LA COMUNICAZIONE NON VERBALE - Thomas Sebeok
A volte, nel parlare comune, la parola “linguaggio” è utilizzata in modo improprio per designare certe strategie comunicative non verbali.

LIARS, PLAYERS, ARTISTS - Dario Martinelli
Aim of the present essay is to answer the question, Can aesthetic behaviour in animals (including humans) be explained starting from the development of lying and playing abilities? In other words, is there any kind of continuum among these three aspects? Possible answers to such questions concern the perceptive dimension (i.e., the role of the receiver of the fictional/playful/aesthetic message) and the articulation of the message (i.e., the role of the sender of the fictional/playful/aesthetic message). In particular, this latter demands explanation in terms of the messages’ interaction (are there fictional/playful components in aesthetics? Are there fictional/aesthetic components in playing? Etc.), and their reciprocal necessity (can aesthetics transcend playful/fictional components? Can lying transcend playful/aesthetic components? Etc.). Methodologically speaking, the essay has a strong interdisciplinary nature. The analysis departs from the concepts of lying, playing and aesthetics, and finally illustrates the suggested connection according to a Peircean framework (with a special emphasis on the concepts of firstness, secondness and thirdness).

MIMESIS AS A PHENOMENON OF SEMIOTIC COMMUNICATION - Timo Maran
The concept of mimesis is not very often used in the contemporary semiotic dialogue. This article introduces several views on this concept, and on the basis of these, mimesis is comprehended as a phenomenon of communication. By highlighting different semantic dimensions of the concept, mimesis is seen as being composed of phases of communication and as such, it is connected with imitation, representation, iconicity and other semiotic concepts.

MIMICRY: TOWARDS A SEMIOTIC UNDERSTANDING OF NATURE - Timo Maran
By its very nature, mimicry is a sign process and the quest for understanding mimicry has intrinsically always been a semiotic quest.

NOTES TOWARDS A SEMIOTICS OF PARASITISM - Han-liang Chang
The metaphor of parasites or parasitism has dominated literary critical discourse since the 1970s, prominent examples being Michel Serres in France and J. Hillis Miller in America. In their writings the relationship between text and paratext, literature and criticism, is often likened to that between host and parasite, and can be therefore deconstructed. Their writings, along with those by Derrida, Barthes, and Thom, seem to be suggesting the possibility of a semiotics of parasitism. Unfortunately, none of these writers has drawn enough on the biological foundation of parasitism. Curiously, even in biology, parasitism is already a metaphor through which the signified of an ecological phenomenon involving two organisms is expressed by the signifier of “[eating] food at another’s [side] table”. This paper will make some preliminary remarks on semiotics of parasitism, based on Jakob von Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt, and Maturana/Varela’s notion of structural coupling. It will look into the phenomenon of co-evolutionary process in community ecology. With reference to empirical history, the project will briefly survey the literary and medical praxis of the 17th century England where large number of creative writings referred to the phenomenon of parasitism, which was deeply embedded in religious practice (e.g., the Eucharist) and political life (e.g., the courtier ecology in monarchy) of the times. Finally, it will touch upon the possible ‘parasitic’ relationship between language and biology.  

ON THE ZOOSEMIOTICS OF HEALTH AND DISEASE - Aleksei Turovski
The main feature of the signs of health in the animal habitus and behaviour can be characterised as the readiness to adequately (for a species) serve the need for impression (in animalistic elements of the Umwelt). The signs of disease, however multifarious and diverse, generally display certain lack of Umwelt-oriented attentiveness, alertness. Attention of deeply afflicted animals is strongly Innenwelt-oriented; and in some species a set of such signs, suggesting sickness or mortal disease is used as a set of traits in the mimicry of dying. The semiotic factors in health-disease relationships are apparently connected with intuition — like responses creating in the semiosphere a structure of Umwelt-Innenwelt polarized tensions, important in ecological and evolutional developments.

SEBEOK 2.0 - INTRODUCING ANTHROPOLOGICAL ZOOSEMIOTICS - Dario Martinelli
Thomas Sebeok’s introduction of zoosemiotics within the scientific world was obviously very far from being the first attempt to study non-human signalling behaviour. Yet, Sebeok opened a door that scholars were a bit hesitant to tackle.

THE CHOICE BETWEEN ONE BABY AND 1000 GUINEA PIGS - Dario Martinelli
Is it possible, as humans, to study non-human behaviour in a proper way? Are we able to observe other animals without being affected by a human interpretation of reality?

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