Vimarsh

While LANGUE could be the rules of, say, English grammar, it does not mean PAROLE always has to conform to the rules of standard English (what some people erroneously call 'proper' English). LANGUE is less rigid than the phrase 'set of rules' implies, it is more a guideline and is inferred from the PAROLE. -Nick Lacey   Langue and parole are Ferdinand de Saussure’s classic distinction in structural linguistics. - Langue is the underlying, shared system of a language: its abstract conventions, patterns, and possibilities (grammar, vocabulary, sound system, etc.) that exist in the minds of a speech community. It is the social, collective “code.” - Parole is the concrete, individual act of speaking or writing—the actual utterances people produce in real situations.   Nick Lacey’s point is that treating LANGUE as a rigid, prescriptive “set of rules” (especially the rules of standardized or “proper” English or any other language for that matter) is a misunderstanding. LANG...

“ we could talk of a 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 existence and is in constant interaction with languages. ” - Yuri Lotman  (The Universe of the Mind) This quotation is from the Russian-Estonian semiotician Yuri (Juri) Lotman (1922–1993), a central figure in the Tartu–Moscow School of semiotics. It appears in his discussions of the semiosphere , notably in the 1984 essay “On the Semiosphere” and elaborated in Universe of the Mind (1990). Lotman coined the term by analogy with Vladimir Vernadsky’s biosphere —the global envelope of life on Earth—applying a similar holistic idea to culture and meaning-making.   CORE MEANING OF THE QUOTATION Lotman defines the semiosphere as the continuous, structured semiotic space , the realm of signs, texts, codes, and meaning processes, that must already exist for any individual...

A schema consisting of addresser, addressee and the channel linking them together is not yet a working system. For it to work it has to be ‘immersed’ in semiotic space. All participants in the communicative act must have some experience of communication, be familiar with semiosis. So, paradoxically, semiotic experience precedes the semiotic act. - Yuri Lotman   Yuri Lotman’s quote critiques the limitations of the basic linear model of communication and introduces the necessity of a surrounding “semiotic space” what he calls the semiosphere .   The standard schema—addresser (sender), addressee (receiver), and a channel connecting them—is the classic model familiar from information theory (Shannon–Weaver) and Roman Jakobson’s semiotic version of it. Lotman argues that this isolated, atomistic setup is not yet a working system . On its own it can at best transmit very simple signals; it cannot generate or sustain meaningful, complex communication , especially cultural or creative...