Semiotics, the theory of languages and communication, is not speculation for its own sake, but analytical practice and method. It has been applied to diverse fields, from media to literature, from image to audiovisual, from art to design, from science to politics and technology, achieving remarkable outcomes in constant dialogue with other disciplines of meaning: linguistics, philosophy, hermeneutics, ethnology, communication theory, and literary criticism. This anthology focuses on the moment that precedes the analytical practices of the science of signification, that is, the expertise that forms the backbone of semiotic activity as a critique of culture and society. Starting from the reflections of linguistics, the suggestions of anthropology, and the studies of culture, we arrive at the semiotic turn that has oriented this discipline toward its most current research and future hypotheses. No more collections of signs, but explorations and experiments with texts and discourses, passions and bodies, to give meaning and value to contemporaneity.