lotman comunication in culture

7/29/2019 Lotman Comunication in Culture

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Sign Systems Studies 39(1), 2011

Lotmans scientifc investigatory boldness:

The semiosphere as a critical theory o

communication in culture

Irene MachadoSchool of Communications and Arts, University of So Paulo

Av. Prof. Lcio Martins Rodrigues 443, Cidade Universitria, SP, Brazil

e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. Te main ocus o this article is the analysis o the concept o semio-sphere as it has emerged rom the conception o culture as inormation insteado describing the transmission o messages rom A to B, it is based on the general

process o meaning generation. Following Lotmans criticism on the paradoxes incommunication and its theoretical domain, the article conronts the paradoxi-cal concepts on: (1) the concept o message transmission rom the addresser toaddressee; (2) the notion o isolated processing systems; (3) the idea that culturespeaks a unique language. From the standpoint o the semiosphere, the new objector studying such controversies could be ound in the concept o text. When text istaken at the centre o the analysis o culture, nothing appears in an isolated ash-ion. Lotmans thinking does not ear the new hypothesis in proposing the concep-tual domain o semiosphere to the scientic study o culture.

Our literary scholarship holds great possibili-

ties: we have many serious and talented literary

scholars, including young ones, and we have

high scholarly traditions that have developed

both in the past []. But in spite o all this, it

seems to me that our recent literary scholarship

(rom essentially almost all o the past decade)

is, in general, neither realizing these possibilities


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82 Irene Machado

nor satisying our legitimate demands. Tere is

no bold statement o general problems, no dis-

coveries o new areas or signifcant individualphenomena in the boundless world o literature:

there is no real, healthy struggle among scho-

larly trends. A certain ear o the investigatory

risk, a ear o hypotheses, prevails. Literary

scholarship is still essentially a young science.

Its methods have not been developed and tested

through experience, as have those o the natural

sciences; thus, the absence o a struggle o trendsand the ear o bold hypotheses inevitably lead

to a predominance o truisms and stock phrases.

Unortunately, we have no shortage o them.

[]

As concerns my own evaluation o prospects or

the development o our literary scholarship, I

think they are quite good in view o our immense

potential. We lack only scholarly, investigatory

boldness, and without this we cannot rise to the

heights or descend to the depths.

(Mikhail M. Bakhtin 1996: 1, 7).

Introduction

Since the text, not culture, denes the oundations and assumptions osemiotics o culture studies, the activity o cultural semiosis appears asthe ensemble o semiotic ormations (Lotman, J. 2005: 218), in whicha set o interactions transorms inormation toward organized sign sys-tems. Namely, inormation becomes text. I the inormation interchangesare at the heart o the cultural semiosis, the text generation process isnothing but the essence o culture. Such line o reasoning leads JuriLotmans investigation on the dynamics o semiotic space, not as a place


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83The semiosphere as a critical theory of communication in culture

o sending and receiving inormation. Semiotic space emerges inside theexperiences o transorming inormation into sign systems.

Being at the core o the semiotics o culture, inormation processesand transormation dene the semiotic space where semiosis raises.ransorming, not transmitting inormation leads Lotmans semioticinvestigation to the depths o communication in cultural relationships.Te concept o text has surged as a new object or semiotics studies thatLotmans attempts undoubtully enlighten.

From the very beginning, the concept o text has been taken atthe core o the semiotic studies on culture. ext not only builds the

oundation o modern semiotics. Te methodological centrality otext supports the collaborative scientic project Teses on the SemioticStudy o Cultures (Ivanovet al. 1998: 38). Even more important wouldbe the notion o the cultural mechanism o transorming inorma-tion into text. Here the meaning generating process emerges rom thetransormation itsel. I at urther sequence o thoughts Lotman hadnot accomplished the semiosphere, we should call it simply semiosis.

Although Lotman introduced the concept o semiosphere or the

rst time in 19841, the understanding o transorming inormationinside a semiotic space had been careully considered on dierentoccasions in his studies. Te improvements in the understanding otransorming inormation into meaning generation processes openup the most challenging conception: Te semiosphere is that samesemiotic space, outside o which semiosis itsel cannot exist (Lotman,J. 2005: 208). Ever since, the semiotic investigation o culture claimsnew methodological hypothesis introduced by semiosphere.

1 Te rst edition o (On the semiosphere) appeared in Russianin 1984 in (Sign Systems Studies). In 1985, Lotmanpublished an Italian book (Lotman 1985) in which the ideas on the semiospherewere discussed rom the perspective o dialogic asymetry. In Lotman 1990, the con-cept o semiosphere was presented in the English edition in which he conceived thenotion o semiotic space as the mind o culture and as a place o autocommunica-

tive processes. Each publication ollows a dierent way o ocusing on the semioticinterconnection o the cultural sign systems.


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84 Irene Machado

Rather than introducing a new term to semiotic studies, Lotmansconception aords a new perspective to see the world o culture and

to interact with the inormation transormed into sign systems, andtexts. Tere are new questions looking or new answers. How do signsmeet each other and bring new ways o understanding the world intoexistence? Or beore this, how people, creatures, lie itsel could beconsidered as sign systems o culture like languages are? How do signsystems relate with one another in the larger sphere o the lieworld?How do they develop and survive conicts? At least, how communi-cation embodies the entire process o transorming inormation into

signs in the universe o culture?Semiotics o culture and Lotmans studies tried not to give us pre-

cise answers but to lead us to the world perception where we are botha part and a likeness o a vast intellectual mechanism, as he wrote onthe last page o his Universe o the Mind(Lotman, J. 1990: 273). Whathe said about the book, can be said about his conceptions. Both are anattempt to raise these questions and the answer to them in the creationo a general and historical semiotics o culture (Lotman, J. 1990: 273).

