painting because it is not. It is a splendid example of sacra conversazione in the post-renaissance European art.

Охота за ведьмами. Семиотика страха

Author(s): Yuri M. Lotman / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/1998

Semiotics in Tartu

Author(s): Peeter Torop / Language(s): English Issue: 1/1998

О знаковых функциях порядка следоания значимых единиц языка (K семиотике начальной позиции)

Author(s): Michail Sheljakin / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/1998

The "dimensionality principle" and semiotic analysis

Author(s): Marcel Danesi / Language(s): English Issue: 1/1998

Conceptions of life and man — basics of “social communications” (as exemplified by the “Charter on the (re-)presentation of disabled people in the med

Author(s): Jeff Bernard / Language(s): English Issue: 1/1998

Ecosemiotics

Author(s): Winfried Nöth / Language(s): English Issue: 1/1998

Karl Ristikivi “Põleva lipu” leitmotiividest

Author(s): Eva Lepik / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2007

The present article analyses the leitmotif structure of the historical novel “The Burning Banner” (1961) by the Estonian writer Karl Ristikivi. The novel commences a 12-volume series of novels on European history setting the course and remaining the key text of the series. The method of analysis used is Boris Gasparov’s induction of ideas that considers text dual-natured: a text is simultaneously a hermetic coherent artefact as a whole and an open accumulator of the flowing continuum of cultural memory and experience. Using Gasparov’s method, the component ideas from different levels of the text are associated and the functions of these relations in creating the artistic unity of the text are elucidated. The method presumes an open approach to the logic of motif development and asserting induced meanings in order to show how motifs are intertwined in the semantic configurations of the work and determine the positions of the said motifs. The article charts the underlying mythic structure of “The Burning Banner” as well as the hidden layers of meaning of the novel. The mythic and hidden intertextual themes analysed in the novel include: • historical events projected onto Biblical events (identifying the protagonist, the last Hohenstaufen Conradin, with king Solomon of the Old Testament and projecting various episodes of his campaign in Italy onto the Passion of Christ) • implicit and explicit occurrences of the axis mundi motif as well as its transformations (tree, mountain, temple) in the structure of the work and • the intertwined motifs of Doppelgängers of the protagonist as birds.

Looduskirjanduse määratlus

Author(s): Kadri Tüür / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2007

In the literature-focused branch of ecocriticism, the notion ‘nature writing’ has been used as a term denoting texts that have been written in an essayistic prose form, that contain information on natural history, and that manifest the ethical beliefs of the authors as citizens in regard to the natural environment. Among those who study it, nature writing appears to be a clearly recognisable set of texts that has been composed according to certain generally accepted rules. Therefore, in the Anglo-American research tradition, nature writing is predominantly referred to as a ‘genre’. The main aim of the present article is to find out on the example of Estonian nature writing to what extent such texts share common formal features. Form is an important parameter of genre as it increases the automatism of the readers in the reception process, i.e., it increases the amount of information that is instantly received upon the recognition of a certain form. Historically, genre theory has been predominantly normative. Currently, genre is understood as a dynamic and dialogical phenomenon, the recognition of which relies on the expectations of the readers, on the established canon and the context of the cultural situation in general. Estonian nature writing can also be regarded as a sub-literature that proceeds parallel to the mainstream literature. In the article, formal features typical to the texts of Estonian nature writing have been specified. By grouping these, it becomes evident that the core of nature writing is formed in the intersection of the marginal areas of three lager realms – science writing, fiction, and commodity texts. By re-defining some peripheral phenomena, in the present case, texts representing nature, in regard to some new centre, in the present case, nature writing, they become more visible than before. At the same time, they inevitably lose some of their border-zone semiotic activity. Therefore, the model defining nature writing has to be featured in a dynamic manner, as a combination of several shifts, not as a ready-made framework.

Luulest ja luuletajast tänapäeva eesti teatrilaval: “Johannese passioon”

Author(s): Katre Väli / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2007

The article gives an insight into a rather unexplored area, namely the poetry theatre. It gives a short overview of the few theoretical texts that deal with the questions about oral presentation of poetry and the signification of voice, rhythm, tones etc. in the theatre. The main focus of the article is on the play “The Passion of St. John” (premiered in Rakvere Theatre): whether the actors on the stage impersonate the poets while reading their texts, or just focus on the poems themselves, their contents and main ideas creating new roles, nameless persons. Besides the above-mentioned play also a short introduction is given into several other plays on the Estonian stages in the 21st century, where poets and their biographies have been depicted. The conclusion can be drawn that poets are usually seen as tragic personalities. In addition, poetry is considered a very intimate way of expression and the creative work is regarded as a sort of mirror of the real life of the poets. Another question about presenting poets in the theatre is the issue of the memory of the audience, what kind of stereotypes they have of the writers, whether the few general facts that have been taught at school are the right ones. Therefore material has been gathered from the diaries, articles, and personal letters of the poets and compared with the well-known stereotypes and with the figures we see on the stage.

