Tiit Remm

This study focuses on the role of spatiality in the semiotic
making of society. Society functions in and by interaction. It is
created, maintained and designed in and by meaningful interaction,
especially communication. At the same time, interactions
are spatial and involve spatial semiotic systems. Interrelating
organismic, social and cultural aspects of spatiality
and interaction enable a multidimensional perspective on the
making of society. The study integrates two domains in semiotics:
sociosemiotics and the semiotics of space. I begin by
outlining a framework for studying spatiality from a sociosemiotic
perspective and end with an example of how participative
governance (as a part of community-making) has been
developed by employing spatial strategies in the city of Tartu,
Estonia.

Resumen
Este estudio focaliza en el rol de la espacialidad en el hacer
semiótico de la sociedad. La sociedad funciona en y por una
interacción. Es creada, sostenida y designada por esta interac42
ción significativa, especialmente aquella comunitativa. Al mismo
tiempo, las interacciones son espaciales e involucran sistemas
semióticos espaciales. Los aspectos de la espacialidad y la
interacción de la interrelación organísmica, social y cultural
conllevan una perspectiva multidimensional del hacer de la
sociedad. El estudio integra dos dominios de la semiótica: la
sociosemiótica y la semiótica del espacio. Comenzamos definiendo
un marco para el estudio de la espacialidad desde una
perspectiva sociosemiótica y finalizamos con un ejemplo de
cómo la gobernanza participativa (como parte de un hacer
comunitario) ha sido desarrollada por el uso de estrategias espaciales
en la ciudad de Tartu, Estonia.

Mapping, both as a metaphor and as a method, is a crucial tool for the humanities and social sciences. In particular, it has a central position in the so-called spatial turn. In the article, I problematize spatiality in mapping concepts related to the spatial turn. Using the example of locating the centre of a city, I point out the complexity of a mapping-like spatial description, and the respective necessity to consider the variability of spatiality involved in descriptions and already present in the object domain; that is, in the sociocultural world. Positioning mapping in the wider and complex field of semiotic spatial modelling helps to clarify and improve the modelling capacity and adequacy of mapping as a method in social and cultural research.

This paper studies the opposition of social construction and cultural universals in the field of space and spatial metalanguage in social and cultural research. In more detail I focus on the notion of ‘boundary’ and its object, asking how can an understanding of semiotic and spatial nature of boundaries help social and cultural research?

I argue that ‘boundaries’ should be considered being by definition of semiotic and spatial character. This leads to the understanding that boundaries (as far as there is a reason to consider them namely boundaries and not for example, mediatiation, translation, explosion, etc.) are, first, depending on recognition and distinction by some subject and, second, enforcing spatialization of the distinction. Thus, bounding is a practice of semiotization that dynamically interrelates levels of conceptualisation and levels of spatiality. The latter is based on the semiotic understanding of space as being grounded in relations of co-existence and their recognition by at least an indexical umwelt.

While boundaries are semiotic and often descriptive social constructions, there are also aspects of boundaries that can be approached as cultural or even semiotic universals, most notably so-called boundary mechanisms and basic semiotic nature of space and spatial distinctions.

The paper concludes with exploring the applicability of the theoretical argumentation for a semiotic approach in archaelogy. In what sense can we talk about cultural boundaries in research, as social constructions or cultural universals, as parts of object level world image or parts of researcher’s models, as material objects or as structural relations? How can we find boundaries in fields like archaeology and how can we improve our knowledge by considering these boundaries?

'Text' has been a frequent notion in analytical conceptualizations of landscape and the city. It is mostly found in analyses of textual representations or suggestions concerning a metaphor of " reading " an (urban) landscape. In the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics the idea of the text of St. Petersburg has also been applied in analysing particular cities as organizing topics in literature and in culture more widely, but it has not happened to an equal degree in studies of actual urban spaces. The understanding of text as a semiotic system and mechanism is, however, more promising than revealed by these conceptions. Some potential can be made apparent by relating this textual paradigm to a more pragmatic understanding of the city and its planning. My project in this paper is to uncover an analytical framework focusing on the concepts of 'text' , 'textualization' and 'texting' in studying the planning of urban environment. The paper observes the case of the urban planning process of the Tartu city centre in Estonia during 2010–2016, and is particularly concerned with the roles that urban nature has acquired in the process of this " textualization " of the local environment, societal ideals, practices and possible others.

