Semiotics and Global Humanities

(A Greeting Speech At the Opening Ceremony of the Congress of Global Semiotics, Imatra, Finland, June 11, 2005)       

I am very glad to come to Imatra once again. This reminds me of my first visit to this beautiful town as early as in the summer 1988. In that same year we Chinese scholars held a first big symposium of semiotics at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and expected a lot from that promising start. Until last year, 17 years later, an international Congress of semiotics co-organized by IASS was held in the same CASS building. Meanwhile several international conferences of semiotics organized by different IASS colleagues and other Chinese colleagues were held as well. All of those activities are mainly about topics of cross-cultural semiotics. And this time I am coming to Imatra for discussing about the important topic of global semiotics, one of whose main topics is also cross-semiotics. So Chinese semiotics and IASS have indeed maintained their mutual cooperation for the past years.
 
There has been a steady progress of international semiotic communications all over the world over the past 17 years. It is a pity that there has been not formed a nationwide Chinese association for semiotic studies till now. Despite the lack in a nationwide organization, however, Chinese semiotics has substantially developed itself for the past two decades. The reality is that semiotic studies are performed in a great number of academic fields in China at present, including its both modern and traditional academic aspects. In light of this, I am sure that Chinese semiotics scholars are already ready for the fruitful scholarly communication with international colleagues. Chinese tradition is certainly a great intellectual source for global semiotics; let’s further try to find various flexible ways to build up international communicative channels between Chinese and international semiotic colleagues.
Global semiotics implies many different aspects. A crucial one among many others is that semiotics is the most effective academic tool in promoting the global humanities which focus on serious controversial problems about meaning, value and belief. In this era of the successful economic globalization the global conflicts regarding value and belief has been meanwhile sharpened everywhere. One of the reasons for the fact is a lasting lack of effective communication among different traditions of the humanities. Semiotics is primarily specialized in dealing with this most significant subject, accordingly involving a great number of disciplines in its horizon. Semiotics in fact could function as a general mediator in the reconstruction of the global humanities. For this great purpose global semiotics needs a stronger organizing power; namely IASS that has already proved its life-force over 40 years. IASS has experienced different stages of international semiotic communications: the first that between Europe and America; then between West and Eastern Europe; and now that between western and Eastern civilizations. Global semiotics plays a general mediating role in reorganizing and globalizing human knowledge. We human beings have already attained the global knowledge of natural sciences; we are also approaching to a globalization of social sciences. Now let’s handle the last tough task in human intellectual history: the globalization of human sciences. Semiotics can lead the global academic efforts to this great intellectual idealism. That’s why we semioticians get together again in Imatra for the significant discussions.

In the history of IASS, if I am right, we have never seen a more powerful support from the academic institution than what we have now in Finland. Being not a big country Finland proves to be a great organizer for semiotic movement through ISI over past two decades. The new IASS bureau with Professor Eero Tarasti as the President has obtained an increased motive power to start a new stage in IASS history: the search for semiotic globalization that is characterized by the ever-widened western and eastern academic dialogue. Let me express my best wishes for the successful development of both IASS and ISI in future. Thank our Finnish host very much for the great hospitality.