Mastery o the questions given above is ull o challenging ideas, andLotman discussed them not without accepting their paradoxicality.

Te purpose o this essay is to understand Lotmans ormulationson the paradoxes o communication and inormation theory as animportant step to semiospheres epistemological and methodologi-cal concerns. It is high time to put in the right place the paradoxicalscientic ormulation o communication that did not consider thetransorming dimension o inormation, as well as the semiotic spaceand semiosis itsel. But this is just one o the paradoxes supporting somany others.

Lotmans investigatory boldness would not even be noticed i hehad not dealt with the paradoxes o a theory enshrined as the scienticparadigmatic construction o the twentieth century.


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General hypothesis or a scientifc semiotic

study o culture

Following the path o the geochemist Vladimir I. Vernadsky (18631945) on the biosphere as the place where lie itsel is possible, Lotmanbrought up the semiosphere as a semiotic space where sign systemsinterrelate among them. Nevertheless, semiosphere is not even part othe biosphere in terms o its internal operation. Namely, the consti-tuents o the semiosphere are not necessarily time and causality, semi-otic space can be ormed not by mechanisms acquired rom physical

world, but by mechanisms specic to sign systems (Lotman, M. 2001:100)2. Te mechanisms o transorming inormation into text and omodelling sign systems into languages o culture do not exist as physi-cal but only inside semiotic space.

Despite the importance o such inspired terminology, in act, Lotmanwas overwhelmed by Vernadskys specic notion on the movement othe biosphere in which lie generates lie. In a letter to Boris Uspenskija sort o conession on this can be read: I am reading Vernadsky and[] I am stunned by one o his statements. [] I nd Vernadskysthought, deeply ounded on the experience o exploring cosmic geo-logy, that lie can arise only rom living, i.e. that it is preceded by lie(cited in Kull 2005: 178). Lotmans hypothesis on text inside the text,and text which precedes texts became a scientic standpoint not only

2

I would like to go a little urther on the distinction between biosphere and semio-sphere, enorcing the idea o semiosphere as semiotic space outside biology. AsMihhail Lotman asserts, Te relationship between semiosphere and biosphereis the relationship between two possible worlds. Tey exist, so to say, in parallel:while biosphere is ormed in accordance with laws o science (physics, biology etc),which is the realm o time and causality, semiosphere is ormed by means o semio-tic mechanisms. [] But i Tomas Sebeok and other critics o the conception osemiosphere regarded it as part o biosphere, and consequently semiotics as belong-ing to the eld o biology, then in my opinion the situation is just the opposite:biosphere itsel is not natural but semiotic object. Here we should draw attention

to the conception o Jakob von Uexkll, which diers rom Vernadskys biosphereprecisely by having a semiotic essence, not biological (Lotman, M. 2001: 100).


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86 Irene Machado

to be discussed but also to be taken as a paradigmatic expression owhat is specic to semiotics.

ext in text denes the movement o semiosphere as well as themethodological orientation to study interrelations between sign sys-tems, as Lotman and Ivanov observed on lm studies (Lotman, J. 1996:91109; Ivanov 1998: 1832). ext lls the essential eature o the mea-ning generation movement because o its dialogic condition. Since[d]ialogue becomes one o the most central mechanism o culture(Lotman, M. 2001: 103), text comes up as the dialogic space o inter-relations.

It will not be difcult to understand the dialogic encounter o cul-tures and the interrelations o dierent sign systems as the gateway tothe study o the semiosphere. Te dialogic encounter is understood as amechanism o sign production generated by codes, languages and theirurther transormations in cultural systems. I the dialogic encountero sign systems is taken as cultural translational process, we ace a newproblem or the semiotic study o culture, and the semiosphere is pre-sented as the intellectual device or analyzing them.

Tere is no doubt that a new object like the semiosphere requires adaring observer ready to propose daring thoughts. Tis was the role oJuri Lotman.

I do believe that Lotmans scientic investigatory boldness has con-ceived the semiosphere as a eld in which semiotic investigation canrise to the heights or descend to the depths, in the analysis o the signsystems o culture, requested by M. Bakhtin (1996: 7). Lotmans semio-sphere not only provides a dialogic response to the question raisedby M. Bakhtin but it also has overtaken the limitations o Bakhtinstheoretical approach. Te conceptual eld o the semiosphere does notconsider culture rom the perspective o literature or linguistics basedon the verbal world. According to Lotman, sign systems o culture canspeak so many languages as cultural codes are able to construct.Tere is no ear in ormulating hypotheses like that o text, polyglotism,and o the mind o culture.

Te concept o the mind o culture needs to be considered rst beoredelving deeper into Lotmans ambitious ideas. For now it should be said


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that the mind o culture is related to meaning generating inormationembodied in some sign systems organization, or texts o culture. As a

mechanism o meaning generation, semiosis unctions like the mind,not o the individual, but o the culture. As a phenomenon o mind,semiosis not only creates codes and languages o culture, but also therecoding process o translating languages. So, the entire culture unc-tions like an organism, or simply mind.