Spatial metalanguage is frequently used as a descriptive tool in social and cultural theories. Spatial models of sociocultural world provide descriptions of the world and are at the same time doubly dynamic. First due to their aim of explaining sociocultural change and meaning-generation and secondly due to pragmatical aspects of modelling where these models spring from. The understanding of modelling system in the field of semiotics as either a syntactic structure or as a field of sociocultural activities points also to two pragmatical fields of models of sociocultural space, the building of a conceptual world and the building of a material world.

The city is a complex sociocultural phenomenon where space and time are simultaneously parts of itself and parts of its conceptualisation. In the paper I draw out three general perspectives where the city is characterised by different spatialities and temporalities. The urban space can thus be a space of rhythms and practices, an objectified dimension of the settlement, and a symbolic form in interpretations and creations of cities. The city can be understood as a semiotic whole by considering varying semiotic natures of the urban space.

In this paper I discuss the problematic presence of time in the spatial metalanguage of cultural and social research. General use of everyday spatial metaphors, as well as attempts to formalise spatial models, explicate the role of space as a modelling system. At the same time, the aspect of temporality is positioned into an ambiguous role as being partly subordinated and rejected from these descriptive models with universalistic intentions. The problematic presence of time and temporality in the spatial metalanguage of cultural and social research is here discussed in the context of three theoretical models of space: Pitirim A. Sorokin's sociocultural space, Pierre Bourdieu's social space, and Juri Lotman's cultural space. Relating to the history of theory through these three models, the discussion suggests a critical account on the ways temporality is presented in the spatial metalanguage. Nevertheless, in combination, these models suggest a possibility to involve multiple socioculturally specific accounts on time into coherent spatial models through the recognition of reflective activity of agents.

Sociocultural space: spatial modelling and sociocultural world

Social and cultural theories involve organising the knowledge and its representation as a basic task in their strive for explaining the sociocultural world. It is a domain of models and metalanguages where spatial models and metalanguage have a substantial role.
Social space, cultural space, field, social distance and mobility, boundary – these and other spatial expressions are tools for organising social and cultural theoretical knowledge. Selected notions form coherent clusters which together still remain characterised by multitude of ideas of spatiality and respective kinds of structures.
Contextualising notions in the framework of spatial modelling as a cognitive process enables further clarification of this variety. It is essential that spatiality is first of all an organisation of knowledge. It is not directly derived from physical, material or geographical space but from the ability to recognise the co-existence of objects of cognition or their potentialities as the spatial relation. From this kind of simple recognised relations various spatial complexes or spaces are formed – as abstract ideas or tangible articulations. Rather different spatial descriptive means are thus related to the same basis and are interlinked at the multi-layered field of spatial cognition.
Through the particular perspective of semiotics it is possible to uncover the relations between metaleval abstract spatial models and object-level spatiality from the aspect of both the symbolic space of the cultural world-view and the spatiality of practices. In my analysis I focus on spatial terminology in works by three authors, Pierre Bourdieu, Juri Lotman and Pitirim Sorokin. I show that due to the variety implied in spatial terminology different applications of spatial metalanguage to a common object domain enable modelling the variety of sociocultural world and its functioning. It is also outlined how at first sight unbiased spatial notions can turn the understanding of the object to be spatial. The exact organisation and level of this spatiality can again be different.

The transportation and translocation of species beyond their natural habitats is considered to be one of the major causes of biodiversity loss these days. Concerns are growing also about urbanization and the resulting destruction of natural habitats. At the same time, the integration of urban environments into nature protection efforts has brought along the intent to apply the ecological alien species paradigm in cities. Yet, as the practices of urban landscaping demonstrate, this objective has not been achieved. In this article, we propose that the reasons behind it are largely related to the specifics of the city as a semiotic system. Multiplicity of codes and subjects of various origins is contested by the ecological alien species paradigm, yet characteristic of the urban semiotic environment. The city often serves the function of a cultural model, embodying the principles of setting the borders between Self and the Other. Also in this case, the ecological alien species paradigm ...

In order to estimate the current situation of teaching materials available in the field of semiotics, we are providing a comparative overview and a worldwide bibliography of introductions and textbooks on general semiotics published within last 50 years, i.e. since the beginning of institutionalization of semiotics. In this category, we have found over 130 original books in 22 languages. Together with the translations of more than 20 of these titles, our bibliography includes publications in 32 languages. Comparing the authors, their theoretical backgrounds and the general frames of the discipline of semiotics in different decades since the 1960s makes it possible to describe a number of predominant tendencies. In the extensive bibliography thus compiled we also include separate lists for existing lexicons and readers of semiotics as additional material not covered in the main discussion. The publication frequency of new titles is growing, with a certain depression having occurred i...

