Introduction. From Analysis to Theory: Afterthoughts on the Semiotics of Culture

Jurij Lotman’s definition of culture as “the totality of non hereditary information which is accumulated, stored and transmitted by various groups within human society” is the assumption that informs a good deal of today’s research in anthropology, psychology, sociology, linguistics and semiotics. Albeit with vast overlapping areas, each field delves into different aspects of the relation between human beings, external environment (including other human beings) and cultural mediation, applying various specific methodologies to analyze an array of cultural objects, thus shedding light on the cognitive, textual and social structures and mechanisms that the objects in question imply. What is the semiotic contribution to our understanding of how culture works? What sets a Semiotics of culture apart from similar disciplines and approaches: a certain way of focusing on the object of analysis, a set of hypotheses about the way in which cultural phenomena are communicated, a specific understanding of the concept of “culture”, a particular investigative method, the rigorous adoption of a technical metalanguage as a guarantee of a scientific approach...? What kind of questions do semiologists ask when confronted with the analysis of cultural artifacts, and what methods do they apply in a bid to answer those questions? Such are the issues underlying the current issue of Versus. [...]