摘要：This issue of Sign Systems Studies can be called “a special issue of Tartu semiotics”, even though it represents only a small piece of the work currently done in the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu. Established by Juri Lotman and its first head Igor Černov in 1992, this department has grown into a persistent and sustainable centre of semiotics. Here, already three generations of semioticians appear together. The second generation — the pupils of Juri Lotman’s generation (Mihhail Lotman, Peeter Torop, Kalevi Kull, Ülle Pärli, Jelena Grigorjeva, Irina Avramets, Silvi Salupere, and others) included the main authors for New Tartu Semiotics, the special issue of the European Journal for Semiotic Studies published in 2000 (Bernard et al. 2000).
