Model Yuri Lotman

Yuri Lotman came to his theory through a deep analysis of the work of other scientists and linguists .

The first of the most famous communication theories is the model advanced by Aristotle . In his work, he distinguished three components of communication "Orator - Speech - Audience". Such a scheme is universal - it reflects a communicative act both verbally and in writing. The model was practically unchanged right up to the development of mass communications in the form of radio and cinema in the 20th century.

The model proposed by G. Lasswell in the article "The structure and function of communication in society" ^[1] in 1948 is considered classical in the sociology of mass communications. The five-element linear model of society’s communication reflected the entire structure of communication. The most convenient way to describe the communication process is to answer the following questions:

• who is reporting?
• what exactly?
• what channels?
• to whom?
• with what effect?

Subsequently, this model was supplemented by American scientists C. Shannon and W. Weaver. The “ noise model of communication of C. Shannon - W. Rivera " included, among other things, also fundamentally new structural elements that impede communication - noise. The model schematically takes the following form:

One of those from whose ideas Lotman was inspired by R. Jacobson . That in his work “Linguistics and Poetics” ^[2] determined that any speech event, any act of speech communication consists of some factors, each of which corresponds to a certain function.

The theory of the semiotic model of communication of Yuri Lotman is based on several starting principles:

• First, Lotman agreed with the communication model put forward by Jacobson . However, he considered it too abstract. According to Lotman, the code of the addressee and addressee cannot be the same. In addition, the story is behind communication. Since language is not only code, but also its history. That is why communicators must take into account the codes that the partner already has.
• Secondly, Yuri Lotman argued that any communication is a translation from the language of my “I” into the language of your “you”. “The very possibility of such a translation is due to the fact that the codes of both communication participants, although not identical, form intersecting sets” ^[3] , Lotman considered.
• Thirdly, he singled out two communicative models of "I - OH" and "I - I". Self-communication "I - I" gives a new meaning to the message, recoding it, by introducing a second additional code. In addition, the transmission of a message to oneself can be interpreted as a restructuring of the personality. Thus, the communication "I - I" can be considered internal and based on receiving the code, and the communication "I - OH" - external, based on receiving the message.

• In the “I - OH” system, the framing elements of the model turn out to be variables (the addressee is replaced by the addressee), and the code and message are constants. The message and the information contained in it are constant, but the information carrier changes. In the “I - I” system, the information carrier remains the same, but the message in the process of communication is reformulated and takes on a new meaning. This occurs as a result of the introduction of an additional - second - code and the original message is recoded in units of its structure, receiving the features of a new message. ^[four]

• In addition, he defined and created a model of literary communication . The main idea is that the author of the message should lay a new look at an idea, i.e. propose a new de-automation. In other words, at the moment when a person gets used to a certain form of narration, the author needs to give a new idea to return attention. Thus, the structure of the message itself should consist of a series of chains.

• In order for the general structure of the text to remain informative, it must constantly be deduced from the state of automatism that is inherent in non-artistic structures. However, the opposite tendency also works at the same time: only elements placed in certain predictable sequences can play the role of communication systems. Thus, two opposite mechanisms simultaneously work in the structure of a literary text: one strives to subordinate all elements of the text to the system, turn them into an automated grammar, without which an act of communication is impossible, and the other to destroy this automation and make the structure itself an information carrier. ^[3]

• According to Yuri Lotman, culture is a generator of various codes. Thus, all cultural phenomena can be interpreted as different communication mechanisms, and therefore different languages. From this follows the priority of linguistic methods of analysis. The importance of such mechanisms is also related to the use of primary and secondary modeling systems. The primary system is language, the secondary is literature, theater, and cinema. The secondary system included a large number of linguistic characteristics, since it is still based on the language. Thus, we can conclude that linguistic tools are of particular importance. Lotman as a whole laid the foundations of a communicative analysis of culture, analyzing it as a communicative mechanism. ^[five]

Yuri Lotman, adhering to his idea that "history is behind communication," proposed to distinguish between folklore and contemporary art. He drew attention to the significantly different attitude of the audience to the text in these forms of art.

• In non-folklore art there is a strict distinction between the author and the audience. The author rises above the reader and leads him along, providing certain information. In the event that the reader contributes, then this most often distorts the main idea that the author wanted to convey.
• As for the folklore genre, it just provokes the viewer or listener to act, intervene, help, interfere, etc. Lotman noted that folk art can be successfully used to create various kinds of performances.

In the case of folk art, the addressee is represented by his own name, in contrast to the abstract interlocutor of the non-folklore genre, where there are only references to a common memory for all. In the first case, there is no need to clutter up the text with unnecessary details already in the recipient's memory. Mass culture gives the participant the opportunity to move from a passive role to a more active one, thereby allowing them to join in a communicative event. This feature makes the author lose some of his activity. Yuri Lotman argues that the memory of culture and our understanding of it do not coincide. "The mechanisms of the memory of culture have exceptional reconstructive power. This leads to a paradoxical situation: more can be brought out of the memory of a culture than is brought into it." ^[five]

Professor D. Sobolev in his work “Lotman and Structuralism: The Experience of Non-Return” ^[6] points to Lotman's statement that all sign systems are built according to the type of language. At the same time, the definition of language according to Lotman is too extensive: "any system that serves the purposes of communication between two or many individuals can be defined as a language." Lotman’s works contain information on the languages ​​of “theater, cinema, painting, music”, as well as “on customs, rituals, trade, religious representations” as languages. However, according to D. Sobolev, if we return to Lotman’s definition of language, the list of languages ​​should be even wider. Thus, D. Sobolev believes that this definition immediately casts doubt on the application of the entire model.

1. R. Jacobson. Linguistics and poetics.
2. Y. Lotman. The structure of the literary text.
3. U. Eco. The missing structure. Introduction to semiology.

1. http://htbiblio.yolasite.com/resources/pocheptsov_teoria_communic.pdf
2. http://magazines.russ.ru/voplit/2008/3/so1.html
3. https://pracownik.kul.pl/files/37108/public/Lasswell.pdf

1. Communication (social sciences)
2. Linear communication model
3. Functional Communication Model
4. Semiotics