Perceptions of the Meanings and Meaning-Making Factors of Yazd Traditional Houses Based on the Approach of Cultural Semiotics

Abstract

Abstract| As the first place in the formation of human experience aspects, the house can be the basis of the thought and culture of society. These aspects of identity in the semantic system of architectural texts in traditional Iranian houses are beyond what is visible. This meaning can be found through reading, perception, contemplation, and exploration of the underlying and hidden layers of these houses. This study is based on the approach of cultural semiotics, trying to understand the structure of traditional buildings by relying on the method of cultural semiotics and discovering the hidden cultures and traditions in these houses by understanding symbolic concepts. The study is trying to answer these main questions: How are meanings formed in traditional houses of Yazd and what factors lead to the formation of the meanings? This study uses the descriptive-analytical method and is based on the cultural semiotics approach proposed by Yuri Lotman and Roland Posner. In this regard, the association or differences and conflicts between symbolic systems in the context of traditional houses in Yazd were first examined. Its previous interpretations were then reviewed, and its symbolic transformations were explained using Lotman’s cultural semiotics approach. The results suggest that the meanings in traditional houses are defined as an entrance complex and the central courtyard and are repeated as multiple texts with the correlation of all the indicators. These similarities in symbolic systems are intertwined in the whole and components, which are based on the relationship between object and context, unity and plurality homomorphism, boundedness, and interaction, and developed in the framework of the semiosphere of Yazd’s cultural space.

Keywords

• cultural semiotics
• traditional houses
• meaning-making
• object
• texture