The Semiosphere: Definition and Characteristics

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 985.

CODE

ADDRESSOR--------------MESSAGE---------------ADDRESSEE

CONTEXT

It implies that what one says and what the other understands is exactly the same and that the addresser and the addressee have not just an identical code but also identical personal and cultural memory. It also implies that the transfer of meaning is a predictable and reversible process. This obviously is a simplification. It also does not explain how memory is stored in culture nor does it explain generation of new meaning.

On the other hand, the cultural semiotics model of communication is based on the view that what one says and what the other understands is not exactly the same and that the addresser and the addressee have non-identical memories. It implies that communication is not entirely a predictable process. Besides, the very idea of code, Lotman notes (2004), “carries with it the idea of an artificial, newly created structure, introduced by instantaneous agreement. A code does not imply history, that is, psychologically it orients us towards artificial language, which is also, in general, assumed to be an ideal model of language. “Language”, albeit unconsciously, awakes in us an image of the historical reach of existence. Language – is a code plus its history. (4)”.

Lotman (2004: 5) comes up with another model of semiotic communication based on the assumption of non-identity between addressor and addressee and where an area of intersection in the lingual space between them is established. The space of intersection between A and B becomes the natural basis of communication.

In a situation where there is no intersection, Lotman points out, communication appears to be impossible, whilst a full intersection (where A and B are deemed identical) renders communication insipid. This is where the paradox of human communication arises. The exchange of information within intersecting parts usually turns out to be trivial, self same and redundant. It appears that the value of dialogue is linked not to the intersecting part, but to the transfer of information between non-intersecting parts. He remarks, “We are interested in communication in the very sphere which complicates communication and, in actual fact, renders it impossible. Moreover, the more difficult and inadequate the translation of one non-intersecting part of the space into the language of the other, the more valuable, in informative and social terms, the fact of this paradoxical communication becomes. You could say that the translation of the untranslatable may in turn become the carrier of information of the highest value. (5-6).”

There is a paradoxical struggle to facilitate understanding, which will always attempt to extend the area of the intersection, and the struggle to amplify the value of the communication, which is linked to the tendency of maximally amplifying the difference between A and B. Thus, in normal lingual communication it is necessary to introduce the concept of tension,some form of resistance, which the spaces A and B use to oppose one another. It is this tension and resistance which is at heart of human communication. Lotman asserts, “Lingual communication reveals itself to us as the tense intersection between adequate and inadequate lingual acts. Most of all, non-comprehension (conversation in languages which are not fully identical) reveals itself to be just as valuable a meaning-making mechanism as comprehension.” Lotman points out, “Not only understanding but also misunderstanding is a necessary and useful condition in communication. A text that is absolutely comprehensible is at the same time a text that is absolutely useless. (1990: 80).”

A minimally functioning semiotic structure consists of not one artificially isolated language or text in that language, but of a parallel pair of mutually untranslatable languages which are, however, connected by a 'pulley', which is translation (1990:2). In this bilingual model of semiotic communication, translation plays a decisive role in generation of new information and meaning. Cultural semiotics defines meaning as translation. Communication, according to this model is an irreversible and unpredictable phenomenon.

Lotman goes on to define what is ‘new information and new text' in terms of translation in a bilingual situation: “If the translation of text T1 from language L1 to language L2 leads to the appearance of text T2 in such a way that the operation of a reverse translation results in the input text T1 then we do not consider text T2 to be new in relation to text T1. (13-14)”. A new text or information, according to this view, is defined as that translated text which when retranslated into the matrix code or the language is not identical with the matrix text. He argues, ‘translation is a primary mechanism of consciousness. To express something in another language is the way of understanding it. (127)” and that “the elementary act of thinking is translation. (143).” The Jakobson model of cultural communication based an artificial (simplified) language and artificially simplified communicator has, “a strictly limited memory capacity and all cultural baggage will be removed from the semiotic personality” and is incapable of dealing with how culture or text generates new information.