In this case, Universe o the Mind(Lotman, J. 1990) is not only thetitle o a daring work, but also the conceptual metaphor o semiosisitsel. Accordingly, Lotman ormulates the notion o culture as a thin-

king mechanism, endowed, thereore, with intelligence and memory.As a thinking mechanism that transorms inormation into text, cul-ture is a space o mind or the production o semiosis in which themechanisms o transormation and transmutation o energy generatenew inormation identied as intelligent action.

Culture as a thinking device; semiosis as an intelligent, produc-tive action: these are the essential issues in studying the semiospherethat I will now consider. Tese are Lotmans hypotheses or a scientic

semiotic study o culture as we I will try to demonstrate.Te awareness o the semiosphere as a cognitive domain o sig-

nication demands o the researcher the same bold methodologi-cal enterprise. He or she cannot be araid o the new hypotheses ounderstanding culture. In respect to this, Lotman has not hesitatedto criticize, or example, the old Shannon and Weavers diagram onthe transmission o messages, still alive in contemporary communi-cation studies. His general criticism is no less disturbing: he doesnot recognize communication as a message transmission device.According to Lotman (1985: 51), we can only recognize communica-tion as message transmission i we admit that the whole process ointeraction between codes, languages, and systems works to producenew inormation.Consequently, inormation is not a unit o measu-rement deined by the code. he assumption o the code as thesingular unit in whatever sign system is a paradox to be careully

examined.


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88 Irene Machado

In order to understand the coherence o the scientic assumptionsdeveloped by Lotman, it is necessary to cast doubt on the transposi-

tion o concepts, theories and knowledge whose oundations are notbased on the movement o unpredictability. So this article is an attemptto chase Lotmans scientic investigatory boldness which has disco-

vered semiosphere as a critical perspective or the semiotic study oculture.

From the semiotics o communication tothe semiotics o culture

When text emerges as the central concept o the semiotics o culture, thegeneral theory on communication loses its condition as the spokesmano transmission studies. Te uniqueness in dealing with communica-tion model, code, and transmission itsel composes the most polemicalo Lotmans inquiries. Instead o uniqueness, Lotman achieves model-

ling systems, codes o analyses and codes o synthesis, interpretation,and memory. In its unctioning, culture operates through communi-cation, transmission, and creation o new inormation. Cultural textsoperate as an intelligent device.

Te conception o culture as an intelligent3 relationship among sys-tems requires a deep understanding o the interaction among dierentelds, namely codes and languages in the process o generating inor-mation. System interactions establish two dierent processes in theconstitution o the semiosphere: the processing o inormation4 and theemergence o semiosis in the continuum o space-time relationships.

3 Intelligence is used in Lotmans semiotic meaning o textual transmission; ocreating new inormation, and o memory or preserving texts (Lotman 1990: 2).4 I do not think that Lotman understands inormation as a unit o measurementconceptualized by the theory o inormation and communication. According to theormulations presented in Te Structure o the Artistic ext(Lotman 1978), inorma-

tion is related to messages diused in the cosmos that still do not constitute lan-guage, previous, thereore, to the conventionality o the code.


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Tese two processes not only articulate inormation and culture butalso show how the universe o the mind unctions to produce sig-

nicant complex systems, that is, codes and languages. Tereore,understanding the semiosphere requires a metalinguistic exercise othought (production o knowledge) about thought (unctioning o thesystem). Tis is a genuinely semiotic work since, in order to talk aboutlanguage, language is essential, just as the sign, in order to be madeexplicit, must resort to another sign.

Tinking mechanisms represents an achievement o metacriticism.Te conceptual body is not given a priori to the researcher but requires

some critical devices that lead to reorganizing ideas, concepts and ope-rations. Tis theoretical reorganization requires a review o Lotmansinquiry o well-known communication theory based on transmission.Tis was the preliminary challenge aced by Lotman.

Since his early studies on semiosphere, Lotman brought to light thedistinction between semiotics o culture and semiotics o communi-cation. Tey should not be taken to be the same without the risk oeliminating the processes o semiosis. Lotman observes cultural orien-

tation towards diversity o languages and sign systems, polyglotismand heteroglossia5 as main remarkable eatures o culture. Althoughtransmission o inormation is the common problem to both commu-nication and culture theories, two dierent conceptional elds evolved.Lotmans understanding o inormation should not be taken as a mereapplication o the discoveries o Claude Shannon.

Needless to say, the mathematical theory o communication, deve-loped by Claude Shannon and augmented by Warren Weaver, is apraiseworthy scientic achievement o the last century. And Lotmannever ignored that. When proposing inormation as the measurementunit, Shannon has le an indelible mark in the scientic thinking indierent elds, rom cybernetics to human and lie sciences. In biology

5 Heteroglossia, like semiosphere, is an invented word through which M. Bakhtin(1981) expresses the multiaccentuality o speech in the novel. Not only social lie

but time, and the representation o the space o dialogical process and utterancesare considered.


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90 Irene Machado

it presented the need to organize, in an objective manner, knowledge othe code and the transmission process o genetic inormation. A trans-

ormative stage occurred in the ways o seeing lie. In this case, thetransmission o signals has supported the emergence o structures ogreat complexity.

