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36Maastike semiootiline uurimineSign Systems Studies 39 (2/4): 36-36. 2011.The article provides an overview of different approaches to the semiotic study of landscapes both in the field of semiotics proper and in landscape studiesin general. The article describes different approaches to the semiotic processes in landscapes from the semiological tradition where landscape has been seen as analogous to a text with its language, to more naturalized and phenomenological approaches, as well as ecosemiotic view of landscapes that goes beyond anthropocentric definitions. Speci…Read more
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35Ladder, tree, webSign Systems Studies 31 (2): 589-602. 2003.Fundamental turns in biological understanding can be interpreted as replacements of deep models that organise the biological knowledge. Three deep models distinguished here are a holistic ladder model that sees all levels of nature being complete (from Aristotle to the 18th century), a modernist tree model that emphasises progress and evolution (from Enlightenment to the recent times), and a web model that evaluates diversity (since the 20th century). The turn from the tree model to the web mode…Read more
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34The Acoustic Codes: How Animal Sign Processes Create Sound-Topes and Consortia via Conflict Avoidance (review)Biosemiotics 7 (1): 89-95. 2014.In this essay we argue for the possibility to describe the co-presence of species in a community as a consortium built by acoustic codes, using mainly the examples of bird choruses. In this particular case, the consortium is maintained via the sound-tope that different bird species create by singing in a chorus. More generally, the formation of acoustic codes as well as cohesive communicative systems (the consortia) can be seen as a result of plastic adaptational behaviour of the specimen who ca…Read more
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34A sign is not alive — a text isSign Systems Studies 30 (1): 327-335. 2002.The article deals with the relationships between the concepts of life process and sign process, arguing against the simplified equation of these concepts. Assuming that organism (and its particular case — cell) is the carrier of what is called ‘life’, we attempt to find a correspondent notion in semiotics that can be equalled to the feature of being alive. A candidate for this is the textual process as a multiple sign action. Considering that biological texts are generally non-linguistic, the co…Read more
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33Biosemiotics in a GalleryBiosemiotics 5 (3): 313-317. 2012.In this article we review the biosemiotic art exhibition «Signs of life» (Livstegn), that was organized by the Danish installation artist Morten Skriver and the biosemiotician Jesper Hoffmeyer in 2011 at the Esbjerg Art Museum (Denmark). The exhibition presented five central (bio)semiotic concepts using artistic tools: the semiosphere, the sign, semiotic scaffolding, semiotic freedom, and surfaces
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32Semiotic Fitting and the Nativeness of CommunityBiosemiotics 13 (1): 9-19. 2020.The concept of ‘semiotic fitting’ is what we provide as a model for the description and analysis of the diversity dynamics and nativeness in semiotic systems. One of its sources is the concept of ‘ecological fitting’ which was introduced by Daniel Janzen as the mechanism for the explanation of diversity in tropical ecosystems and which has been shown to work widely over the communities of various types. As different from the neo-Darwinian concept of fitness that describes reproductive success, ‘…Read more
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32Jesper Hoffmeyer 1942–2019Biosemiotics 12 (3): 365-372. 2019.This obituary about Jesper Hoffmeyer, thinker, scholar, science communicator, biochemist, biosemiotician, and saxophonist, gives a sketch of his intellectual biography, and provides a bibliography of the books he authored or edited.
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31An introduction to phytosemioticsSign Systems Studies 28 326-350. 2000.Asking, whether plants have semiosis, the article gives a review of the works on phytosemiotics, referring to the tradition in botany that has seen plants as non-mechanic systems. This approach can use the concept of biological need as the primary holistic process in living systems. Demonstrating the similarity between the need and semiosis, it is concluded that sign is a meronomic entity. A distinction between five levels of sign systems is proposed: cellular, vegetative, animal, linguistic, an…Read more
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29On the history of joining bio with semio: FS Rothschild and the biosemiotic rulesSign Systems Studies 27 128-138. 1999.
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28Jesper Hoffmeyer 1942–2019Biosemiotics 12 (3): 365-372. 2019.This obituary about Jesper Hoffmeyer, thinker, scholar, science communicator, biochemist, biosemiotician, and saxophonist, gives a sketch of his intellectual biography, and provides a bibliography of the books he authored or edited.
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28There is Umwelt Before Consciousness, and Learning Transverses BothBiosemiotics 15 (3): 491-495. 2022.We comment here on a target article by Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg, which adds an interesting and important contribution to semiotic biology by their discussion of cognition and learning. In agreement with the aims and outlook of the authors, we offer a few observations about how the seminal biosemiotic concept of umwelt may be a critical tool to aid in this investigation of biological learning, knowing, being, and acting in the world. In particular, we would like to advance the proposition…Read more
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26Toward a reterritorialization of cultural theoryHistory of the Human Sciences 29 (1): 75-98. 2016.This article argues that from a territorial perspective a certain coherence and continuity can be identified in the Estonian cultural-theoretical tradition – a discursive body based on common sources of influence and similar fundamental attitudes. We understand Estonian theory as a local episteme – a territorialized web of epistemological associations and rules for making sense of the world, which favours some premises while discouraging others. The article focuses on the older layers of Estonia…Read more
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26A note on biorhetoricsSign Systems Studies 29 (2): 693-703. 2001.This article analyses the possibility to look at living systems as biorhetorical systems. Rhetorics of biology, which studies the rhetoric of biological discourse, is distinguishable from biorhetorics, which attempts to analyse the expressive behaviour of organisms in terms of primordial (unconscious) rhetoric. The appearance of such a view is a logical consequence from recent developments in new (or general) rhetorics on the one hand (e.g., G. A. Kennedy's claim that rhetoric exists among socia…Read more
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26Semiootika institutsioon Eestis. KokkuvõteSign Systems Studies 39 (2/4): 342-342. 2011.The article gives a historical overview of the institutional development of semiotics in Estonia during two centuries, and describes briefly its current status. The key characteristics of semiotics in Estonia include: seminal role of two world-level classics of semiotics from the University of Tartu, Juri Lotman and Jakob von Uexküll; the impact of Tartu–Moscow school of semiotics, with a series of summer schools in Kääriku in 1960s and the establishment of semiotic study of culture; the publica…Read more
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25Semiosphere and a dual ecologySign Systems Studies 33 (1): 175-188. 2005.This article compares the methodologies of two types of sciences (according to J. Locke) — semiotics, and physics — and attempts thereby to characterise the semiotic and non-semiotic approaches to the description of ecosystems. The principal difference between the physical and semiotic sciences is that there exists just a single physical reality that is studied by physics via repetitiveness, whereas there are many semiotic realities that are studied as unique individuals. Seventeen complementary…Read more
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24Baldwin and biosemiotics: What intelligence is forIn Bruce H. Weber & David J. Depew (eds.), Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered, Mit Press. pp. 253--272. 2003.
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20Биосемиотическая беседаSign Systems Studies 37 (1/2): 331-331. 2009.In this dialogue, we discuss the contrast between inexorable physical laws and the semiotic freedom of life. We agree that material and symbolic structures require complementary descriptions, as do the many hierarchical levels of their organizations. We try to clarify our concepts of laws, constraints, rules, symbols, memory, interpreters, and semiotic control. We briefly describe our different personal backgrounds that led us to a biosemiotic approach, and we speculate on the future directions …Read more