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
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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