We do recognize the scientic importance o the concept o inor-mation as a measurement unit as a scientic statement. However,although the theory is evidently a remarkable theory, it should not betaken as the only side o the issue.

Unortunately, the semiosic standard o complexity was not properly

considered in the studies o communication in culture. Te elemen-tary operation o the system, namely the signals transmitting patternson a straightorward transportation rom A to B, has been spread tothe entire theoretical body o communication processes and systems.Nevertheless, it should not be orgotten that machine codes are mathe-matical operations. By contrast, communication codes are structuredlanguages and they unction as a system o meaning generation. Tedistinction between codes in machine operation and codes engendered

in process o signication throughout language cannot be conused.Despite the revolution in dierent sciences, Lotman was unsure

about the legitimacy o the impact that the concept o transmittinginormation has on culture, especially when considered rom thestandpoint o the mathematical operations codes. Cultural semiosisshould not be compared with the signal transmission simply becauseit is moving in dierent directions, in time and space. Te spatial diag-ram has imposed a model o transmission that enables, at best, theexpression o a very general semiotics o communication as the trans-mission o signals like those in the mechanism o electrical machinecircuits. It cannot support, however, the semiosis o culture in itscode-generating diversity, in its potential capacity o translation andtransmutation, thereore, in its dialogic heteroglossia. Monologicalprocess o mathematical signals cannot be compared to the dialogicalprocess o meaning generation. It should not be orgotten that while

the machine system has to be efcient, the communication system has


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to be meaningul. Only meaningul processes are capable o producinginteraction and translation.

What Shannon initially called communication was the displace-ment o inormational units. Te dislocation o signals in a xed pathwas totally ree o modication in its route. Te possibility o distur-bances or noise itsel had been predicted by the machines operatingsystem, and it was able to stop any sort o intererence (Lotman 1985:50; Lotman 1990: 9120).

Lotmans criticism o Shannons model started by considering notonly the impossibility o such single and isolated operation, but also

the cultural diversity o sign systems, codes, and language processes.Within an isolated operating system based on transmission, the com-munication analysis inside culture is simply not conceivable. Beyondthe mere transmission o messages by signals, there is the transorma-tion o codes that takes place in the same process, not o transmission,but o interaction, that is, coding-decoding-recoding. Here the com-munication process is ocused on another level o perormance: on thelevel o translation. It is about a dialogic circuit that considers neither

the transportation nor the transmission, but the transmutation o thesigns creative energies something like the perormance o the poeticunction. When Lotman assumed the paradigm o transormation,he was no longer talking about the semiotics o the communicationarising rom the spatial diagram. He was considering the semiotics oculture as a dierent approach to communication. In the system o cul-ture, communication should be seen as a text that requires historicalinterconnections.

Lotman distinguished between two dierent but complementarytrends in communication studies: the semiotics o communication andthe semiotics o culture. Te rst trend considers communication as atransmission device based on a single code in which the monolingualsystem produces messages that are the materialized expression o thissingle language. Te code machine ts this model. Te second trendconsiders communication as the transormation o texts into texts,

such as the written systems o signs. Te messages o the rst trend are


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92 Irene Machado

based on the process o inormation encoding and decoding rom asingle code along two poles: the emission and the reception. Te mes-

sages o the second trend report on the processes o semiosis by model-ling6 inormation into texts. It is no longer the single code and operators,but various codes in interaction that give rise to cultural systems.

Although it is not our purpose here to discuss the ideas o RomanJakobson, it is important to acknowledge the contributions o his or-mulation to clariying the above conrontation.

Unlike Lotman, Roman Jakobson did not hide his excitement aboutShannons conception. In act, he took the diagram on communication

to think about language and its unctioning. How should an understan-ding o variantions be possible in a closed set o invariable operations?Tis was an old question or Jakobson (Jakobson 1990: 143213). Tesix-actor communication circuit was devised as one possibility. It doesnot propose a hierarchy: the message is the primary ocus in ordinarylinguistic exchange; but the poetic unction could gain the ocus ina metalinguistic process. Tereore, there is no longer a straightor-ward transmission. Jakobsons six actors shaped the perormance

o language, so the unctions o language do not speciy the correctposition o the sender, message, receiver, code, channel or context asdoes the spatial diagram o communication designed by Shannon-Weaver.

Jakobsons model was the rst step towards a wider contextualiza-tion o the accomplishments o the perormance language in culture.Te second step was taken by Mikhail Bakhtins dialogic interaction.Lotman advanced when proposing the concept o text as a meaning-generating mechanism characterized by three unctions: transmitting,generating, and memory (Lotman 1990: 919). Tese are not isolatedactions but belong to the movement that allows us to distinguish the

6 Modelling is the word to designate data processing o inormatics devices. Forthe semiotics o culture every sign system is endowed with a modelling capacity.Tat is to say: the codes transorm inormation into signication. Modelling, in thiscontext is ar rom building a model. Modelling corresponds to the ability to pro-

duce cognitive relationships. Tat is why the modelling system o culture gures asone o the most essential concepts rom artu-Moscow School.


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semiotics o culture rom the semiotics o communication. Tese arethe necessary criteria to ace the paradoxes o communication in culture.

