Binary and ternary cultures: from intolerance to semiotic translation

Abstract

 Based on the formulation proposed by the cultural semiotician Yuri  Lotman, we are interested in discussing how binary structures that elucidate the  semiotic functioning of intolerance, unlike what happens with ternary structures,  which are characterized by ambivalence and interchange with different cultural  spheres. Both will be explored as typologies that, according to Lotman,  antecipate the apprehension of cultures as systems of languages that are  organized due to the presence of a dominant. Thus, in the case of binary  structures, this occurs through the spatial dynamics established between  inside/outside or inside/outside, where the separation between “culture itself”  and “foreign” arises, so that everything that is not part of the former is seen as  a threat, generating intolerance. On the other hand, in ternary structures,  “different” is considered a source of information through which individualities  characterized by diversity and semiotic heterogeneity are constructed. With this  discussion, we aim to show how intolerance is understood as a cultural semiotic  phenomenon and how it is constantly strained by the movement of the semiotic  space of relationships.