When the languages are highly dissimilar, for instance, one is a visual language and the other is a verbal or musical language, there is hardly any equivalence of similarity. In such cases, Lotman remarks, “‘illegitimate', imprecise, but approximate translation is one of the most important features of any creative thinking. For these ‘illegitimate ‘associations provoke new semantic connections and give rise to texts that are in principle new ones.” Lotman building on the process of bilingualism and translation goes on to define ‘the semantic trope' like the metaphor and metonymy, which constitute the essence of creative thinking and which are inherent to all creativity. He defines the semantic trope as “a pair of mutually non-juxtaposable signifying elements, between which, thanks to the context they share, a relationship of adequacy is established' (38).” At least one aspect of the semantic trope is the visual language. He points out that the principle of juxtaposition lies at the basis of various branches of the avant-garde, however, what is important, according to him, is that the meaning generating principle of the text as a whole lies in the juxtaposition of segments that are in principle not juxtaposable. Their mutual recoding creates a language capable of many readings, a fact which opens up unexpected reserves of meaning. (44).

Using Lotman's model of communication to understand poetry and art can have radical implications for the study of literature and arts in the social and cultural contexts. According to the Saussure-Jakobson model of informational communication, language is seen as “as a machine for transmitting invariant messages, and poetic language is then regarded as a small and, generally speaking, abnormal corner of this system. According to this approach poetic language is seen merely as natural language with an overlay of supplementary restrictions and hence a significantly reduced informational capacity”. Whereas according to Lotman's model, “the creative function is a universal quality of language and poetic language is regarded as the most typical manifestation of language as such. From this point of view it is precisely the opposite semiotic models which then are regarded as a small corner of the linguistic space. (17).” It also becomes possible to view culture as a space made up of “the spectrum of texts” laid out on an axis, “one pole of which is formed by the artificial languages and the other by artistic ones.” This pole, Lotman warns, is an ‘abstraction unrealizable in actual languages”.

Lotman argues that the Jakobson model of semiotics is largely ‘atomistic', that is it starts from a single, simple element – a sign or a single communicative act based on the Jakobson's model. Such a model is reductive one as it reduces the complexity of the object to be studied to a totality of simple. He points out, “A schema consisting of addresser, addressee and the channel linking them together is not yet a working system. For it to work it has to be 'immersed' in semiotic space. All participants in the communicative act must have some experience of communication, be familiar with semiosis. So, paradoxically, semiotic experience precedes the semiotic act. (1990: 123)”

In short, meaning generation, according to Lotman, is the ability both of culture as a whole and of its parts to put out, in the “output”, nontrivial new texts. New texts are the texts that emerge as results of irreversible processes (in Ilya Prigogine's sense), i.e. texts that are unpredictable to a certain degree (Cited by Peeter Torop, 2005).

The Jakobson mono-semantic systems do not exist in isolation. They function only by being immersed in a specific semiotic continuum, which is filled with multi-variant semiotic models situated at a range of hierarchical levels. Such a continuum Lotman, by analogy with the concept of “biosphere” introduced by V. I. Vernadsky, calls the ‘semiosphere'. (1984: 206). Against the traditional reductive and atomistic model of semiotics, Lotman proposes a holistic and complex model. He says, “Just as, by sticking together individual steaks, we don't obtain a calf, but by cutting up a calf, we may obtain steaks, — in summarizing separate semiotic acts, we don't obtain a semiotic universe. On the contrary, only the existence of such a universe — the semiosphere —makes the specific signatory act real (208).” The unit of semiosis, the smallest functioning mechanism is not the separate language but the whole semiotic space of the culture in question.