Beore starting to deal with the paradoxes o communication, wemust emphasize the impact o Lotmans ideas on some studies con-cerning problems o communication.

Tinking about the problem o cinema reception by consideringearly Russian lms, Juri sivian ollows the tracks le by Lotman andJakobson saying:

According to Roman Jakobsons theory, as developed in the writings o Yuri

Lotman, there exists a distinction between semiotics as a communicationsdiscipline and what Lotman denes as cultural semiotics. Te distinction isin the angle o research. Te semiotics o communication examines the waypeople transmit inormation, and the model situation isperson text per-son. Within this model the best text is the one that best serves the purpose ocommunication. Te clearer the channel the better the message transmittedalong it. Other signals passing along the channel are regarded as backgroundintererence.Cultural semiotics has a dierent object. It studies texts as they are processedtrough people. Here the model is text person text, and the main inte-

rest lies in the distortions rather than in the clarity o the message. Culturalsemiotics, thereore, investigates the discrepancies between the input andoutput texts. What or communication is background intererence or noisemay be turned into message by culture. New texts are oen born as misrea-dings o older ones. (sivian 1991: 104)

Here we should also mention the concerns about semiosis and theattempts to put it in the right place in communication studies. Havingin mind the semiotic ideas on text and non-text, Gran Sonesson has

achieved his critique o communication critique on the spatial meta-phor and the theoretical models built outside the dierent levels osemiosis (Sonesson 1999).

Semiotics o culture did not only observe paradoxes in communi-cation7 and its theoretical domain, but also tried to comprehend suchparadoxes as a semiotic problem within the semiotic space o culture.

7

For methodological assumptions on the paradoxes rom a wide perspective oncommunication see Kull 2005: 175189.


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Paradoxes o communication

Even i the efciency o the abstract model o transmission was takenor granted as the paradigm or any communicational system, the mes-sage plays the role o a mere passive carrier o sense and, as such, itmakes the materialization o language explicit (Lotman 1985: 50) inthe process o transmission. Moreover, this sort o message is joined tothe metalanguage o articial languages which guarantees the stabi-lity o the system and prevents any alteration. Limited to the operationo an isolated system, the process o transmission takes place as the

continuous emission o signals by means o a single code. ransmis-sion shall apply only to primary level system, ar rom any possibilityo interaction. Lotmans assumptions on the abstract model o com-munication look or something missing: the semiotic space o meaninggeneration, or simply semiosis.

However, what at rst appears to be only a theoretical review,emerges later as the boldness o a thought not rightened by the para-doxes. It seems that Lotman has believed or his entire lie that nellasera delle ricerche semiotiche si rivelano sempre pi chiaramentealcuni paradossi8 (Lotman 1985: 49). As Mihhail Lotman conrmedlater, [g]enerally, Yuri Lotman was not araid o paradoxes, but he didnot avoid them (Lotman, M. 2001: 98).

Beore going on, we should ask: What is paradox or Lotman? Whatkind o paradox is Lotman talking about?

According to Mihhail Lotman, the mathematician Vladimir Uspen-

skij has oered the basic ramework o Lotmans thought: paradoxicalis the argument which is an opposite to some orthodoxical opinion(Uspenskij, quoted in Lotman, M. 2001: 98).

I a paradox includes an inner controversion (Lotman, M. 2001:98), then paradoxes o communication should be taken to be the coreo the controversial process o transmission.

8

In the eld o the semiotics research always reveals some kind o paradoxes (reetranslation).


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We would like to outline the three paradoxes in Lotmans criti-cism on communication theory: (1) Te model A B transmitting

messages, rom the addresser to the addressee; (2) Te notion o enco-ding and decoding as isolated operations; (3) Te idea that culture is amonolingual device.

Te rst paradox was born at the core o the theory o inormationand communication. It presupposes the point-to-point transmissionbased on the so-called efciency o a single code between addresserand addressee. According to Lotman, the model works because it isapplied only to the lower processing level o the system, almost without

complexity (Lotman 1985: 50). I it cannot be applied to the com-munication processes o a higher level o complexity, it should not beadmitted into the cultural context o sign systems. It should be men-tioned that rom the viewpoint o simplied languages transmissionsupports others paradoxes.

Sender and receiver playing dierent roles in the communicativeprocess suggest the second paradox to Lotman. In the eld o inor-mation theory emission and reception, encoding and decoding, are

dierent activities. Each one perorms its specic task. Even i the sameand only code is used, there are no possibilities o changing places.Encoding and decoding provide the efciency o the system as well asits predictability.

According to the temporal dimension o culture, its history, andthe languages that have been generated by cultural codes throughouthistory, all sign systems are examples o an accurate dialogic processo sel-organization, and the relationship among the systems is a sel-communication process. Instead o the I HE relation, the culturaltransormations operate with I I relations (Lotman 1990: 2022;1998: 4245), as the ollowing quote delineates:

In the II system the bearer o the inormation remains the same but themessage is reormulated and acquires new meaning during the communica-tion process. Tis is the result o introducing a supplementary, second, code;the original message is recoded into elements o its structure and thereby

acquires eatures o a new message.


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[] he Is/he system allows one merely to transmit a constantquantity o inormation, whereas the II system qualitatively transormsthe inormation, and this leads to a restructuring o the actual I itsel.

