The intensive transformation of literally all spheres of life in modern society stimulates the search for an adequate conceptual apparatus in order to understand these processes. The purpose of this work is to show the possibilities of applying semiotic analysis to social-cultural phenomena and processes, which involves going beyond the traditional limitation of semiotics with linguistic phenomena and the reduction of social semiotics to the pragmatic contexts of language use. At the same time, particular attention is given to approaches and developments obtained in the last quarter of the previous century by Russian-speaking authors such as Yuri Lotman, Georgy Bogin, Aron Brudnyj, Tamara Dridze, Aleksandr Portnov, Vladimir Sulimov, as well as their colleagues and students. The priority function and significance of the developments of the aforementioned authors and schools is specifically associated with the discovery of non-trivial possibilities of the semiotic approach, which goes beyond considering the peculiarities of using language in various social practices for the semiotic analysis of such practices themselves.