At the core of this article is an interview to Boris Uspenskij, in which the protagonist of the Tartu-Moscow School (currently Head of the Laboratory of Linguistics and Semiotics at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” in Moscow) develops on semiotics and the sense and aims of semiotic research, communication and its central role in human consciousness, semiotic theory and methodology. The interview is introduced by a brief essay, in which, by presenting and outlining the main thesis of Ego Loquens (one of the most recent works by Uspenskij) and its articulations, the author’s reflections on the semiotics of communication emerge

In 1976 Richard Dawkins coined the term meme as a way to metaphorically project bio-evolutionary principles upon the processes of cultural and social development. The works of Dawkins and of some other enthusiasts had contributed to a rise in popularity of the concept of memetics ("study of memes"), but the interest to this new field started to decline quite soon. The conceptual apparatus of memetics was based on a number of quasi-biological terms, but the emerging discipline failed to go beyond those initial metaphors. This article is an attempt to rebuild the toolkit of memetics with the help of the more fundamental concepts taken from semiotics and to propose a synthetic conceptual framework connecting genetics and memetics, in which semiotics is used as the transdisciplinary methodology for both disciplines. The concept of sign is used as the meta-lingual equivalent for both the concepts of gene and meme. In the most general understanding, sign is a thing which stands for another thing. In genetics this translates into gene that is a section of DNA that stands for the algorithm of how a particular biomolecule is built. In memetics, the similar principle works in meme that is a thing that stands for the rules of how a particular cultural practice is performed.

It is widely held nowadays that Saussurean semiology and the eircean theory of signs are two major semiotic schools that, although they have certain theoretical and historical background in common, are incommensurable. However, it appears that numerous-and evidently strong-points of incongruence between Saussurean (and post-Saussurean) semiology and Peirces semiotics do not prevent the possibility of some important theoretical intuitions common to both traditions. In particular, this claim finds support in light of Russian formalism-essentially a Saussurean-type semiotic school that gained wide acclaim in mid-twentieth century Europe alongside French structuralism. Without challenging the truth of the obvious differences between the two schools, this paper undertakes to reinterpret some of the late formalist concepts on the problem of continuity in terms of Peirce's semiotics. The brief account this paper presents has a double objective: (1) to give a particular example of how some basic formalist analytical categories may be placed in the wider context of Peirce's semiotics, thus making the purely structural aspect of meaning a particular case of Peirces theory of signs, and (2) to show the possibility of building a case in which Peirces semiotic ideas might actually be applied as efficient tools in the examination of different traditional discourses. This objective is accomplished by way of a sample analysis of Vladimir Propp's "Oedipus in Light of Folklore" in terms of Peirces On a New List of Categories."

Peirce aspired for the completeness of his logic cum the theory of signs in his 1903 Lowell Lectures and other late manuscripts. Semeiotic completeness states that everything that is a consequence in logical critic is derivable in speculative grammar. The present paper exposes the reasons why Peirce would fall short of establishing semeiotic completeness and thus why he would not continue seeking a perfect match between the theories of grammar and critic. Some alternative notions are then proposed.