(Lotman 1990: 22)

Lotmans conceptions introduce the third and the greatest paradox ocommunication and cultural theory: the entire culture does not speaksolely one unique language. Even the most simplied language plays animportant role within the whole system. o belong to a hierarchy doesnot mean to be speechless. Every system o culture has to be able toorganize inormation into a kind o language, or, a system o languages.So, every system speaks its specic language.

Supported by his concerns on cultures polyglotism, i languagedenes the organized system by means o signs, then when observingthe interrelationships among cultural sign systems, the recoding pro-cess appears as the main activity o the entire organization. Encodingand decoding do not say anything about the communicational interac-tion o culture. Tereore, language o culture was not shaped by the

single encoding-decoding sign systems perormance. Languages oculture are modelling systems o recoding.Te more the semiotics o culture improved the description o the

semiotic modelling systems, the more an understanding o cultureslinguistic complexity has increased. Tere is at least one reason orthis: all the modelling systems o culture emerged rom current cul-tural codes. Hence, cultural codes are, in themselves, recodications:they cannot be produced as a result o a metalinguistic exercise. Te

modelling process is the extreme opposite o simplication, since itexists only through the semiosis o cultural codes. Tereore, Lotmansachievements overcome the ragility o the abstract model supportedby the theory o communication and inormation.

Upon understanding the three paradoxes, Lotman states: semioticstudies cannot be reduced to a single mechanism o the transmission oinormation (Lotman 1985: 51). Tis is only one o their unctions important but not the most essential. Te primordial task o the semi-

otic system, dening it as such, is the production o new inormation,


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a sui generis intellect. Needless to say, we came across the very notion otext, namely the text o culture and the universe o the mind.

Te new idea that was brought into the scientic eld o communi-cation by Lotmans investigatory boldness, touches the core o semiosisas a semiotic space where dierent languages arise. It should be saidthat the concept o text not only takes the place o the abstract model ocommunication. It strikes a mortal blow to the centralized idea o codetransmission. As Mihhail Lotman asserts,

From the viewpoint o artu semiotics we cannot speak o text beyond com-

munication a text does not precede an act o communication. ext and acto communication are relational notions, one does not exist without another;there is no text beyond communication, there is no communication indepen-dent o text. Te same applies to other participants in the act o communication:they become such only in course o this act. [] Even more important is thenotion o autocommunication, where addresser and addressee appear as thesame physical person. What distinguishes them is text. (Lotman, M. 2001: 102)

Autocommunication has reached the highest degree o paradoxicality

among Lotmans ormulations. Communication does not arise romthe prexated unity; it creates unity, communia. Communication pro-duces me in the other and the other in me (Lotman, M. 2001: 102).

At this point it should be asked in what sense do Lotmans ideaspresuppose Bakhtins conception on dialogism?

Beore Mikhail Bakhtin and Lotman, Roman Jakobson had alsoassumed that the listener is a potential speaker in interactions. Fromthe point o view o Bakhtinian dialogical assumptions,

[] me and you appear as products o dialogue and dialogue turns out tobe an existential notion: without you, who is in dialogue with me, thereis no me either. Tereore, me and you are not constants, but variables:though or him also the participants o dialogue are indivisible entireties. ForBakhtin me is not the one that splits, but the word. Te word is bigger thandialogue and or Bakhtin the word is dialogical. (Lotman, M. 2001: 102)

Lotmans thinking on autocommunication inside semiotic space

goes ar and has overshadowed Bakhtinian logosphere. However,


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98 Irene Machado

interrelations should be taken into account. Michael Holquist (1981:433) noticed that the Bakhtinian ormulation on the Galilean per-

ception o language [] that denies the absolutism o a single andunitary language (Bakhtin 1981: 366) approaches the Lotmaniansemiosphere. Tey are thinking about relationships in dierentlevels. Holquist reproduces a Lotman quotation which seems to beBakhtins.

[] this is a process, not a state. Languages are continually stratiying underpressure o the centriugal orce, whose project everywhere is to challengexed denitions. [] Stratication destroys unity, [] to create new stratais the express purpose o art, or as Lotman happily put it, art is a magni-cently organized generator o languages (Structure o the Artistic ext, p. 4).

(Holquist 1981: 433)

Bakhtinian dialogism diers rom semiospheres cultural dialogicalmechanism in at least one aspect: the autocommunication process omeaning generating texts.

Not only the notion o the text, but also the dynamics o polyglotism

were considered with all their greater implications: the natural move-ment o culture is toward abundance, not toward economy (Lotman1985: 51). Aer all, the various systems are deeply interconnected; con-sequently, they have a strong need to guarantee the semiodiversity othe planetary ecosystems.

Autocommunication does not arise inside logosphere but canonly move toward the semiotic space o culture that Lotman calledsemiosphere. Because o its irregularity, asymmetry, and diversity thesemiotic space inside semiosphere was described paradoxically.

I we started saying that Lotman was not araid o paradoxes wecan now assert: Lotman not only observed the theoretical paradoxeso communication, but he ound himsel dealing with the paradoxes osemiosphere. However, he has assumed a dierent strategy. Lotman hasembraced the paradox as the process o theoretical modelling. How airwould it be to say that the logosphere, and even Shannon and Weavers

conceptions, were avoiding any suggestions o paradox?


