“对当代符号学的主要挑战是什么？”

索菲亚国际符号学大会召开在即。这是今日（2014-9-2）收到的索菲亚符号学大会组委会发来的问卷调查，以作为大会总结发言中的参考资料。我在收到后立即答复如下：

李幼蒸回答：

1.    商业化的功利主义学术制度将“成功”而不是“真理”变成了学者实践的真实最终目的

2.    虚无主义本体论修辞学被运用来弱化符号学的跨学科人文学的科学倾向

3.     在全球语境内，西方学术远非熟悉非西方传统思想，而当代非西方学术也远不熟悉当代西方理论

4.    商业化的文化学术环境导致符号学的内容、方向和实践风格趋于庸俗化，结果“符号学”名称可能经常被误用作一种“通俗文化商标”，以期通过操弄文教市场内的互联网媒介来追求任何一种宣传、推销和派系影响力之增长。

以下为问题答复英文稿及组委会问询来件

The question asked by the scientific committee of the Sofia 12^th IASS Congress:

What is the main challenge for the contemporary semiotics?

Answers by Youzheng Li, 2014-9-2

1.    Commercialized utilitarian academic systems turn “success” rather than “truth” to be the genuine final aim of scholar’s practice.

2.      Nihilist ontological rhetoric is used to weaken the interdisciplinary human-scientific tendency of semiotics.

3.      In global academic context western scholarship is far from being familiar with non-western traditional thinking and contemporary non-western scholarship about their own traditional studies is far from being familiar with contemporary western human-scientific theories.

4.      Commercialized cultural and academic circumstances lead to a general vulgarization of content, direction, practicing style of semiotic activities with a result that the term “semiotics” could be frequently misused as a “pop-cultural brand” to search for increasing any kind of propaganda, advertising effect and factional influence through manipulating internet media in academic-educational marketing.

Dear Professor Youzheng Li,

Within the framework of our preparation for the final talk at the World Congress of Semiotics, may we kindly ask you to answer briefly the following question:

What is the main challenge for the contemporary semiotics?

Looking forward to your response and thanking you in advance,

Kalevi Kull

Ekaterina Velmezova