摘要：From 17 August to 20 August 2015, the 10th Summer School of Semiotics2 “Semio tic (un)predictability”, which also hosted the 9th Conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies3 , took place in Tartu, Estonia. The 2015 conference was organized by the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu, the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies and the Estonian Semiotics Association. Tiit Remm (the main organizer), Kalevi Kull, Kristin Vaik, Lauri Linask and Tyler Bennett participated in the work of both the scientific committee (that, besides them, also included Inesa Sahakyan, Luis Emilio Bruni, Morten Tønnessen, Peeter Torop, Sara Lenninger and Timo Maran) and of the organizing team (which also included Katre Pärn, Liina Sieberk and Maarja Vaikmaa). The conference was attended by over a hundred scholars from more than twenty countries, representing various traditions and very different approaches to semiotic studies. Among them, there were many young scholars, who created a particularly joyful intellectual ambiance during the whole four working days – this witnesses to the ever growing interest of the younger generation for semiotics4 . The title of the conference corresponded well to what a neophyte would have certainly felt looking at the very rich program of this event. As the organizers stated in the foreword to the Book of Abstracts (Pärn, Bennett 2015: 9), “[t]he paradoxical co-presence of predictability and unpredictability is a fundamental aspect of the dynamics of the semiotic world. Abduction, habit, diversity explosion,(artistic) modelling, code, interaction, meaning-making, signification, innovation, uncertainty, structural change, order and disorder, translation, interpretation – there are numerous concepts that reflect this tension in different kinds of semiotic systems and process”. So that “[p]redictability and unpredictability are processual notions that have been used for the description and analysis of different forms of creativity and freedom on both the psychological and social level” (Pärn, Bennett 2015: 9). Besides, predictability and unpredictability are the two concepts which correspond very well to the (semiotic) spirit of Tartu: “They were also key concepts for Juri Lotman” (Pärn, Bennett 2015: 9).
