Cultural Semiotics in Education: The Meaning of the Text from Its Context

Cultural semiotics, as elaborated by Juri Lotman and the Tartu School, is usually remembered above all for its theoretical sophistication: concepts such as the semiosphere, secondary modelling systems, and cultural textuality populate manuals and specialized courses. Less visible, however, is the way this theory emerged from a concrete historical context (real socialism, censorship, the privileged status of literature in Eastern Europe, among others) and how these conditions profoundly shaped its possible uses. It is precisely this shift of focus from conceptual architecture to the historical-political dimension of the theory that guides Artur Blaim’s article “Cultural Semiotics – The Uses of a Theory,” published in 1994 in the journal Russian Literature.

By bringing this discussion into the field of education, cultural semiotics invites us to abandon the illusion of the “text in itself,” as if it were enough to read a document, a chapter, or an article for its meaning to be exhausted there. Lotman defends the idea that no text is self-sufficient, for it only acquires semantic thickness when reinserted into the network of other texts, practices, and values that surround it. To speak of “cultural semiotics in teaching” is thus to shift the focus away from the search for stable and universal messages in order to privilege the analysis of the concrete conditions under which a text is produced, circulates, and is appropriated by subjects. The meaning of the text, here, is always a function of the context.

In revisiting the trajectory of Soviet semiotics, Blaim offers an introduction to Lotman’s thought but, above all, he investigates the social place occupied by literary studies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, contrasting it with the Western situation. However, his reflection goes beyond literary studies and can be appropriated by several other academic fields. Blaim understands that, while in the West structuralism and semiotics faced “the test of fashion,” in the East these same fields went through the test of persecution, ideological surveillance, and later a constraining silence. In this setting, theory was not an academic luxury but a device for intellectual survival and for the preservation of cultural identities.

To read this text today is to return to a moment when the analysis of texts and symbolic systems could not be neutral, as it implied strategies of protection, games of allusion, ways of saying without saying. At the same time, it is an opportunity to interrogate our own academic practices, which are often marked by intense theoretical disputes but relatively detached from direct political risks. It also opens space for us to ask what we actually do with the theories we are so fond of talking about. It is from this point of view, articulating conceptual rigor and historical sensitivity, that I open the reading of Blaim’s article and the reflections I propose in this post.

In the educational context, this shift has important implications. In many teaching situations, especially in strongly content-driven areas, the text is presented to students as the bearer of a “ready-made” truth, which can simply be extracted through careful reading or study techniques. The perspective of cultural semiotics puts this posture under tension. It assumes that understanding a text comes to mean reconstructing the field of forces in which it was generated, the conflicts that traverse it, the silences that sustain it. In other words, to analyze a text is to reconstitute semiospheres (systems of meaning production in historical, institutional, political, and affective contexts within which certain signs gain relevance and authority separately and in zones of conflict).

Artur Blaim’s article starts from a simple question: what was the use (socially, politically, and cognitively) of the cultural semiotics developed by Lotman and the Tartu–Moscow School? Right at the beginning, the author recalls that any theory in the social sciences has cognitive and sociopolitical uses that are usually obscured by the way the theory itself describes itself. In the Soviet case, this pragmatic dimension was scarcely thematized by the semioticians themselves, which forces the reader to reconstruct it from the historical context.

Blaim shows that the specificity of cultural semiotics depends on the singular status of literature and literary studies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In societies marked by censorship and ideological control, literature functioned as a substitute for democratic institutions, and the “engineers of human souls” occupied a privileged symbolic place. In this scenario, semiotics (with its technical terminology and appearance of “neutral” science) operated as a protective device, for it created a layer of theoretical opacity that hindered direct intervention by bureaucrats and censors, allowing for a degree of critical reflection without explicit confrontation.

The text also follows the reception of Soviet semiotics in other countries of the socialist bloc, especially in Poland, where Tartu acquired, according to Blaim, an almost cult status among certain groups of scholars. The preferred circulation in low-print-run journals and the careful suppression of “compromised” names (in the eyes of the system) reveal the limits of official tolerance, while at the same time evidencing the use of theory as a form of alternative, analogical, and allusive discourse that made it possible to “speak about politics” in the guise of literary text analysis.

