Sign Crossroads in Global Perspective: Semiotics and Responsibilities

Language is the species-specific human version of the animalsystem of communication. In contrast to non-humananimals, language enables humans to invent a plurality ofpossible worlds; reflect upon signs; be responsible for ouractions; gain conscious awareness of our inevitable mutualinvolvement in the network of life on this planet; and beresponsibly involved in the destiny of the planet.The author looks at semiotics, the study of signs, symbols,and communication as developing sequentially ratherthan successively, more synchronically than diachronically.She discusses the contemporary phenomenon thatpeople in today’s society have witnessed and participatedin, as part of the development of semiotics. Although thereis a long history preceding semiotics, in a sense the fieldis, as a phenomenon, more "of our time" than of any timepast. Its leading figures, whom Petrilli examines, belongto the twentieth and twenty-first century.Semiotics is associated with a capacity for listening.This capacity is also the condition for reconnecting to andrecovering the ancient vocation of semiotics as that branchof medical science relating to the interpretation of signsor symptoms. The pragmatic aspect of global semioticsstudies the impact of language or signs on those who usethem, and looks for consequences in actual practice. Inthis respect, Petrilli theorizes that the task for semioticsin the era of globalization is nothing less than to takeresponsibility for life in its totality.