EDITORIAL

Cultural changes and exchanges

To define culture, change(s) and exchange(s) is not an easy task as there are thousands of definitions that have been given to such broad concepts. And yet, it is not the theoretical corpus we are interested in here; we would rather like to outline a map where to trace some major routes to be observed and developed by the reader of these articles.
If culture is a semiotic space (Yuri Lotman 1990) and its analysis should follow the rules of “an interpretive science” in order to pursue the process by means of which language is invested with ever new meanings, then, the study of cultural (ex)changes may be meta-phorically seen as a wonderfully woven tapestry showing, on one side, an apparently unified pattern, but disclosing, on the other side, a web of heterogeneous threads. The act of weaving significances involves encoders and decoders within a system of transactions, always rooted in a changing historical, social, economic and technological context. Perhaps the most illustrative way to represent this “changing semiotic landscape” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996) is  through conceptual metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980).
The game of intertextuality (visual and verbal), or that of critical perspectives on the same author, the act of translating, or of representing historical events in and through different modes, the interrelatedness between cultural change, linguistic fashion and advertising, the figurative exchange of signifiers and signifieds, or academic exchange programs exemplified by the articles in this year’s issue of the journal show how, when or where cultural (ex)changes may take place.

Bibliography
Cmeciu, D.(2003):Signifying Systems in Literary Texts, Bacău: ”Egal”PH.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg (2000): Truth and Method, 2nd revised edition, London, New York: Continuum.
Geertz, Clifford (1973): The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996): Reading Images. The Grammar of Visual Design, London & New York: Routledge.
Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age, London & New York: Routledge.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980):Metaphors We Live By, Chicago:Chicago University Press.
Lotman, Y. M. (1990): Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, UK: I.B.Tauris & Co LTD
Doina Cmeciu
Ştefan Avădanei