Gustav Shpet’s deep semiotics: A science of understanding signs 235 Gustav Shpet’s deep semiotics: A science of understanding signs Vladimir Feshchenko Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences 1 bldg. 1 Bol. Kislovsky Per., 125009, Moscow, Russia Semiotics and Sign Systems Laboratory, Novosibirsk State University 2 Pirogova Ul., 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia e-mail: takovich2@gmail.com Abstract. e article examines the implicit tradition of deep semiotics in Russia initiated by Gustav Shpet, a Russian philosopher of language. Shpet’s semiotic approach was developed synchronously with the major lines of European and American semiotics (Saussurian and Peircean), but has not been sufficiently known or studied. e recent publication of previously unknown papers by Shpet makes this Russian philosopher an advanced figure on the Russian semiotic scene. Shpet was one of the rst Russian scholars to use the term ‘semiotics’, by which he meant a “general ontological study of signs”. Shpet used this term in his work History as a Problem of Logic as early as in 1916. Shpet’s main work on semiotics, the book Language and Sense (1920s), traced back the origins of semiotic thinking and laid the foundations for new semiotics, by which he meant a science of understanding signs. It is here that Shpet spoke of the ontological study of a sign, calling this study semiotics, or else characterics, and raising the issue of the semiotic mind. 1 Keywords: deep semiotics, Gustav Shpet, philosophy of language, study of signs 1. Gustav Shpet and semiotics Russian humanities of the 20th century can boast of many groundbreakers in virtually any field of scholarly expertise and critical thought, who worked ahead of or synchronously with their Western counterparts, yet appeared to have a less enviable career on their native soil than their peers from Europe and America. is is also the case with Gustav Shpet (1879–1937), Russian philosopher of language who, apart from making other 1 e article is a modified and updated version of the author’s earlier publications in Russian (see Feschenko 2008a) and in French (see Feschenko 2008b). Sign Systems Studies 43(2/3), 2015, 159–28 Sign Systems Studies 43(2/3), 2015, 235–248 http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/SSS.2015.43.2-3.06 fi