Semiotics is the science of signs and their systems. It appeared in the 19th century. Its creators are the philosopher and logician C. Pierce and the anthropologist F. de Saussure. The semiotic approach in cultural studies is closely associated with sign means in the process of communication and tract phenomena through them. They carry certain information. Knowing them is necessary to study the past of our planet and predict its future.
Creating an Approach
For the first time, ancient Greek philosophers tried to define culture. They considered it "paydeya" - it means education, personal development. In Rome, the concept of "culturaagri" meant "development of the spirit." Since that time, the traditional understanding of this term has occurred. It has remained the same to this day. The concept of culture implies improvement, otherwise it is just an empty game.
As Europeans' ideas about the world became more complex, it was increasingly defined in terms of all the achievements of mankind. The social nature of this phenomenon was clearly highlighted. From the 19th century, philosophers began to bring to the fore precisely its spiritual overtones. There were assertions that culture is not onlyobjects, works of art, namely the meaning contained in them. Ultimately, the semiotic approach to understanding culture became the most important formal method of studying it.
Its use takes a person away from the content aspects. At the same time, thanks to the semiotic approach to culture, the researcher penetrates deeper into its essence. The method is used only when the study of culture leads to man. The formation of the semiotic approach took place over a long period of time. As M. Gorky said, it is a human desire to produce a second nature.
Final version
For the first time, the semiotic approach was finally formalized by Lotman, Uspensky. They presented it at the Slavic Congress in 1973. At the same time, the concept of "semiotics of culture" was introduced. It denoted an area of society that opposes disorganization. Thus, the semiotic approach defines culture as a sign system with a strict hierarchy.
A sign is a material and sensually perceived object that denotes objects through a symbol. It is used to send to the subject or to receive a signal about it. There are several types of signs. Their main systems are languages.
Answering the question why the semiotic approach is so named, we need to go back to Ancient Greece. There the word "σηΜειωτική" meant "sign" or "sign". In modern Greek, this termpronounced "simeya" or "simiya".
Language is a sign system of any nature. There are its gestural, linear, voluminous, as well as other varieties that are actively used by humans. Word types play a big role in the story.
Text is a set of characters arranged in accordance with language norms. It forms a certain message, contains meaning.
The main unit of culture is the text. This is opposed to chaos, the absence of any organization. As a rule, to a person familiar with one concept of culture, it only seems so. In fact, it is just another kind of organization. This is how foreign cultures, exoticism, the subconscious are perceived.
The classical academic definition is that text refers not only to compositions, but also to any integrity that contains any meaning. For example, we can talk about a ritual or a work of art. Not every essay is a text from the point of view of culture. It must have certain functions, meaning. Examples of such texts: law, prayer, novel.
The semiotic approach to language assumes that an isolated system is not a culture, since this requires the presence of hierarchical connections. They can be implemented in the system of natural languages. This theory was developed in the 1960s-1970s in the USSR. Y. Lotman, B. Uspensky and others stood at its origins.
Final Definition
Culture is the combination of sign systems through which peopleensure the maintenance of cohesion, cherish their own values, express the originality of their ties with the world.
Symbols of this kind, as a rule, are called secondary. These include various types of art, social activities, behavior patterns that are available in society. The semiotic approach involves the assignment to this category of myths and history.
Any cultural product is considered to be a text that was created through one or more systems.
VV Ivanov and his colleagues used natural language as the basis of this approach. It is a kind of material for secondary systems. And natural language is a unit that allows you to interpret all the rest of the systems that are fixed with its help in memory, are introduced into people's minds. It is also called the primary system.
Children begin to master the language from the first days of their lives. Of course, at first they do not know how to use it, they only listen to what others tell them. But they remember intonations, sound. All this helps them to adapt to the new world for them.
Other methods are used in the development of people. They are built in the image of natural languages.
The cultural system is a modeling system. It is a means of human knowledge, explanation and attempts to make changes in the surrounding reality. The language in this perspective is assigned one of the main functions. Concepts and means of a different kind are also used. Thanks to them, a person produces, transmits, organizes data.
Moderation implies the processing, transmissioninformation. Information is both knowledge, and human values, and his beliefs. At the same time, the term "information" means a fairly wide range of concepts.
Systems in culture
Any culture contains at least two secondary systems. As a rule, this is art, which is based on languages, and its visual varieties. For example, this is painting. The systems are symbolic as well as iconic. V. V. Ivanov associated this duality with the peculiarities of the human brain.
At the same time, each culture builds secondary hierarchies into its own special system. Some have literature at the top of the hierarchy. For example, this is exactly the situation observed in Russia in the 19th century. In some hierarchies, the most important place is given to visual art. This situation takes place in the modern culture of Western countries. For some peoples, musical art is brought to the forefront.