Võim süsteemis kui semiootiline probleem (uue meedia näitel)

Author(s): Indrek Ibrus / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2007

The article discusses semiotic ways to approach power in the semiotic dynamics. It argues that the role of power is becoming increasingly visible in the evolutionary processes of semiotic objects such as modern new media forms. As the development of the latter is straightforwardly extremely investment-intensive and dependent on the technological development “underneath”, as well as on the political regulation, it becomes increasingly relevant to question how power is applied in these different domains as social systems in Niklas Luhmann’s terms, and how do these “different kinds” of power relate to each other and eventually influence the evolution of semiotic objects such as media forms. The article claims that as in this way the evolution of semiotic objects depends directly on economic and political motives or social dynamics, one hence has to look for a dialogue between the academic metalanguages that are modelling these dynamics from different disciplinary perspectives. The article shows that for understanding the power dynamics that guides the semiotic dynamics in the modern society, the semiotic discipline in the form of Lotman’s semiospheric approach has to learn from the social theories of power developed in economic innovation studies, as well as by Niklas Luhmann and Michel Foucault. In the end the article cautions for uncritical modelling of the modern media-evolution with the semiospheric centre-periphery dynamics and suggests complementing it with the concept of dialogic control.

“Piiririigi” ruumiline aeg

Author(s): Maris Saar / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2007

When Emil Tode’s novel “Border State” was published in 1993, it immediately received extensive attention from the critics. Positive and negative reviews, short and in-depth research have been written. This article seeks to analyse a dimension in the novel’s composition that has largely been overlooked – the chronological organisation of the text and its relations to the spatial structure of the narrated world, deriving specifically from retrospective first-person narrative. The narration in the “Border State” forms from the letters that the narrator writes, thus the text consists of isolated memories. The chronological and causal order of the events is not explicit, as the memory-time does not follow the rules of “real” time. The transfer from one scene to another is triggered by spatial elements rather than causality. This diffusiveness allows the time of the novel to be viewed as postmodern or mythical – both these characteristics reveal the time as giving preference to other dimensions of the text in organising the structure of it. Gaston Bachelard’s view of the personal space in “The Poetics of Space” corresponds to the poetics of the “Border State” in many ways. The space – rooms, houses, windows, cities, streets, landscapes – has a distinctive role in the narration. The ways of being, musing and dreaming created by the rooms the protagonist inhabits are all distinct in their influence to the character. The sense of centrality, if found, evokes a feeling of safety and isolation from the world. Thus the textual universe of the “Border State” is created through a projection of individual perception from the spatial organisation rather than the chronological.

Eneseloome utoopilises eksotitsismis: Abdul Mati Klarweini “Milk N’ Honey”

Author(s): Berk Vaher / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2007

Inspired by the recent resurgence of academic interest in exoticism, the article elaborates on some of the theoretical vindications of the phenomenon by concentrating on its aspects as the Romantic/Modernist artist’s ultimate act of creating Self through the Other. Not being content with the (largely Westernised) genuine exotic cultures, an exote creates his/her own hybrid utopian sign system where elements of various exotic cultures are blended in order to resolve the overabundance of competing identities and establish a superior, transcendent and all-inclusive identity. The artist Abdul Mati Klarwein is a complex and exciting example of this practice. His aesthetic and spiritual act of creating a utopian exotic Self in the book “Milk N’ Honey” (1973) is essentially a radical rewriting of the Old and New Testaments, including pictures from his self-designed Aleph Sanctuary chapel and texts blending black slang with Jewish humour. I will argue that it would be short-sighted to view Klarwein in the postcolonialist vein as a mere white “Negrophile” or “Orientalist” who plunders exotic cultures for his artistic career; having a most complex ethnic background from an Arab-friendly German/Jewish family, he was educated in the Parisian avant-garde and found the most supportive cultural context in the Afro-American utopian exoticism of the “astro-black” mentality.

