HSE Publishing House

This textbook offers a systematic presentation of the main ideas of the semiotics of culture, a discipline that has had an exceptional impact on the development of the humanities in the twentieth century. It surveys general problems of semiotics: the definition and structure of the sign, primary and secondary semiotic relations, semiosis and mimesis, as well as some specific sign systems closely related to the study of letters (language and literature, visual systems, the narrative, semiotic aspects of behavior and monetary circulation, the global structure of sign cultures). It explains the ideas of the leading theorists of semiotics: Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, Yuri Lotman and others. The presentation is accompanied by numerous examples, mainly taken from language, literature and other arts.
The book is recommended to undergraduate and graduate students of literature and linguistics.