Abstract. In order to estimate the current situation of teaching materials available in the of introductions and textbooks on general semiotics published within last 50 years, i.e. since the beginning of institutionalization of semiotics. In this category, we have found over 130 original books in 22 languages. Together with the translations of more than 20 of these titles, our bibliography includes publications in 32 languages. Comparing the authors, their theoretical backgrounds and the general frames of the discipline of semiotics in diff erent decades since the 1960s makes it possible to describe a number of predominant tendencies. In the extensive bibliography thus compiled we also include separate lists for existing lexicons and readers of semiotics as additional material not covered in the main discussion. Th e publication frequency of new titles is growing, with a certain depression having occurred in the 1980s. A leading role of French, Russian and Italian works is demonstrated. fi eld of semiotics, we are providing a comparative overview and a worldwide bibliography 282 Kalevi Kull et al.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the problematics of methodology in semiotics concerns the more fundamental question of the disciplinary nature of semiotics -whether semiotics is, or should be, a theoretical discipline or an empirical discipline -or both -and the particular modes of inquiry deemed proper for each perspective. Although debating over the disciplinary nature, or, to put it more simply, over how to practice semiotics, in those terms might seem a thing of the past, the problematics reveals its acuteness each time the relationship between theories, methods and practices/applications, as well as their scope and meaning in semiotics is discussed. Yet what remains also latent in these discussions is a more fundamental question of the particular 'brand' of 'science' and 'scientificity' that semiotics is expected (or not) to align with. One of the results of leaving these issues implicit and unarticulated is the divide often seen between theory and method, or theoretical and empirical semiotics.This article attempts to demonstrate how modelling functions as a bridge between theory and method. Yet the value of this bridging depends exactly on acknowledging the more fundamental layers of semiotic inquiry. The main aim of the paper is to propose and develop the concept of metaphorical modelling as a particular methodological tool in semiotic inquiry as well as the humanities more broadly. The role of metaphors in science is a known issue, however, there are few approaches that deal with it explicitly in the humanities, and as a methodological issue. The use of theories and concepts viewed as method brings to the fore the role of language in methodology. Thereby an awareness of the metaphorical functioning and processing of language becomes necessary for understanding how theoretical language is used in research.The article attempts to show that the traditional distinction between theoretical concepts as precise, literal and analytical, and metaphor as imprecise figure of speech is not adequate for understanding how theoretical constructs are used in the humanities in general and semiotics in particular. From this perspective, one can notice that the metaphorical use of theories, constructs and models has been central in the humanities and semiotics for a while.

The paper aims to make a contribution to semiotic research on the future by bringing together various approaches that deal with the relationship humans have with the future. More specifically, the paper concentrates on anticipation viewed as an activity that is based on modelling the (un)desired future as suggested by Nikolai Bernstein. The model-based approach to anticipation allows drawing connections between the psychophysiological and semiotically mediated forms of anticipation on the one hand, and between individual and collective forms of anticipation on the other hand. With these aims in mind, the paper offers a sketch of a semiotic approach to the future that is based on the framework of semiotic modelling systems, i.e. views the future in terms of models of it and the semiotic resources and processes involved in the model-building. As the semiotically mediated models of the future circulating in a culture can become collectively shared means of cognizing and anticipating some futures, it is possible to talk about a collective anticipation, analogous to Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotic notion of collective memory. Accordingly, premediation, a future-oriented media practice outlined by Richard Grusin, is viewed as an example of collective anticipation. In addition to tracing the mechanisms of anticipation from its individual organismic to semiotically mediated collective forms, the paper foregrounds also the two fundamental problems that run across the diverse theoretical perspectives brought together within the approach: the individual and collective agency in futuremaking and the affective dimension of anticipation.

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