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Te semiosphere can be seen as a unied eld o simultaneousinterrelationships, where everything asymmetrical and irregular

lives on the boundaries. From Lotmans semiosphere there surges theepistemological metaphor o communication: the museum metaphordescribed as ollows:

Irregularity on one structural level increases the usion o levels. In the realityo the semiosphere, the hierarchy o languages and texts, as a rule, is disturbed:and these elements collide as though they coexisted on the same level. extsappear to be immersed in languages which do not correspond to them, andcodes or deciphering them may be completely absent. Imagine a room in a

museum, where exhibits rom dierent eras are laid out in dierent windows,with texts in known and unknown languages, and instructions or deciphe-ring them, together with explanatory texts or the exhibitions created byguides who map the necessary routes and rules o behaviour or visitors. I weplace into that room still more visitors, with their own semiotic worlds, thenwe will begin to obtain something resembling a picture o the semiosphere.(Lotman 2005: 2134; Lotman 1990: 126127)

Te semiotic space where the diversity o sign systems, o visual com-

munication codes, o architecture design, o people speaking dierentlanguages, builds up, shapes the meaning generating universe o thesemiosphere or the universe o the mind, as Lotman put it. In act,the structural heterogeneity o semiotic space represents the episte-mological metaphor o communication or, to be more specic, o theinteractive process o communication.

Te study o the semiosphere ocuses on diversity and the unpre-dictable sign systems o the world. At the end o his reasoning Lotman

concludes: aer having assimilated the experience o linguistics,semiotics o culture goes towards culturology (Lotman 1985: 51). Teapproach o culturology does not intend to sweep away the paradoxesmentioned previously, but proposes alternatives about the dynamicunctioning o culture. Aer all, without paradox, no science can bepossible Lotman dares to say at the end o his reasoning.

Mihhail Lotman, as well as Kalevi Kull devoted signicant stu-dies on the use o paradoxes in theoretical ormulations. Based onLotmans paradoxical conceptions, both o them took into account the


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100 Irene Machado

paradoxality o communication in relation to semiosphere. Kulls con-cerns on code duality relate to the coexistence o continuality and

discreteness in any orm o meaning-creating or signicant communi-cation (Kull 2005: 177). Mihhail Lotman uncovered communicationmechanisms according to dialogue, translation, and creativity, to dealwith autocommunication processes oriented by continuum interrela-tionships inside semiosphere.

I paradoxes o communication are settled in semiotic space, thenthe interactive play o orces claims or complementarity descriptions(Kull 2005: 177). Namely, paradoxes hold the methodological role

in semiotics. Lotman aced the paradox to rise to the heights anddescend to the depths to the ground o semiosphere.

Conclusion

General mechanism o culture does not only maintain inormation,

but also preserves it and processes it continuously by encoding, deco-ding, recoding, and translating languages. Even Lotman has consid-ered the text o culture as a memory device, and a program o action;such a program works through unpredictable operations. In this sense,

Dene l essenza della cultura come inormazione signica porre il problemadel rapporto che sussiste ra la cultura e le categorie ondamentali della suatrasmissione e conservazione, e in primo luogo del rapporto ra la culturae le nozioni di lingua e testo, con linsieme di questioni che esse implicano.(Lotman, J.; Uspenskij 1975: 29)9

According to Lotman, inormation precedes communication sinceit is the principle o lie. Whereas lie is the inevitability o culture,

9 Dening the essence o culture as inormation means to raise the questionabout the relation between the culture and its undamental categories, that is, its

transmissions and preservation, and rst o all, the relation between the culture andthe linguistic notion o text, with all their implications.


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inormation is the conditioner o lie itsel. Tis is what Lotman statesaer realizing that inormation is not a acultative attribute, but a vital

condition or the existence o humanity. Fighting moves biological andsocial survival toward inormation. Fighting or lie is ghting or inor-mation, say Lotman and Uspenskij (1975: 28). Tereore, Lotmansthorough arguments on the limits o the theory o communication leadto reconsider inormation processing in culture. Even beore being anobject o transmission, all inormation undergoes a sort o semioticmediation when general transmission is encoded. In short, it is aboutan activity that does not lose sight o semiosis, as Lotmans accomplish-

ments have edged towards the typology o culture.

Te goals o the typology o culture can thus be dened as: (1) descriptiono the main types o cultural codes on the basis o which the languages oindividual cultures, with their comparative characteristics, take shape; (2)determination o the universals o human culture; (3) construction o a singlesystem o typological characteristics relating to the undamental culturalcodes and universal traits that constitute the general structure o human cul-ture. (Lotman 1977: 214)

An important distinguishing eature ollows: the code o communica-tion in culture is not an abstract model, but a complex maniestation.A dynamic mechanism regulates the action between the variant andinvariants o the sign system. From the point o view o culture, code isa process o semiosis that develops the capacity o transorming inor-mation into meaning, and not only o transporting it. Te semioticconcept o code presupposes transormation, change, and eedback.

It is time to acknowledge that cultural codes are constructions oother codes available in culture. In this sense, cultural codes are model-ling systems o inormation: they only develop through recodiyingor translating processes. Te one that generates the inormation alsotransorms it by means o the intelligent device o memory. Tat is theaim o the typological study o culture.