Ökosemiootilise analüüsi perspektiivid: loodusteksti mõiste

Author(s): Timo Maran / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 4/2007

The aim of the article is to elaborate ecosemiotics towards practical methodology of analysis. For that, the article first discusses the relation between meaning and context seen as a possibility for an ecological view immanent in semiotics. Then various perspectives in ecosemiotics are analysed by describing biological and cultural ecosemiotics and critically reading the ecosemiotic works of W. Nöth and K. Kull. The author emphasizes the need to combine these approaches so that the resulting synthesis would both take into account the semioticity of nature itself as well as allow analysing the depiction of nature in the written texts. To this end, the author introduces a model of nature-text, which relates two parties intertwined by meaning-relations – the written text and the natural environment. In support of the concept of nature-text, the article discusses the Tartu–Moscow semioticians’ and other authors’ concepts of text, which are regarded as broad enough to accommodate the semiotic activity and environment creation of other animals besides humans. The concept of nature-text allows us to define nature writing as a verbalized esthetical appreciation of an alien semiotic sphere. The concept of nature-text also elucidates the nature writing’s marginality, explaining it with the need to interpret two different types of texts. In the final section the article introduces the starting points for the practical ecosemiotic analysis, focusing on the relations between the written text and the natural environment, on the selective depiction of nature and on the possibilities for communicating with and relating to the nature presented in the written texts. Within the latter part, ecosemiotic analysis tries to detect the author’s corporeality, the particular nature experience, sensory capabilities used to relate to the environment, and other traces of zoosemiotic modelling in nature writing.

Teorija semiotike Umberta Eca

Author(s): Miroslav Beker / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 2-3/1989

The primary aim of the paper is to present an outline of Umberto Eco's Theory of Semiotics as an important contribution to contemporary semiotic studies. The author mentions Eco's favourite example of the watergate and the signalling system, illustrating the idea of coding, of denotation and connotation. He also discusses compositional analysis (including Eco's criticism of the Katz and Fodor model) as well as the notions of overcoding, undercoding and extracoding. After the theory of codes he deals with Eco's discussion of sign production, the types of effort required to produce signs and their modalities (recognition, ostension, replica, and invention). He also draws attention to Eco's distinction between the handling of codes in ideological and aesthetic procedures. In order to illustrate Eco's theory he uses numerous examples and compares semiotic theory with the »practice« in The Name of the Rose. In the end he expresses the view that in his semiotic theory Eco's way of reasoning tends to be within the poststructuralist framework of modern thought.

Konvertēšanās un semiotiska analīze

Author(s): Massimo Leone / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2012

According to the author’s view “semiotics is interested in exploring the ways in which the signs of conversion are fabricated or constructed by a person in accordance with a certain religious culture and tradition. If these qualities can be fabricated, there is the possibility that some people will be fakes, fabricators, or outright liars, as well as there is the possibility that other people are ‘true’ converts, and use those same signs in order to exteriorize, signify, and communicate their truthful inner mutation; moreover, there is the possibility that some other people, who have converted to a faith, intentionally suppress those signs in order for their conversion to remain an exclusively private matter. In order to understand the position of semiotics within the complex research area of conversion studies it is important to stress that probably semiotics is better defined as ‘a field of interests’, like medicine, than as ‘a discipline’ tout court, like sociology or psychology. Indeed, semiotics is characterized less by a common scientific literature, object, or method of inquiry than by a common point of view: signification as a perspective from which new light is cast on subjects traditionally studied by other disciplines. Every element of reality can therefore become an object for semiotic investigation, insofar as this element is looked at from the point of view of how it signifies and communicates its meaning. As a consequence, religion too, and conversion in particular, can be observed, described, analyzed, and interpreted as a semiotic phenomenon. However, the results of all these activities are likely to be different according to the specific semiotic theory that is adopted in order to carry them on. The article discusses the top three semiotic theories and their ability to look at the theme of religious conversion: Saussure’s semiotics, Peirce’s semiotics and the so called ‘School of Tartu’ developed by Lotman.

Problematyka odbioru dzieła sztuki – na przykładzie twórczości Hansa Bellmera

Author(s): Tobiasz Trawiński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2014

The text presents a proposal to understanding work of art as being expressed in abjection. With works of art, the recipients can create their own identity. It is crystallizes by the recipient’s contact with their imago. By Aha-Erlebnis phenomenon they can identify with the work, which becomes a kind of recipient’s Ego mirror. Issues will be discussed on the example of Hans Bellmer’s Dolls, which by their form and presentation are part of the abject problem described by Julia Kristeva.

