(East-West Question) Zhu Dong: How can the symbolic thinking under the mutual view of cultures not ask the East-West?
China News Agency, Beijing, April 8th, Question: How does the symbolic thought under the cultural mutual view ask nothing?
The author wishes to be a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, East Jinan University
Human beings live in a world of meaning constructed by various symbols. Symbolic concepts and ideas exist in both ancient and modern times.
In the West, such as the ancient Greek Hippocrates' symptom symbol thought, Aristotle's language logic symbol thought and so on.
In the East, such as ancient India, the doctrine of enlightenment also contains a wealth of symbolic ideas.
Since the pre-Qin era in China, the sages used the symbol system to construct the meaning world of the Chinese nation.
The construction of the Chinese semiotics tradition is actually a dialogue process.
Peirce, the pioneer of semiotics, once pointed out: "Thoughts are actually developed in the form of dialogue, and dialogue is essentially composed of symbols." From the perspective of human cultural inheritance and dissemination, Eastern and Western semiotic ideas have been continuously exchanged throughout history. Fusion, semiotic thought also has enlightenment significance for resolving cultural conflicts in today's world.
Chinese civilization breeds rich symbolic ideas
The civilization history of the Chinese nation for more than 5,000 years has nurtured profound semiotic ideological resources.
Chinese ancestors created the "Book of Changes", an all-encompassing symbol system in the practice of looking up and down, and created the "Five Elements", an all-encompassing symbol interpretation system in analogical reasoning. However, these are only It is a spontaneous use of symbols, and it is in the era of great changes in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period that the really fruitful thinking on the symbol system and entering the "semiotics" stage.
Hangzhou Bagua Tu Ruins Park.
China News Agency issued a photo by Wei Wei
After all, the spontaneous use of symbols to communicate and construct social meaning activities is the basic feature of human society, and when human beings begin to pay attention to the relationship between symbols and meaning, they enter the conscious stage of semiotics.
Since the Spring and Autumn Period, the ritual system has collapsed and the society has become disordered. The existing ritual system cannot effectively maintain the social order, and there has been a rupture between the inherent cultural symbols and meanings. The wise men such as Laozi and Confucius began to think about the ritual culture. The object of observation and investigation, in this way, the ritual system will be transferred to the stage of ritual study.
People began to think about the meaning activity mechanism of the ritual system, that is, from the stage of spontaneous use of symbols to the stage of semiotic self-consciousness.
Therefore, although we say that symbolic activities have always accompanied human society, the history of thinking about the relationship between symbols and meaning is not as long as that of human beings themselves using symbols to communicate and spread meaning.
Strictly speaking, it was the wise men of the Axial Age who opened the door to speculation about the ritual symbol system and its functions, such as Plato and Aristotle in the West, Laozi and Confucius in China, and so on.
As historians and Confucian scholars since the Spring and Autumn Period pondered on the ritual system, the study of ritual rose and the ancestors of China entered the conscious stage of semiotics.
Although Chinese sages did not put forward an academic concept similar to modern semiotics, they began to pay attention to the relationship between symbols and meaning very early, and they carried out fruitful thinking, forming unique academic topics and discourse methods, such as the relationship between form and name. , the relationship between the name and the real, the relationship between the reference and the object, the relationship between the mind and the object, and the relationship between etiquette, ritual equipment and etiquette, etc., which are the basis of Chinese semiotics.
In 2021, the ceremony of public sacrifice to the Mausoleum of Dayu will be held in Shaoxing, Zhejiang.
Photo by Yuan Yun issued by China News Agency
The focus of modern semiotics shifts to China
Semiotics, as a discipline that studies the representation mechanism of human society, has nothing to do with it, and human beings use symbols to represent the development of human society.
There are two main sources of modern semiotics, one is linguistic semiotics derived from Ferdinand de Saussure, and the other is philosophical semiotics derived from Charles Sanders Peirce, both of which have been deduced over decades. Development, in the 1960s, semiotics as a discipline finally came out.
Because semiotics has strong interdisciplinary methodological characteristics, as well as strong practicality and operability, it has been quickly accepted by academia in many countries around the world, and has gradually formed an international academic trend.
The Chinese subject concept of "semiotics" comes from a 1926 article by Zhao Yuanren entitled "Semiotics Outline".
According to the research of Professor Zhao Yiheng of Sichuan University, Zhao Yuanren proposed this subject independently of Saussure and Pierce, and was an independent proposer of Chinese semiotics.
Semiotics research in China did not develop very well after Zhao Yuanren. It was not until the 1980s, with the rise of cultural fever, that semiotics began to receive renewed attention in Chinese academic circles and developed rapidly. , literature, philosophy and other fields in an all-round way.
Judging from the development of Chinese semiotics for more than 20 years in this century, China has become an important center of international semiotics research. German scholar Roland Posner pointed out that China will become the "power house" of the world's semiotics research (translation). As an "important town"), the British scholar Paul Cobley also pointed out that "the center of semiotics has shifted to China".
Modern semiotics originated in Europe and the United States, but it has developed rapidly in China. On the one hand, China has a rich semiotic heritage. On the other hand, the era background of the comprehensive development of politics, economy and culture in the new era provides a good opportunity for the rapid development of Chinese semiotics.
