The article examines the socio-cultural and scientific factors that led to the change of the "man, rational being" paradigm to the "man, symbolic being" paradigm. The linguistic factor, with its functional compartments – syntax, semantics and pragmatics, is essential in this context. That is why some particularities of semiotics and the philosophy of language are mainly analyzed. Some specific features of the philosophical conceptions of E. Cassirer are evoked, who in the reference works Philosophy of symbolic forms (1923 -1929) and Eseu despre om (1944), founded and argued conceptually and socio-culturally the new paradigm. These concepts are briefly examined, focused on the study of symbolic forms - language, religion, myth, culture, science, including the contribution in this field, in the contemporary era, of the great semiotician scholar and writer U. Eco. In summary, the particularities of the historical evolution of the new paradigm under the conditions of globalization and digitization, its socio-linguistic consequences are elucidated. The analysis of some logical contradictions of the new paradigm in terms of language and cognition is not avoided.