Introduction: Framing nature and culture

Lauri Linask, Riin Magnus The articles gathered in this special issue of Sign Systems Studies discuss a variety of discourses, theoretical models, artistic activities, principles of design, etc. which in one way or another expose and manifest, but also guide, our perception of nature and human-environment relations. Most of the articles in this issue have grown out of presentations made at the conference Framing Nature: Signs, Stories, and Ecologies of Meaning, which took place in Tartu from 29 April 2014 to 3 May 2014.3 Humans create multiple environments by using various frames of interpretation. In addition, specific means of expression and modes of signification give nature a particular shape and character. However, framing nature is not a one-way process – i.e. the semiotic frames are not simply of nature, but they are part of nature as they have an effect on the ecological processes themselves. Such a modified environment in turn becomes an object of further models, interpretations and significations. Hence, nature frames culture just like culture frames nature in a variety of ways, some of which are examined in the articles of the current issue. In the first article of the issue, “Urban discourse – city space, city language, city planning: Eco-semiotic approaches to the discourse analysis of urban renewal”, Ernest W. B. Hess-Lüttich reviews a broad set of approaches to the discourse of urban development. He finds that, for planning a sustainable urban environment, successful communication between different stakeholders should take place, the stakeholders’ various backgrounds, interests and even perceptions of reality must be observed and taken into account, and a coherence of different discourses involved