Yuri M. Lotman (2001), Universe of the Mind. A Semiotic Theory of Culture. London, New York: I.B. Tauris.

SEMIOTIC SPACE / SEMIOSPHERE

[For Lotman, a "culture" consist of multiple, permanent changing "languages" - like the "lanuguages of art" (cinematography etc.), like the languages of science, like many others less defined "languages". And a culture is dynamic field of tension, where permanently information is "translated" (> "binarism"), and thereby also transformed, from one language to the other ...]

(123) wrong: starting with "single act of communication" --

"A schema consisting of adresser, adressee and the channel linking them together is not yet a working system. For it to work it has to be 'immersed' in semiotic space."

(123) "So, paradoxically, semiotic experience preceeds the semiotic act."

(123 f.) "By analogy with the biosphere (Vernadsky's concept) we could talk of semiosphere, which we shall define 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 existenceand is in constant interaction with languages. In this respect the language is a function, a cluster / 124 of semiotic spaces and their boundaries, which, however clearly defined these are in the grammatical self-description, in the reality of semiosis are eroded and full of transitional forms."

(124) "Binarism and asymmetry are the laws binding on any real semiotic system. Binarism, however, must be understood as a principle which realized in plurality since every newly-formed language is in its turn subdivided on a binary principle. Every living culture has a mechanism for multiplying its languages [...]" - plus "parallel and opposite mechanism for unifying languages"

(125) The unit of semiosis, the smallest functioning mechanism, is not the separate language but the whole semiotic space of the culture in question. This is the space we call the _semiosphere_. ... we justify the term by analogy with the biosphere, as vernadsky called it, namely the totality and the organic whole of living matter and also the condition for the continuation of life."

"Vernadsky wrote that 'all life-clusters are intimately bound to each other. One cannot live without the other. This connection between different living films an clusters, and their invariancy, [...]' [...] 'A human being observed in nature and all living organisms and every living being is a function of the biosphere in its particular space-time.'"

(125) The semiosphere is marked by its heterogeneity.  The languages which fill up the semiotic space are various, and they relate to each other along the spectrum which runs frim complete mutual translatability to just as complete mutual intranslatability." ... "a set of connected but different systems".

(126) "So across any synchronic section of the semiosphere different languages at different stage of development are in conflict, and some texts are immersed in languages not their own, while the codes to decipher them with may be entirely absent."

(126 f.) "As an example of a single world looked at synchronicalyy, 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 these there are the explanations / 127 composed by the museum staff, plans for tours and rules for the behaviour of the visitors. Imagine also in this hall tour-leaders and the vistors and imagine all this as a single mechanism (which in a certain sense it is). This is an image of the seniosphere. Then we have to remember that all elements of the semiosphere are in dynamic, not static, correlations whose terms are cinstantly changing."

(127) "The evolution of culture is quite different from biological evolution, the word 'evolution' can be quite misleading."

(127) "The structure of the semiosphere is asymmetrical ["they do not have mutual semantic correspondences"]. Asymmetry finds expression in the currents of internal translations with which the whole density of the semiosphere is permeated. Translation is a primary mechanism of consciousness. To express something in another language is way of understanding it. ... the whole semiosphere can be regarded as a generator of information."

"Asymmetry is apparent in the relationship between the centre of the semiosphere and its periphery. At the centre of the semiosphere are fomed the most developed and structurally organized languages, and in the first place the natural language of that culture."

(128) "... the semiosphere ...is crowded with partial languages, languages which can serve only certain cultural functions, as well as language-like, half-formed systems which can be bearers of semiosis if they are included in the semiotic context." [like "a strangely twisted tree stump that can function as a work of art if treated as one"]

(130) "Semantic currents flow not only across the horizontal levels of the semiosphere, but also have their effect in a vertical direction, and promote complex dialogues between the levels." [vertical: from "metalevel" and "self-decription" to multiplicity of more peripheral languages at "lower level", and back.]