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Signs in Nature, Signs of Nature

The paper gives a synthetic overview of the current state of ecosemiotic research and proposes some new theoretical as well as applicational research vistas for the research field. Modern ecosemiotics has merged investigations of human interpretations of the environment and the semiotic activity of other species. In the era of the Anthropocene, humans are often the ones who determine the conditions of semiotic existence for other species. Furthermore, the symbol systems that humans use for interpreting the natural world form an integral part of such conditions. This paper therefore seeks for shifts in the existing symbolic systems that might help to relate to the environment as a semiosis based and regulated phenomenon. In more detail, it will explore the possibilities of dialogical approaches to support such a relation. Although several textual approaches to nature can be considered as potentially hegemonic and supporting the right of humans to treat nature from the grounds of ownership, this article will suggest that the perspectives on communication and dialogue offered by authors such as Mikhail Bakhtin may help to provide the necessary shifts of interpretation. Moreover, these kinds of interpretational grounds suggest ways for bridging the recognition of more-than-human semiotic relations with certain conservation ethics and practices of nature conservation.