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______________________________________________________________________ The "Zeitschrift für
Semiotik"
_________________________________ Introduction Hans-Georg Möller Michael Lackner Literary report Chinese semiotics Hans-Georg Möller, University of Bonn Summary. Sinology is a discipline which lacks its own specific method of analysis. As
such, it is dependent on those of other academic disciplines. Especially appropriate are
semiotic methods since semiotic analysis can be applied to a wide range of cultural and
social phenomena. Furthermore, due to its abstract character, semiotic theory enables
sinology to advance beyond mere documentary and descriptive methods. On the other hand,
China, with its rich "culture of signs" and the development of its own
"Chinese semiotics", presents Western semiotics with an interesting field of
research. Following the methods of Niklas Luhmann, cultural-semiotic research on China can
facilitate the discovery of correlations between sign-structures and social structures.
Chinese sign conceptions value the "blank space", construe a "semiotics of
presence", and regard certain signs as "revelations". Chinese pragmatics
tends to describe art as a process and places less emphasis on the produced work of art.
In the analysis of shadows, Chinese semantics is not concerned with the cast shadow but
with the shady side as opposed to the illuminated side. Tempted birds, missing painters and destroyed fat: art
legends and sign paradigms in China and Europe Summary. Three legends concerning works of art – one from ancient China, one from
ancient Europe, and one from contemporary Europe – are analyzed here to compare the
different cultures' basic semiotic paradigms. In the analysis, each of the complex
narratives is reduced to its simple semiotic structure to reveal the underlying
assumptions regarding the relationship between signifier and signified. The structure that
dominated in ancient China is referred to here as a structure of presence since it
considers both the signifier and the signified to be equally present entities. In
contrast, the dominant paradigm in ancient Europe is a structure of representation that
assumes a divide between the signified, which is present, and the "merely"
representational signifier. The paradigm which has become popular in
"postmodern" Europe regards both the signifier and the signified as being
beyond presence. This paradigm is referred to as a structure of significance. The shadow in Chinese art, literature and philosophy:
empty sign and sign of emptiness Summary. This essay proceeds from the astonishing fact that, with only one known
exception, the portrayal of cast shadows cannot be found in traditional Chinese paintings.
In the first part of the essay, the author tries to explain this absence. He then
continues to show that, through the contrast of its variants, the shadow phenomenon has
become an important symbol in literature and philosophy: the cast shadow and the shaded
area symbolize the empty signifier and the sign of emptiness, respectively. What millions of words can not say: diagrams for the
vizualisation of classical texts in 13th and 14th century China
Summary. This article deals with diagrams used as tools for the interpretation of
classical Chinese texts. The practice of "tu studies" flourished between the
Late Southern Song and the Early Yuan dynasties with a central focus in the Jinhua school.
This non-linear analysis of classical Chinese texts frequently unites semantic and
syntactic aspects of the interpretation. The article presents possible predecessors of
these diagrams, and offers examples of the many advantages of diagrammatic text analysis.
Finally, some considerations on diagrams in comparative perspective are made. Advertising in China Summary. Advertisements taken from Chinese newspapers are analyzed with respect to the
codes used. On the basis of selected examples it is shown that Chinese advertising no
longer concurs with Western ideals. Instead, it takes recourse to ideas of national
grandeur and Chinese tradition. However, this is not done consistently. The resulting
discrepancies receive special attention in this article. Semiotics in 20th century China Summary. The development of modern semiotics in China began approximately two decades
ago. One of the first fields of semiotic research to be introduced was film semiotics. The
introduction of semiotics to China was paradigmatic in nature; it prompted a
methodological shift towards pluralism in Chinese humanities and social sciences. Chinese
semiotics strives more and more to combine Western semiotic theory, upon which it is
based, with the analysis of Chinese traditions. The result will be the emergence of
independent semiotic theorizing in China. The exchange between Chinese and Western –
and especially German – semiotics should be intensified in order to facilitate
further progress in the humanities and an internationalization of semiotics. |
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© 1999-2001, Webmaster Research Center for Semiotics, Institute for Linguistics, Fac. 1, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany |
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