I have just composed and submitted the abstract below to organizers of The 14th conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies along with the 15th Annual Lotman Days, which has the theme “Creativity – Complexity – Intelligence“ and is held in Tallinn, Estonia, June 11–13, 2025.
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"Ecological semiotics, lifeworld perspectives, and sustainability"
Abstract
Morten Tønnessen
Drawing on my recently published encyclopedia chapter “Ecological semiotics” (Tønnessen 2024), in this presentation I outline how ecological complexity is underpinned by sign use and sign systems. Ecological semiotics, or ecosemiotics, can be understood as the study of sign use by organisms in an ecological context. In ecology, semiotic phenomena and sign processes occur at different levels of biological organization, and distinctive kinds of sign use is characteristic of different kinds of interspecies interaction. Ecosemiotic studies help to explain how ecological complexity can be understood in semiotic terms, and how sentient organisms interpret their environment and make choices that are informed by their sign use. I will present the basic theoretical outlook of ecological semiotics with an emphasis on lifeworld perspectives, particularly represented by the Umwelt theory of Jakob von Uexküll (2010). This implies relating ecosemiotics to phenomenology, subjectivity and agency. In a more rudimentary sense, even plants, fungi and microorganisms have agency which can be framed in semiotic terms. In my work, I stress the relevance of a semiotic approach for human ecology and contemporary discussions concerning environmental sustainability. While ecosemiotics is amply informative applied to general ecology, it is especially pertinent in the context of understanding how human agency and sign use affects the environment at large. Ecological semiotics can help us understand how genuinely human sign use stands out from non-human sign use, and the ways in which human sign use is subject to cultural variation. Crucially, a semiotic approach to environmental issues can be informative with regard to understanding how human behaviour and sign use affects non-human lifeworlds by triggering environmental change which is experienced in sign-mediated ways. This positions ecosemiotics to address issues of environmental sustainability.
REFERENCES
Tønnessen, Morten 2024. “Ecological semiotics”. Chapter. Encyclopedia of Ecology (3rd edition) (Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-21964-1.00018-5.
von Uexküll, Jacob 2010. A foray into the worlds of animals and humans with A theory of meaning. O’Neil, J. D. (transl.). Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press.