In a second movement, the article shifts its focus to the epistemological dimension. At this point, Blaim observes the internal tensions in Lotman’s discourse. On the one hand, there is an essentialist vocabulary that seems to presuppose immanent meanings in texts; on the other, he notes a growing awareness that any interpretation involves inserting the text into networks of ideas, values, and extratextual associations. This inflection leads to the redefinition of cultural semiotics as a historical discipline, concerned less with the “true interpretation” of a work and more with the reconstruction of the semiotic systems that regulate the production of meaning in a given culture.

It is important to highlight that the author identifies a paradox in the context in which this theory emerged. The same political-ideological order that cultural semiotics helped to undermine (by relativizing ideologies and revealing their mechanisms) was the condition of possibility for its social relevance. In a world where preserving cultural identity seemed more vital than individual financial stability, a life dedicated to the study of texts had an existential and political weight that is difficult to reproduce in market democracies. With the collapse of real socialism, this privileged place of literary studies became uncertain, and the theory was “relocated” to other uses.

Blaim’s reflection, therefore, is not merely historical, for it forces us to regard cultural semiotics – and, by extension, any theory – as a situated practice, traversed by strategies of intellectual survival, academic micropolitics, and games of visibility and silence. Far from diminishing the theory, this perspective makes it more interesting. I say this because, instead of a system abstractly hovering above history, we have a conceptual repertoire that was at once a tool of analysis, a language of protection, and a form of discreet intervention in a heavily surveilled public sphere, which today can be articulated with a variety of other contexts.

It is entirely possible, starting from the reading of Blaim’s article, to consider the applicability of cultural semiotics, for example, in the field of education in science and health, which means repositioning it from the strictly literary universe to that of pedagogical and communicational practices. If Lotman’s starting point is the idea of the semiosphere—that is, a cultural space populated by multiple interacting sign systems—then schools, undergraduate courses, residencies, extension programs, and science communication initiatives can be understood as micro-semiospheres in permanent negotiation of meanings. In these micro-semiospheres, scientific discourse never appears “pure,” for it is mediated by institutional languages, academic routines, assessment devices, digital platforms, and social expectations about what it means to be a “health professional” or a “scientist.”

Returning to Blaim’s text, it is possible to observe that he highlights precisely this point: theories describe the world and, at the same time, offer strategies for dealing with regimes of visibility and control. If we bring this understanding into educational contexts, we can recognize that curricula, textbooks, simulated clinical protocols, competency guidelines, and even calls for funding compose semiotic systems that authorize certain narratives about science and health and silence others. Therefore, cultural semiotics provides a vocabulary to render these choices visible, opening up an interesting and rich range of possible questions, such as: Which texts and images are placed at the center of training? Which voices (of patients, communities, traditional knowledges) remain at the periphery? What kind of “engineers of human souls” are we training today in medical, nursing, biomedical, psychology programs or science teacher education?

From a didactic point of view, adopting the perspective of cultural semiotics can help us realize that teaching science and health involves working with specific content while simultaneously creating conditions for students to move among different sign systems, ranging from the formal language of scientific articles to clinical case narratives, from outreach infographics to experiences in services devoted to raising awareness of self-care. Therefore, an approach inspired by cultural semiotics can contribute, for example, to guiding practices and research that emphasize translation between languages. In science communication, the theory can be applied in analyzing translation practices such as rewriting articles into podcast formats for lay audiences; transforming clinical guidelines into comics or short videos; analyzing representations of the brain and body in series, games, and social media, making explicit the values that sustain them; and many others. In formal education, it can assist in analyzing teaching materials, discourses, and behaviors and relations (student/teacher, management/teacher, student and school space, etc.). It is a matter of recognizing that all knowledge circulates in texts and contexts through symbolic systems, that meaning production always occurs “in relation to,” and that thinking about these relations of meaning production is a highly relevant critical practice.

