Semiotics today: advances and perspectives

Abstract

Research, in general, no longer belongs exclusively to the domain of the professional researchers, since it is currently one of the greatest functions of the globalized societies, taking part, consequently, in the ways of the identity construction that these societies propose. If  Semiotics still wants to acknowledge itself as a discipline of scientific vocation, it cannot escape from this globalized movement. By proposing a body of concepts and methods to question the practices,the texts, the objects, the social interactions, the forms of life and the collective modes of existence in collectivity, Semiotics is able to build these meanings, especially if it works in collaboration with other human and social sciences which contribute to raise, each one according to their own point of view, this architecture of human signification. In this paper, in view of this scenario, we seek to point out what are some of the challenges, the advances and the perspectives of the semiotics for the world today. Even if we do not exhaust the possibilities of a full project in the scope of semiotics, we believe that we have been able to choose some examples that stand out in the present concerns of our society and that are objects of a social demand and a more urgent politics. Therefore, we hope that our observation will be enough to raise awareness of other researchers for the social challenges of the 21st century, which, for us, should be one of the “vocations” of Semiotics.