Artikli eesmärgiks on selgitada mõisaansamblite ruumi tähenduslikkust ning ümbertähendustamisi. Visandan ruumisemiootilise analüüsiraamistu, mille peamisteks osisteks on ruumi tähenduslikkuse alused ning sotsiokultuurilise tähendustamise tasandid. Neis toimuva dünaamikana saab mõista ruumilise keskkonna tähenduste mitmekesisust ja liikuvust, ent ka tähenduste sihipärast kujundamist. Mõisatega tegelemine on olnud praktiliselt ja ideoloogiliselt aktuaalne läbi aja. Eesti kultuuri kujunemise üheks keskseks osaks on olnud nimelt suhe mõisaruumiga nii individuaalsel kui kultuurilise eneseteadvustamise tasandil. Ruumisemiootilisi valikuid mõisaruumi ümbertähendustamisel näitlikustan mõisakooli sissepääsu  tähendussuhetega, mille mõju ulatub sotsiaalsete suhete kehtestamisest, ajaloo aktualiseerimise ja lapse koolikogemuse kujundamiseni.

This article studies the signification and re-semiotisation related to manor estates and houses in Estonia. I outline a frame of analysis that integrates basic elements of spatial signification and layers of sociocultural semiosis. Dynamics of these elements and layers appears in the variety and fluctuations of the significance of spatial environment as well as in purposeful designs of meaningful environments. Handling of manors has been practically and ideologically important in Estonia for long. The relation to the space of manors has been a central trait in the formation of Estonian culture both through individual as well as cultural levels of reflection. Spatial semiotic dilemmas for re-semiotisation are exemplified in a case of the entrance to a school placed in a manor house. The significance of this seemingly elementary case ranges from establishing social relations to actualisation of the history and design of school experience of children.

Sotsiokultuurilise maailma kui uurimisobjekti üheks olulisemaks iseloomustavaks jooneks võib pidada selle integreeritust. Kui sotsiokultuurilise maailma mudel ei esita üksnes nähtuste kogumit, vaid olemuslikku korrastatust, mis on sotsiokultuurilise maailma toimimisprotsessi aluseks ja tulemuseks, siis püstitub küsimus, mis täpsemalt on selle korrastatuse alus (ehk milline on sidusus) ning mis määrab tervikud ja ühikud selles. Siinses artiklis käsitlen integratsiooni tüüpe ja protsesse objektmaailma mõtestamisel ja uuritavaks tegemisel, lähtudes Juri Lotmani kirjeldatud integreerivatest mehhanismidest semiootilises üksuses ja selle kirjeldamisel ning Pitirim Sorokini esitatud ühtsuste tüüpidest. Neid täiendan Talcott Parsonsi vaatega kogukonnale sotsiaalse süsteemi integreeriva tuumana ja Pierre Bourdieu' habitus'e rolliga sotsiokultuurilise maailma sidusa ja tähendusliku tervikuna mõtestamisel.

“The beginning” and “the end” as a descriptive tools
and aspects of city
The beginning or the end are concepts often associated with a city in
common understanding, arts as well as in research. Although the
beginning is something that has already occurred but the end has not,
there still exists certain logical symmetry between them.
For Lotman (and Uspensky) the beginning and the end of a city (St.
Petersburg) are strongly connected with the textualizing function of a
frame. Description through categories of the beginning and the end
gives a narrative dimension to a city and links it with its (self)validating
activities — aspect clearly visible for example in various descriptions
of Sillamäe.
Concepts the beginning and the end connect the realms of time,
space and moral. The presence of those three aspects does not allow
reducing the beginning and the end of a city to a simple linear
historical-predictive narrative but needs semiotical mechanisms to deal
with them — to mark or eliminate their presence.
Aside from artistic texts or common understanding, the concepts of
the beginning and the end are also important in theoretical research. It
appears that the beginning and the end are doubly modelling devices:
the modelling devices of a modelling of a city as culture and thus
doubly ideological and without independent existence. The beginning
and the end as a descriptive device does not only indicate to the nature
of a city but also to the nature of culture described through city.

Keywords: city, the beginning and the end, time and space, Sillamäe,
Tartu.