In this direction, “the meaning of the text from the context” becomes a guiding principle for concrete pedagogical practices. Instead of working with articles, clinical guidelines, or science communication materials as isolated pieces, the teacher or mediator can invite students to map the contexts of production and circulation of these texts: who speaks, to whom they speak, in what institutional setting, under which power disputes, with what expected effects. The same health guideline, for instance, acquires different meanings when read in a primary care service, in an undergraduate course, in a public policy document, or in a media campaign. Making these variations visible is a way of literating subjects into the semiotic ecology in which these contents are brought to life.

There is also an ethical dimension that runs through this semiotic gaze. By showing how cultural semiotics was used in Eastern Europe as a discreet form of intellectual resistance, Blaim suggests that critical reading of texts can be an exercise of freedom even in regulated contexts. If we apply this understanding to education in science and health, considering the possibilities of working with students on the critique of hegemonic discourses—such as the strict biomedical model, academic productivism, or technosalvationist promises—we would be creating a rich and relevant space of reflection from the perspective of cultural semiotics. This would allow us to problematize how certain discourses become central and how they can also produce exclusions, opening space to discuss cognitive justice, the coloniality of knowledge, and the plurality of rationalities within scientific and professional training.

Despite starting from a literary question, by returning cultural semiotics to the terrain of historicity and politics, Blaim’s article reminds us that no theory is innocent or disinterested, nor situated exclusively in its context of origin. Thus, by reconstructing the uses of this semiotic school in the context of real socialism, his text shows us how sophisticated concepts can function simultaneously as instruments of analysis and as tactics of intellectual survival. For those who move today among education in science, health, and science communication, this reminder is precious, since we too operate in a semiosphere marked by disputes over legitimacy, productivity metrics, digital platforms, and power asymmetries that shape what can be said and heard.

The perspectives that open up are broad. We can take cultural semiotics as an analytical framework for thinking about curricula, teaching materials, museums, social media, and clinical practices as interacting texts in which identities, knowledges, and forms of belonging are negotiated. It can support more critical scientific literacy projects that seek to understand systemically the relationship between content and the regimes of meaning that authorize certain truths and marginalize others. It may also inspire pedagogical practices that value translation between languages (academic, media, community) and that take interdisciplinarity as a constant exercise of shifting across codes.

The challenges, however, are proportional to the promises. Institutionally, it is still difficult to find space, time, and recognition for approaches that connect cultural theory, education, and health. Often, the “useful” is reduced to what is immediately measurable, and semiotic analyses are viewed as a humanistic luxury. Epistemologically, the tension remains between the desire for objectivity and the recognition that all knowledge is mediated by sign systems, narratives, and, strongly, by interests. Politically, there is the permanent risk that critique will become merely rhetorical, with no effective incidence on the structures that produce exclusions and silencing.

Even so, I understand that the encounter between the reflection proposed by Blaim and the contemporary challenges of education in science and health points us toward a fertile path. It is a path that is rare (or almost nonexistent) in the health field: to assume cultural semiotics as a compass for charting a route that helps us redesign the conditions of meaning production in our formative spaces, paying attention to semiotic relations, semiosis processes, zones of translation, and other aspects inherent to this theory; because, ultimately, each classroom, each consulting room, each laboratory, and each museum are simultaneously semiospheres and small frontiers (interface zones) with other semiospheres. And it is there, in the interval between the teacher’s gesture and the student’s restless gaze, between the health professional’s speech and the caregiver’s or patient’s listening, that culture quietly whispers the possibility of other semantic worlds that can still be written. Investigating relations of meaning is thus an attempt to understand not the machine, but its gears; not the synthesis, but the process that leads to it. Ultimately, understanding culture requires plunging into the boiling of the semiotic universe, following its cooking, rather than limiting oneself to the already stabilized stew of cultural forms.

Glaucio Aranha

References

Blaim, A. (1994). Cultural semiotics – The uses of a theory. Russian Literature, 36(3), 243–253. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/80887686/Cultural_Semiotics_The_Uses_of_a_Theory?utm

Lotman, Y. M. (1990). Universe of the mind: A semiotic theory of culture (A. Shukman, Trans.; U. Eco, Introd.). London & New York: I. B. Tauris.

How to cite this text:

Aranha, Glaucio (2025, December 8). Cultural Semiotics in Education: The Meaning of the Text from Its Context. Gabinete Virtual. https://glaucioaranha.com/2025/12/08/article/