In constructing a typological and structural history o culture, we must neces-

sarily base our analysis on a separation o the content o cultural texts rom


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102 Irene Machado

the structure o their language. In considering the sum total o acts avail-able to the historian o culture, we must also distinguish between the systemthat can theoretically be reconstructed (a cultures language) and the way in

which the culture is realized rom the mass o material external to the system(a cultures speech).

In this way, we can examine all the acts in the history o culture rom twopoints o view: as signicant inormation, and as the system o social codesthat permits the expression o this inormation with signs in order to make itthe patrimony o a human collectivity. (Lotman 1977: 214)

From the standpoint o semiosphere, paradoxes o communication leadsemiotic investigation not only to epistemological or methodologicalthinking: it is time to advance towards the ontology o communication(see Machado, Romanini 2011). Lotmans scientic investigatory bold-ness has opened the path. What should we do but continue?10

Reerences

Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981. Discourse in the novel. Te Dialogical Imagination. FourEssays by M.M. Bakhtin. [Emerson, Caryl; Holquist, Michael, trans.] Austin andLondon: University o exas Press, 259422.

1996. Response to a question rom the Novy Mir editorial sta. Speech Genres&Other Late Essays [McGee, Vern W., trans.; Emerson, Caryl; Holquist, Michael,eds.]. Austin: University o exas Press, 19.

Holquist, Michael 1981. Glossary. In: Bakhtin 1981: 423434.Ivanov, Viacheslav V. 1998. El lme en el lme. In: Metz, C.; Ivanov, V. V. Filme(s) en

el flm. El intexto lmico [Navarro, Desiderio, trans.]. Valencia: Episteme.

Ivanov, V. V.; Lotman, J. M.; Pjatigorski, A. M.; oporov, V. N.; Uspenskij, B. A.;1998. Teses on the Semiotic Study o Cultures. artu Semiotics Library 1. artu:artu University Press.

Jakobson, Roman 1990. On linguistic aspects o translation. In: Brower, R. A. (ed.),On ranslation. Harvard University Press.

Kull, Kalevi 2005. Semiosphere and a dual ecology: Paradoxes o communication.Sign Systems Studies, 33(1): 175189.

Lotman, Juri 1977. Problems in the typology o culture. In: Lucid, Daniel P. (ed.),Soviet Semiotics. An Anthology. Baltimore and London: Te Johns Hopkins Uni-

versity Press, 213221.

10 Tanks to Wilma Clark or the careul reading, corrections and suggestions.


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1978.A estrutura do texto artstico. Lisboa: Estampa. [Raposo, M.C.V.; Raposo,A., trans.; In English: Te Structure o the Artistic ext. Providence, RhodeIsland: Brown University Slavic Reprint, 9, 1971.]

1984. c. (Sign Systems Studies).artu: artu Riikliku likooli oimetised 17: 523.

1985. La semiosera.Lasimmetria e il dialogo nelle struture pensanti. [Salvestroni,Simonetta, trans. and ed.] Venezia: Marsilio.

1990. Universe o the Mind. A Semiotic Teory o Culture. [Shukman, Ann,trans.] Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

1996. El texto en el texto. La semiosera. Semiotica de la cultura y del texto[Navarro, Desiderio, trans.] Madrid: Ctedra.

1998. La semiosera. Semitica de la cultura, del texto, de la conducta y del espa-cio. Madrid: Ctedra.

2005. On the semiosphere. [Clark, Wilma, trans.]. Sign Systems Studies 33(1):205229.

Lotman, Jurij; Uspenskij, Boris A. 1975. ipologia della cultura. Milano: Bompiani.Lotman, Mihhail 2001. Te paradoxes o semiosphere. Sun Yat-sen Journal o

Humanities 12: 97106.Machado, Irene; Romanini, Vincius 2011. Semiotic o communication: From

semiosis o nature to culture. Biosemiotics 4 (Published online: 15 April 2011).Sonesson, Gran 1999. Te lie o signs in society and out o it: Critique o the

communication critique. Sign Systems Studies 27: 88127.

sivian, Yuri 1991. Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception. Chicago: Uni-versity o Chicago Press.

:

, , -

B, /. , - : (1) - , ; (2) ; (3) , . - . , .


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104 Irene Machado

, - .

Lotmani teadusuurijalik julgus: semiosfr kui kultuurisisese

kommunikatsiooni kriitiline teooria

Kesoleva artikli keskmeks on semiosri miste anals ja see, kuidasnimetatud miste on sndinud arusaamast kultuurist kui inormatsioo-nist mitte kui snumi edastamisest A-lt B-le, vaid kui ldisest then-dusloome protsessist. Jrgides Lotmani kriitikat kommunikatsiooni para-

dokside ning selle teoreetilise vlja suhtes, astub kesolev artikkel vastujrgmistele paradoksaalsetele mistetele ja arusaamadele: (1) klassikaliselearusaamisele sellest, kuidas saatja teadet vastuvtjale esitab; (2) isoleeritudttlevate ssteemide mistele; (3) arusaamisele, et kogu kultuur rgibhte keelt. Semiosri vaatepunktist lhtudes oleks taoliste vastuolilistenhtuste uurimiseks sobiv uus objekt teksti miste. Kui kultuurianalsikeskmesse paigutada teksti miste, ei ilmne midagi isoleeritult. Lotmanimtlemine ei tunne hirmu uute hpoteeside ees, kui ta pakub kultuuri tea-dusliku uurimise jaoks semiosri mistevlja.


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