Volume 21, Issue 1

This paper explores the concept of Umwelt as an interdisciplinary framework that bridges biology, philosophy, semiotics, and art. It is presented as an open framework oriented toward future scientific inquiry while adeptly incorporating the realm of human subjectivity and a humanistic perspective. By reinterpreting Uexküll’s seminal essay “The new concept of Umwelt,” this paper illustrates that in Uexküll’s biological universe, life is an active agent where design, practice, and reflection are intertwined. This unity is deeply rooted in the idealistic tradition, with prominent figures such as Plato, Leibniz, and Kant significantly influencing Umwelt theory. Building on this ground, this paper further argues that for the Umwelten and “Umwelten of the swarm” to function as self-organizing systems with intrinsic purposes, it is indispensable to invoke the principle of pre-established harmony (or “soul”), which, according to Uexküll, also governs the concept of Umwelt. This perspective exemplifies the inherent challenges posed by the foundational literature of biosemiotics in the ongoing scholarly discourses surrounding anti-anthropocentrism, encouraging contributions from the humanities and the arts. Consequently, Lotman’s insights into the pursuit of unpredictability as a defining characteristic of human Umwelten offer a valuable alternative perspective that aligns with the evolution of both nature and culture. Ultimately, this paper argues that it is necessary, even imperative, to deploy at least two mutually contradictory perspectives to adequately capture the complexity of life research, as no singular viewpoint can encompass the entirety of this field in isolation.

Moss, though seemingly insignificant in nature, holds great significance in Chinese literature. Unlike the precise scientific definition and taxonomy of the English term, the Chinese term “taixian” (苔藓 ‘mosses’) more loosely indicates any small, flowerless, leaf-stemmed plant, including moss, algae, and liverwort. In Chinese culture, moss is associated with “Yin” (阴), one of the two basic constitutive elements in the universe. Chinese folk culture and medicine classifies objects in the world into five natures, and within this scheme, moss is assigned a “cool” nature due to its preference for moist environments. According to the doctrines of Taoism and Chinese folk philosophy, the nature of things is always changing and can be converted into something different or opposite. Thus, moss in ancient Chinese literature initially conveyed negative emotions, such as women’s loneliness and complaint, while later becoming a more positive symbol of retreat from worldly concerns and delight in solitude. This duality established moss as a subject of aesthetic appreciation in Chinese literature and art. Often juxtaposed with bamboo, moss came to represent the spirit of a true gentleman. This tradition has deeply influenced Chinese cultural expressions and continues to shape artistic and environmental sensibilities today.

Biosemiotics and code biology are two promising approaches to understanding biological phenomena as meaningful. Biosemiotics proposes that a defining characteristic of life is code-duality, while code biology asserts that the nature of life lies in its code. However, they separated due to differences in their understanding of cellular-level interpretation, as well as related epistemological and methodological concerns. The split between the two was a great loss for biosemiotics. Meanwhile, code biology faces a conceptual dilemma when explaining the source of the normativity of organic codes without biosemiotics. The critiques of biosemiotics made by code biologists are reasonable and deserve serious concern. Based on Terrence Deacon’s thought experiment of autogenesis and his explanation of interpretation, the paper proposes the conception of operational interpretation to reconcile biosemiotics with code biology.

My expanded version of Michael Riffaterre’s semiotic theory of poetry deals essentially with modernist work. Here, I apply it to a 4-line Chinese lü-shi (律詩) of the Tang Dynasty, which has much formal parallelism – enquiring whether it may also have modern features. According to the theory, a modern poetic text is generated by two underlying “matricial” propositions, each of which produces a set of variant images having the same underlying semantic structure. This paradigmatic method of signifying is characteristic of modern poetry. Each matrix is reconstructed by the reader from a comparison of the images of each set. The matrices are linked syntagmatically in a variety of relations such as negation or difference of scale. The bimatricial text (subject-sign) has an intertextual counterpart (object-sign) of similar structure but different lexicon. The interpretant of these two complex signs has a sociolectic counterpart of similar lexicon but different structure. The semantic contrast thus established produces innovation, which is the other distinctive feature of modern poetry. Our lü-shi turns out to have a bimatricial semiotic structure; this raises the question of whether or not it is innovative. Could some such poems be considered “modernist”?

The article presents reflections on how a range of concepts and postulates from biosemiotics, generative semiotics, and semiotics of culture can be reunited in the production and implementation of pedagogical practices. Written around the case study of an interdisciplinary module, AcrossRCA , the article describes the use of notions such as Umwelt , semiosphere, the generative trajectory, and criteria for the selection of the corpus as tools to support the dialogue between cultures, languages, disciplines, and professional practices. The sections outline the author’s previous work utilizing semiotics as a pedagogical tool in teaching theoretical subjects in UK creative higher education, and the expansion of the model to accommodate the teaching for AcrossRCA . One of the key insights from the case study relates to the role of the pedagogue and educator as a facilitator of translations, extrapolating the concept from linguistic translations to the translation of cultural practices, ideological positions, and professional and epistemological postulates. The experiment responds to the argument of integrating paradigms within semiotic theories, searching for points of dialogue between the Anglo-Saxon, French, and Russian–Estonian paradigms, in dialogue with critical pedagogy and writings from philosophy, anthropology, and sociology which support the argument for holistic practices across disciplines.

Ernst Cassirer, the founder of the philosophy of culture, defined the human being as a symbolic animal, based on which he interpreted the cultural journey of humanity. Friedrich Dürrenmatt, a Swiss German writer, who is renowned for his grotesque dramatic works, changed the traditional way of writing about animals. In his works, animal imagery no longer favors allegorization or writing from an ecological perspective but is endowed with the symbolic character of the human being, i.e., the complexity of human emotions is counter-viewed through the portrayal of the animal’s native emotions. In other words, the original values, logic, and norms are broken by heterogeneous species. The short story The Dog (1952) employs the perspective of a dog to analyze and deconstruct “fear” and “death,” prompting a reevaluation of the relationship between individuals and the real world for the pursuit of the authenticity and simplicity of emotions – namely, the essence of “love.”

The evolution of Confucian legal thought, encompassing the contributions of not only Confucius but also Mencius and Xunzi, holds relevance to China’s contemporary rule of law. These philosophical developments have shaped the foundational principles that underpin China’s legal system today. The emphasis on benevolence, rituals, self-cultivation, and moral education resonates with the importance placed on fairness, justice, and social order in China’s legal framework. Furthermore, the recognition of human nature’s innate goodness aligns with the emphasis on protecting individual rights and promoting harmonious societal relationships. By acknowledging the academic history of Confucian legal thought, China’s rule of law can be seen as a product of both traditional wisdom and contemporary legal developments, blending ancient principles with modern legal concepts to ensure a just and harmonious society.

The study employs role-play tasks to investigate the realization of speech acts of complaint among 18 pairs of advanced Chinese EFL learners in scenarios of different languages and social distances from a multimodal perspective. The results demonstrate two major conclusions. 1) In terms of the language used by the interlocutors, it had an effect on their choices of complaint strategies. In the Chinese scenarios, verbal complaints were more direct and rapid; in contrast, the English scenarios witnessed a process from implicit to explicit expression of complaint. In terms of the nonverbal modes in the two scenarios, these presented significant differences, which was particularly evident in the greater frequency of gestures and head movements in the English scenarios compared to their Chinese counterparts. 2) Social distance exerted no influence on the verbal level of complaint, but it had a pronounced effect on nonverbal performances, which is manifested in that they adopted more gestures and head movements to acquaintances than to strangers. This study provides reference for empirical research on L2 pragmatics from a multimodal perspective.