The semiosphere is that synchronic semiotic space which fills the borders of culture, without which separate semiotic systems cannot function or come into being. It is defined as, “the semiotic space necessary for the existence and functioning of languages, not the sum total of different languages; in a sense the semiosphere has a prior existence and is in constant interaction with languages. In this respect a language is a function, a cluster of semiotic spaces and their boundaries, which, however clearly defined these are in the language's grammatical self-description, in the reality of semiosis are eroded and full of transitional forms. Outside the semiosphere there can be neither communication, nor language. (Lotman 1990: 122-123).”

Other two chief attributes of the semiosphere are its internal heterogeneity and asymmetry. The languages which fill up the semiotic space are various (heterogeneous), and they relate to each other along the spectrum which runs from complete mutual translatability to just as complete mutual untranslatability i.e. they are asymmetrical. With the mechanism of translation as the primary mechanism of meaning-generation, the entire semiosphere is considered as generator of information. (127). Lotman notes, asymmetry is apparent in the relationship between the centre of the semiosphere and its periphery. At the centre of the semiosphere are formed the most developed and structurally organized languages, and in first place the natural language of that culture. The discourses of self-description, including ‘criticism' and theorization such as the one presented in this essay ( as semiosphere studying itself, as culture studying itself) can be thought of as one of the unifying mechanisms of a semiosphere.

Another significant attribute of the semiosphere is the notion of the boundary. Every culture begins by dividing the world into 'its own' internal space, and 'their' external space. Paradoxically, the internal space of a semiosphere is at the same time unequal yet unified, asymmetrical yet uniform. Composed as it is of conflicting structures, it none the less is also marked by individuation. One of the primary mechanisms of semiotic individuation is the boundary. This space is 'ours', 'my own', it is 'cultured', 'safe', 'harmoniously organized', and so on. By contrast 'their space' is 'other', 'hostile', 'dangerous', 'chaotic'. (Lotman 1990:131).

The notion of boundary, in cultural semiotics, is an ambivalent one: it both separates and unites. It is always the boundary of something and so belongs to both frontier cultures, to both contiguous semiospheres. The boundary is bilingual and polylingual. The boundary is a mechanism for translating texts of an alien semiotics into 'our' language, it is the place where what is 'external' is transformed into what is internal', it is a filtering membrane which so transforms foreign texts that they become part of the semiosphere's internal semiotics while still retaining their own characteristics (Lotman 1990: 136-137). The internal boundaries between multiple languages and the external boundaries between the semiosphere are semiotic hotspots, the translational sites for meaning generation.

The semiosphere is always a dynamic system. It is what is termed ‘hybrid system', i.e. a system that displays both continuous-dynamic behaviour (flow) as well as discrete-dynamic behaviour (jumps). The semiosphere is also a ‘chaotic' system that it displays characteristics of both deterministic modes of change and the unpredictable and uncertain behaviour.

In Culture and Explosion (2004), Lotman postulates that culture and semiotic systems change in two ways: they change gradually, linearly and predictably or they change abruptly, non-linearly and unpredictably or in his terms ‘explosively' (7). The relationship between the two processes is dialectical. He notes, “Culture, whilst it is a complex whole, is created from elements which develop at different rates, so that any one of its synchronic sections reveals the simultaneous presence of these different stages. Explosions in some layers may be combined with gradual development in others. This, however, does not preclude the interdependence of these layers. Thus, for example, dynamic processes in the sphere of language and politics or of morals and fashion demonstrate the different rates at which these processes move. (12)”

“So across any synchronic section of the semiosphere different languages at different stage of development is in conflict, and some texts are immersed in languages not their own, while the codes to decipher them with may be entirely absent. As an example of a single world looked at synchronically, imagine a museum hall where exhibits from different periods are on display, along with inscriptions in known and unknown languages, and instructions for decoding them; besides there are the explanations composed by the museum staff, plans for tours and rules for the behaviour of the visitors. Imagine also in these hall tour-leaders and the visitors and imagine all this as a single mechanism (which in a certain sense it is). This is an image of the semiosphere. (Lotman, 1990:127)”