Semiotic construction of national culture and identity With special reference to Finland

1
Semiotic construction of national culture and
identityWith special reference to Finland

• Harri Veivo
• Arts in Finland 14.11.2008

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Semiotics

• Semiotics can be defined as
• The study of different kind of signs
• But signs come in bundles thus semiotics
  studies texts consisting of diffrent kind of
  signs
• But signs and texts are based on conventions,
  codes, habits thus semiotics studies different
  kind of systems, rules, practices that govern
  signs and texts
• But signs and texts represent or stand for
  something and produce interpretations thus
  semiotics studies not entities but action,
  semiosis
• In short, semiotics can be defined as the study
  of semiosis, i.e., the representing and
  interpretation producing activity of signs and
  texts
• The research object of semiotics cannot be
  reduced to a specific set of objects
  interdisciplinary research

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Culture defined semiotically

• A culture consists of
• Signs and texts (NB signifying behavior and
  actions included)
• Sign systems, conventions, practices, structures
  (language being the most important)
• Representations and models (which are texts)
• But cultures are also, and essentially,
  organization and differentiation
• Seen from inside own culture is ordered,
  others chaotic
• Seen from above all cultures are ordered, but
  differently
• Signs, texts and well as orders and structures
  are produced thus a culture is something made
  and performed, not given

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Drawing of border, differentiation

• The constitution of a culture, its identity,
  depends on differentiation, of drawing borders
  between what belongs to the culture and what does
  not
• Each culture defines (explicitly or implicitly)
  the elements that are part of it and those that
  are not
• The borders between culture and non-culture may
  be expressed in varying ways for example through
  oppositions like us vs. others, own vs. foreing,
  same vs. different, undestandable vs. opaque,
  civilized vs. barbaric
• The drawing of borders, the defining of
  oppositions, is a semiotic process that produces
  differences and thus significations
• The drawing of borders is also action carried out
  by members of the culture with signs and texts
  defining, repetition of definitions, redefining
  and defining differently
• Different kind of texts can partcipate in similar
  differentiation procedures
• The drawing of borders produces both continuity
  and change
• The borders of a culture are not hermetic, but
  rather places for exchange, interpretation and
  dialogue

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Because borders the drawing of borders,
differentiaiton are constitutive for cultures,
a given culture actually exists only in relation
to other cultures (and nature) the others are
in us.
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Akseli Gallén-Kallela The defence of Sampo (1896)

• Representation of a conflict, a border
  situation
• Establishes oppositions human vs. animal, brave
  vs. fearful, male vs. female, light colors vs.
  dark ones, etc.
• Sitautes oppositions geographically left west,
  right east

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Center and periphery

• When the inner organization of cultures is
  focused upon, one may define two areas or
  components that have their own specific
  functions the center and the periphery
• NB not geographical notions, but functional ones
  (the case of capitals)
• The center seeks to keep the culture inchanged
  it is the domain of rule, order, tradition, and
  continuity
• The means the center uses for this purpose are
  for example
• Metatexts that define the languages and sign
  systems of the culture and their mutual relations
  (for example, what are standard ways of speaking
  and what are dialectical)
• Normative texts that define the values of the
  culture (this function may also belong to
  artistic texts)
• Exemplary texts and canons
• Representations, models and images of the world
  that have a determining status for the culture
  and its self-understanding
• Low or popular texts may also function as
  vehicles for normative discourses for ex. the
  talk about Big Brother

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• Exemplary landscapes represent values, history
  and continuity
• Natures values purity, peace, harmony
• Work represents sisu (fighting spirit),
  persistence, progress
• Repeated from late 19th century paintings to
  modern websites different kind of texts
  participate in the same structuring and ordering
  action within the culture

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The neoclassical empire centre of Helsinki
continuity, harmony, order
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Center and periphery

• Periphery is the part of culture that is
  dynamical and open for change the area of
  disorder (or foreign order), chance, exceptions,
  and the new
• Elements belonging to the periphery are
• Foreign texts that have not been assimilated to
  the cultur
• Foreign languages, signs systems and practices
• Carnevalistic situations and texts where the
  hierarchies, orders and values of the culture are
  (momentarily) contested
• NB what is peripheral from one point of view may
  be central from another under- and
  counter-cultures may also be highly ordered, even
  though they are peripheral for the mainstream
• New influences come to the culture through the
  periphery
• A process of imitation, translation, adaptation
  and structural reorganization
• But the center is necessary for maintaining the
  identity of the culture, its sameness and
  continuity

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Markku Laakso Elvis in Finland
Laakso brings a foreing element, Elvis, into
typically Finnish settings and texts intrusion
of the foreign, peripheral elements But is Elvis
really foreign? Or are these true representations
of national cultures in the postmodern era?
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Being a Finn

• From the semiotic point of view, belonging to a
  culture (being member of it) depends on
  competence
• To act in properly signifying ways
• To recognize correct interpretations and
  intertextual references
• To use the languages and sign systems of the
  culture in proper ways (i.e., to produce signs
  and texts understood by other members of the
  culture)
• However, these requirements can also be
  contested, criticized and changed

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The Stefan Wallin Test

• 1) To go to sauna in the correct way
• 2) Bodily work to cut wood with an axe
• 3) Cookery karjalanpiirakat
• 4) General knowledge war history and sports
• Dates from World War II
• Records and medals from long-distance running and
  skiing
• 5) Character melancholia
• The choice of topics reflects the values and
  hierachies of the culture (above all its male
  component)

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Carnivalization and transformation of cultural
indentities (through bad taste?)
But also play with stereotypical elements Finns
as barbarians, wild animals?
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Bibliography

• Yury Lotman The Universe of Mind. London
  I.B.Tauris, 1990.
• Andreas Schönle (ed.) Lotman and Cultural
  Studies. Madison University of Wisconsin Press,
  2006.
• Edna Andrews Conversations with Lotman. Toronto
  University of Toronto Press, 2003.
• Eero Tarasti (ed.) Snow, Forest, Silence The
  Finnish Tradition of Semiotics. Acta Semiotica
  Fennica VII. Imatra International Semiotics
  Institute.
• Semiotica, vol. 87-3/4, Special Issue Semiotics
  in Finland.