MIĘDZY NATURĄ A KULTURĄ: ANALIZA STRUKTURALNA MITU C. LÉVI-STRAUSSA W ŚWIETLE WSPÓŁCZESNEJ SEMIOTYKI

Author(s): Tatiana Jankowska / Language(s): Issue: 25 (30)/2014

This article presents the influence of Claude Lévi-Strauss’s research in the field of cultural antropology on the guidelines and concepts of semiotics. Much empirical research in semiotics, connected with different systems of signs and revealing their functions in archaic human cultures, has been conducted on the ground of structural analysis. They are connected, among other things, with different cultures and societies, diversified both spatially and temporally. Thus, the integrating role of myth, as well as its uniting functions in the case of the organization of an individual consciousness, have a primeval modeling impact on the semiotic systems. According to Lévi-Strauss, there is a certain regularity of behaviors that stand for the mechanism of human symbolic communication. This regularity exists as an extention of the theory of signs that was previously worked out in the fields of structural linguistics and semiology. Lévi-Strauss’s theory concerns the collective unconscious of “the human mind” and is devoted to the unconscious nature of cultural phenomena, with a focus on searching for universal rules of thinking that are appropriate to all human minds. The subject of semiotics is a group of sign systems developed in different cultures. A cultural text presents a certain model of the world that we read using codes. The system of mythological signs reveals the cosmological concept of reality with relation to the mythopoetic view of the world.

A mosdójelek kontrasztív szemiotikai vizsgálata néhány magyarországi és szerbiai példa alapján

Author(s): Tímea-Andrada Toth / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2015

The paper deals with the premises daily used by people, still handled as a taboo: with the toilets and their signs. The author interprets the figures labelling the toilets as signs also expressing the social estimation of men and women. The bases of her research are photographs that had been taken in the toilets of different settlements and institutions in Hungary and Serbia. Beyond the presentation of the process of indication, the paper takes into consideration the denominations of the lavatory as well, acceptable in our society. The examination is divided into three parts: in the first instance the author presents the researched phenomenon, then analyses the figures on the ladies’ and gents’ toilets, finally goes into detail about the significance of the spatial arrangement of the toilets as well.

Разновидности текстовой динамики в свете феномена признаковости в повести Ф. М. Достоевского «Двойник» (Статья первая)

Author(s): Katalin Kroó / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2020

The paper examines the poetic principles and functions of two sorts of structural-semantic logic influencing the emergence of textual dynamics in The Double. Paradoxically, the main developmental line consists in a highly repetitive structure of permanent reiteration of fixed narrative units, motifs, and lexical items in the text. Their constant recurrence (cf. events, character traits, semantic attributes, and elements of stable idiomatic phrases) creates the impression of a static world model in which no changes occur. This may be called recursive dynamics under the sign of a static state. Transpositional dynamics, on the other hand, can be regarded as the second direction of the textual developmental movement, producing the mechanism for meaning-generation. Transposition is interpreted broadly, in the paper, with a special accent on 1) meaning transfigurations and projections through the shift from the uniformity of semantic attributes to the acquiring of new attributes by the signifier or the signified (the problem of reference); 2) processes of semantic integration concerning the inclusion of smaller semantic units into larger ones (semantic attribute → motif → character figure). The purpose of the paper is to clarify the reciprocity (the special interaction) of the two types of dynamics. The semantic formation under scrutiny embodied by the smallest unit of Golyadkin’s motoric-verbal expression has a double orientation based on the correlation of motion and stop interpreted by V. Vinogradov in his famous study. From the perspective of the paper’s research object, this narrative and linguistic unit is examined as a recursive motif pair with a special capacity of transformation through transposition. It is demonstrated in detail, within the close reading of the fift h chapter, where Golyadkin’s double appears, how transposition works through a process of semantic integrations. The meaning of enemy is shift ed from human rivals to Petersburg weather and human fate as new subjects, associated with mythology and literary culture (intertexts), leading up to the interpretation of Golyadkin’s personality. The protagonist’s figure is projected upon his double through many semantic attributes. The “melancholy flight” as his encounter with himself presents him as an awakening hero, who as a character is developed gradually, including his double as his figure-transposition which also embodies a dynamic semantic pattern. The correlation of Golyadkin and his double in the context of firstness and secondness is also put into the context of Peircean semiotics.