In the past 20 years, Chinese society as a whole has been in a period of rapid change and rapid development. Correspondingly, the international pattern and international system have also undergone profound changes. Semiotics has just adapted to the needs of the times for the innovative and integrated development of humanities and social sciences under the background of great changes. .
American social networking giant Facebook Inc. (Facebook) announced that the company has changed its name to Meta (metaverse), and the iconic "thumbs up" logo at its headquarters has also been replaced with a new logo similar to the "infinity symbol" (∞).
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liu Guanguan
Eastern and Western symbolic ideas learn from each other in exchanges
Before the birth of modern semiotics, human society had conducted an in-depth study of the relationship between symbols and meaning.
The term semiotics comes from the ancient Greek semiotikos, which has appeared in Plato's "Craterus" and Aristotle's "Tools", "Poetics", "Rhetoric" and other works. The discussion of symbols.
After Aristotle, the Stoics differentiated and discussed the different functions of the sign, such as the pronunciation, nature and object. The semiotic discussion in the Roman period was mainly carried out within the framework of rhetoric. The definition of semiotics directly affected Saussure's concept of symbols; in the 17th century, Locke introduced the term semiotics into English for the first time in The Theory of Human Understanding, and Locke's semiotics was an important part of Peirce's semiotics thought origin.
Linguistics was once an important part of ancient Indian culture, and Sanskrit dominated the ancient Indian languages.
After Sanskrit and its grammatical system were introduced into Europe at the end of the 18th century, modern comparative linguistics emerged, and a large number of linguists including Saussure were influenced.
Pierce and Saussure are the founders of modern semiotics, so it can be seen that their semiotics are influenced by traditional culture.
Buddhist tantric pagoda bricks and rubbings of pagoda bricks engraved in Sanskrit.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liu Ranyang
The culture of the Chinese nation has a long history. The ancestors of the Chinese nation learned to use the symbolic model to guide production and life practice very early in their communication with the natural world. The semiotic heritage of China completed the ethical turn of ancient Chinese semiotic thought.
Semiotic research in modern China is also produced under the fusion of Chinese and Western cultures.
The study of semiotics in Chinese academic circles began with the translation, introduction and research of Western semiotics theories in linguistics circles, especially Saussure's linguistic semiotics theory, which has a great influence in China.
Since the beginning of this century, Chinese academic circles have paid more attention to the mutual view and interpretation of Chinese and Western semiotics, based on the cultural context with Chinese characteristics, and theoretically eclectic, and gradually opened up a road of semiotics research with Chinese characteristics.
Semiotic Thought Has Inspirational Significance for Contemporary Civilization Dialogue
The cultural world created by human beings, including material culture, institutional culture and spiritual culture, is actually constructed by symbols.
In terms of its form, a nation's culture is the sum total of its way of life and representational patterns, and this form reflects its way of thinking and ideas.
The cultural characteristics and national character of the Chinese nation are shaped by its unique culture, and the national culture is determined by its symbolic mechanism and way of thinking. Wait.
In this way, a deep insight into the semiotic thinking of a nation can fundamentally grasp its thinking laws and cultural characteristics, which is more conducive to exchanges and mutual learning between heterogeneous cultures.
On a larger scale, the difference and diversity of symbolic resources is also an important manifestation of the cultural differences of various ethnic groups and the diversity of global meanings. The so-called seeking common ground while reserving differences means respecting the differences and diversity of the symbolic system, and trying to maintain the richness of global culture. sex.
Ancestors said that "with the real creatures, the same will not follow", which is to emphasize diversity and oppose singleness.
A single world lacks differences, cannot form a rich world of meaning, and cannot provide symbolic power for development.
Humans are symbolic animals that pursue meaning. The so-called five-colored writing, five-tones, and five-flavored food are mostly the "harmony" that emphasizes diversity and diversity to form unity. If there is only one color, one tone, and one flavor, it will be difficult to Form a colorful life world.
Photo by Han Shiyuan issued by China News Agency
The in-depth development of today's semiotics is closely related to the rapid development and transformation of political economy and cultural media at home and abroad. Contemporary culture is a highly symbolic culture powered by digital technology.
The digital space is the largest web of symbols that human beings have woven so far. In the digital space, human beings basically say goodbye to the material world and arrive at the symbolic world. Human beings living in digital are not residing in the material space, but a symbolic space dominated by digital coding. , the more developed the digital symbol coding, the farther the human society is from the real material space.
The metaverse is the process of digitization and symbolization of the real world. With the development of the metaverse, human society will enter a world of highly symbolic existence. Semiotics will also contribute its unique academic wisdom to the future survival and development of human society.
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About the Author:
Zhu Dong is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan University.
Mainly engaged in the teaching and research of ancient Chinese ideology and culture, communication semiotics.
Presided over the completion of one project of the National Social Science Fund, and participated in a number of major bidding projects of the National Social Science Fund.
He has won one of the Youth Achievement Award of the 8th Higher Education Scientific Research Outstanding Achievement Award of the Ministry of Education.
He has published 3 books such as "Research on Pre-Qin Semiotic Thought" and "The History of Ancient Chinese Semiotic Thought", edited several books including "Semiotic Fields", and published more than 50 academic papers in various journals.