Research Areas

Currently, I am leading and coordinating two major research projects: General Linguistics for the Digital Paradigm Shift JG_2024_020, internal grant of Palacký University in Olomouc (2024-2026,  total funding of 145 103 EUR) and MASKED– Motor Health and Semiotic Function in the Kinesthetic Expressivity of Neurodegenerative Disease, funded under the MSCA Staff Exchanges scheme (HORIZON-MSCA-2024-SE-01-01), grant ID: 101236781 (2025-2029, total funding of 1 052 100 EUR).

Digital Writing Research Group 

This project aims to define the basic theoretical principles of digital communication and to describe the qualitative differences between traditional unmediated communication and currently widely practiced technologically mediated communication. More importantly, the project focuses on the written form of digital communication and the comparison with different writing systems. We use the term Digital Writing to stand for all the multimodal, digitally mediated communication. We combine evolutionary linguistics, cognitive semiotics, and eye-tracking methods to test the current state of human communication in relation to its overall evolution.

Publications:

  • Lacková, Ľudmila (2023). O potrebe skúmania digitálnej komunikácie (On the need of researching digital communication). In Alena Bohunická, Maryna Kazharnovich (eds.), Impulzy súčasnej jazykovedy, Komenský University in Bratislava, pp. 123-140.
  • Lacková, Ľudmila. (2023). Digital Writing and the new primitive mind. Culturologica Slovaca 2/2023, pp. 88-100.
  • Romanini, Vinicius and Lacková, Ľudmila (2023). Morphoesthetics in artificial intelligence: proteins versus machines. Semeiosis: semiótica e transdisciplinaridade em revista, 11(1).
  • Lacková, Ľudmila (2024). Crisis of Subject in the Mediated Communication. In Michele Nicoletti and Alessandro Palazzo (eds.): Epidemics and Pandemics: Philosophical Perspectives. Brepols Turnhout, pp. 279-296
  • Bennett, Ľudmila Lacková (2024). Artificial Intelligence: Medium or Subject? On the 10th Anniversary of the Publication of the Article "Theory of New Media and the Transformation of a Medium into a Subject?" Linguistic Frontiers, vol. 7, no. 2, Sciendo, 2024, pp. 1-7. https://doi.org/10.2478/lf-2024-0013 .
  • Lacková Bennett, Ľudmila, Hairšová, Kristína, Formánková, Anežka, Joukl, Zdeněk (2025). From hieroglyphs to emoji: a spiral model for writing systems evolution. Semiotica, 2025 vol. 6, 10.1515/sem-2024-0130 .
  • Lacková Bennett, Ľudmila (2025). AI: language, iconicity, and bodily constraints for creativity in Semiosis as creation: between nature, body and art. Universidad del Rosario Press, Jorge Uruena Lopez, Ľudmila Lacková Bennett, Jamin Pelkey (eds.).
  • Lacková Bennett, Ľudmila (2025). Biosemiotic approach to AI. Folding as semiotic modelling. Sign System Studies (under review).
  • Lacková Bennett, Ľudmila, Harišová, Kristína, Stanislav, Popelka (2025). Visual Reading of Digital Texts: A Semiotic Perspective Cognitive Semiotics (under review).

Biosemiotics and Medical Semiotics

Since my MA studies, I have been interested in the intersection between biology, linguistics, and semiotics. In my PhD dissertation, I focused on a semiotic analysis of protein folding as the basic meaning-making mechanism in living systems. This area of study is extremely important since protein misfolding is proven to be responsible for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. With a consortium of the world's leading institutions in the field, like Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Florida, Duke University, University of California, Toronto Metropolitan University, Turin University, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation, we started the MASKED project. MASKED explores new approaches for the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease by combining semiotic analysis and computational AI methods focused on facial behavior. 

Publications:

  • Lacková, Ľudmila, Matlach, Vladimír, Faltýnek, Dan, (2017). Arbitrariness Is Not Enough, Theory in Biosciences, 136:187–191, DOI 10.1007/s12064-017- 0246-1.
  • Lacková Ľudmila (2018). A Biosemiotic Encyclopedia: An Encyclopedic Model for Evolution, Biosemiotics 11 (2), pp. 307-322, DOI 10.1007/s12304-018-9325-z.
  • Lacková, Ľudmila (2019). Towards a Processual Approach in Protein Studies. Biosemitoics 12 (3), pp. 469–480, DOI:10.1007/s12304-019-09370-y.
  • Lacková, Ľudmila (2020). Folding of a Peptide Continuum. Semiotic Approach to Protein Folding. Semiotica 2020 (233), pp- 79-90, 10.1515/sem-2018-0116.
  • Bolshoy, Alexander & Lacková, Ľudmila (2021). Illusions of Linguistics and Illusions of Modern Synthesis: Two Parallel Stories. Biosemiotics 14 (1), pp.115-119, DOI: 10.1007/s12304-021-09429-9.
  • Lacková, Ľudmila, Faltýnek, Dan (2021). The Lower Threshold as a Unifying Principle between Code Biology and Biosemiotics, Biosystems 210 (1), DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2021.104523.
  • Lacková, Ľudmila (2022). Participative opposition applied. Sign Systems Studies 50 (2-3), pp. 261-285, DOI: 10.12697/SSS.1.
  • Švorcová, Jana, Lacková, Ľudmila & Fulínová, Eliška (2023). Evolution by habit: Peirce, Lamarck, and teleology in biology. Theory in Biosciences 142, pp. 411–422, DOI: 10.1007/s12064-023-00406-z.
  • Lacková, Ľudmila (2023). Structural semiology, Peirce, and biolinguistics, Semiotica 2023 (253), pp. 1-21, DOI: 10.1515/sem-2022-0058.
  • Lacková, Ľudmila (2025). Language of Life: A Peircean Approach to Living Organisms, Peirce Studies 11: Peirce Studies, Peter Lang.