Culture is a positive term in contrast to its non-culture (or anti-culture). The first is an organized system in which data is stored and updated. Unculture is a kind of entropy that erases memory and destroys values. There is no specific definition for this term. Different peoples and groups of people within a single community have their own ideas about anticulture.
Can be contrasted with "they" and "we" in a variety of variations of these terms. There are also concepts that are characterized by a greater degree of sophistication. For example, it is consciousness andunconsciousness, chaos and space. In each of these cases, the second concept has a positive meaning. Very often non-culture in the semiotic approach is considered a structural reserve for the development of certain values.
Typology
According to the above information, the culture is subject to classification. This makes it possible to compare their various types in the order in which they are arranged in hierarchical relationships. In some cultures, attention is focused on the origins, and in others, on the final goals. A number of cultures use circular concepts, and some use linear ones. In the first case, they mean mythical time, and in the second, historical time.
According to the semiotic approach, the distribution of cultures in geographical terms occurs in different ways. "Our" world is delimited from the "foreign" one.
Very different variations appear in texts, secondary systems. Sometimes they undergo universalization processes. Then one of the systems is declared the dominant ideology.
As Y. Lotman believed, cultures can also be classified depending on their attitude to semiosis. Some emphasize the expression, while others emphasize the content.
That is, the difference between them is due to the fact that they give the greatest value to the information already available or the process of finding it. If the first approach emerges, it is text-oriented. If the second one, then correctness is oriented.
In addition, V. V. Ivanov noticed that culture can be paradigmaticor syntagmatic. The first implies that each phenomenon is a sign of a higher reality. The second is that in the course of interaction between phenomena, meaning arises.
Examples of these concepts are semiotization in the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment.
Trends
Culture in the semiotic approach is a mechanism by which certain information is processed and communicated. Secondary systems function through codes. Their difference from natural language is due to the fact that they are identical among all members of the linguistic community. Their understanding depends on the development of the subject by the individual.
Noise is considered a hindrance in linguistic, psychological, social factors. He is able to block the communication channel. Its imperfection is universal. Quite often noise is considered as a necessary element. Cultural exchange contains translation. Partial communication leads to the emergence of many new codes that provide compensation for the inadequacy of those that already exist. This is the so-called "breeding" factor, which makes the culture dynamic.
Metalanguage
He is the organizing principle, providing the hierarchy and definition of culture. The ideology expressed by the modeling system gives it stable features, creates its image.
Metalanguage tends to simplify the subject, it gets rid of everything destroyed that exists outside the system. For this reason, it adds distortion to the subject. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that no culture is described by a metalanguage alone.
Dynamism
Culture is constantly changing. This is a function of the interaction of the metalanguage and the "multiplying" tendencies that it always possesses. The desire to increase the number of connections is considered the result of the need to overcome their imperfection. It also leads to the need to ensure order in the information accumulated by the culture.
But when the increase in the number of codes is too intense, the coherence of the details of the culture is lost. In this case, communication is no longer possible.
When the function of the metalanguage dominates, the culture fades and change is not possible. Communication in this case is no longer needed. Changes in culture occur when components of the anti-cultural periphery, a structural reserve, appear in it. But along with the advent of these changes, the metalanguage develops. Patterns of change are repeated at different rates in every second system.
If the culture is complex, like the modern one, for example, the human role in updating the code becomes the most significant. With the emergence of various complications, the value of each person increases proportionally. The dynamism of culture makes its diachronic description much more significant.
Non-verbal semiotics
The most important component of the semiotic approach to culture is the non-verbal component. At the moment it is considered that it contains disciplines between whichthere are quite close ties. This is paralinguistics, which studies the sound codes of non-verbal communication. Kinesics, the science of gestures and their systems, is also listed here. This is the main discipline that studies non-verbal semiotics.
Also, a modern look closely links her and oculesika. The latter is the science of visual communication, the visual behavior of a person during communications. Auscultation (the science of auditory perception) is given the same role. It is most clearly manifested in music and singing, giving meaning to speech in the course of its perception.
Sense communication
In culture and language, the expression of the eyes is of the utmost importance. In the course of human communication, an impressive share of information is transmitted by the eyes. In addition, the behavior of the visual organs has a place in the rules of etiquette. For example, in Jewish culture it is considered polite to look someone in the eye while talking. If the interlocutor understands what he hears, he nods. If he denies what he heard, he raises his head, opening his eyes a little more.
The sign of the visual language is also manifested in the duration of the gaze, its intensity, dynamics or statics. There are several types of visual communication. As a rule, in most cultures, direct eye contact is perceived as an aggressive gesture, defiant. This is especially true if someone is looking too closely. The etiquette of most cultures suggests a short, straight look.
There are four functions of oculesics: cognitive,emotive, controlling and regulative. Cognitive is the desire to transmit data and see the response. Emotive is manifested in the transfer of feelings. Supervisory stands for ping. Regulatory is due to the ability to make a demand to respond to information.
