Semiotic terms of visual symbols

There are two terms sémiologie and sémiotique in French, which correspond to "semiotics" in Chinese. There is no fundamental difference between the use of these two terms before 1970s, and sémiologie was earlier than sémiotique. Since 1970s, researchers who use the term sémiotique have made a great breakthrough in their research work, and then the research contents covered by these two terms are quite different.

1, semiologie: This term originally refers to the research work of "disease phase" in medical science. Saussure used it for the first time to refer to the overall study of "symbol system" in general linguistics courses. In the field of cognition, the term first refers to works around French structuralism (Levi-Strauss, Dumize, roland barthes, Lacan, etc. ) In the 1960s, under the influence of Saussure, Hjelmslev and American linguist Jacobson (1896- 1982), subsequently, some people narrowly understood Saussure's definition of semiotics (such as Prieto's and Mu Ning's research), and limited their work to the discussion of symbols themselves, so they could not get rid of the mechanical application of the "language symbol" model. They ruled out all contact with other people's epistemology of literature. This kind of research is included in communication theory and eventually becomes a subsidiary discipline of linguistics. As far as the research content is concerned, sémiolo gie does not care about semantics, but regards the description of the signifier as a common interpretation activity, and natural language is its tool. In the relationship with linguistics, it does not recognize the priority of linguistics, because it only emphasizes the specificity of symbols themselves. However, when interpreting some nonverbal symbols (pictures, paintings, buildings, etc.). ), it often borrows the intermediary of natural language. For example, roland barthes (19 15- 1980) adopted the method of analyzing fashion descriptors, not the fashion itself. When analyzing paintings, it is limited to the descriptive language of paintings.

2.sémiotique: This term originated from English semiotics and was first used by Peirce, the originator of American semiotics (1839- 19 14). It also refers to the study of symbols. In this sense, it is no different from the semiotics used by Saussure. Modern French sémiotique researchers do not attach importance to language symbols, and think that symbols are an object that has been constructed, not an object that can be observed. They pay more attention to semantic research and try to explore the means of meaning. They believe that semiotics should become a theory about meaning system, and their research field is all kinds of texts that mean practical results. In this respect, the school of Grimas et al. and Christeva (194 1-) (the semiotics of "semantic analysis" based on language model and psychoanalytic theory) have been formed. The former has become the mainstream of French semiotics research because of its huge research lineup and fruitful research results: this school is mainly composed of members of the French research society, and is usually called the Paris semiotics school. It can be said that the basic concept of Paris semiotics school about meaning theory has been expounded in Graeme's structural semantics. According to Grimas, Semiotik is a theory of hierarchical analysis, which means system. He divided a whole meaning into deep structure, surface structure and expressive structure, and the research on the establishment of these different levels and their relationship has always been the work content and achievement of Paris semiotics school.

Deep structure means the overall "morphological" structure. Morphology is an inner world composed of sememes, and its "syntax", that is, its organizational form, refers to the basic structure of activities. In the study of deep syntax, Grimas and others succeeded in introducing the concept of symbol matrix. This kind of matrix is considered to be an organizational form of meaning structure with logical-semantic characteristics. The establishment of symbol matrix makes the semantic aggregation relationship of analysis objects described. It is at this level that semiotics is based on the semantic study of linguistics, but it also adds social and cultural related content and analysis methods. Surface structure refers to the way of acting on sememe layer. Action mode is the relationship mode between narrative actors summarized by Grimas on the basis of summarizing the 365,438+0 "functions" summarized by Russian formalists for Russian folk stories. It includes six actors: sender, receiver, subject, object, assistant and opponent, and their various combinations constitute the "narrative" syntax. Among them, it is also important to introduce the actor's action mode. Grimas first divided the action mode into three aspects: want, ability and understanding, and then determined the "actual state mode" according to the semiotic matrix principle, thus establishing the narrative schema. In this way, the semiotic theory of the Paris semiotic school can be applied not only to literary narration, but also to the whole of various meanings. It is at this level that semiotics embraces communication and has a wider research scope. In the view of Paris semiotics school, the expression plane composed of signifiers, that is, the language symbol layer, is not their research content, but the research content of phonetics and grammar in linguistics except semantic research. As mentioned above, the study of semiotics is limited to the characteristics of signifier, so it depends on the language sign pattern at the expression level.

In fact, semiotic researchers have realized since roland barthes that "any semiotic system is mixed with speech activities". They further believe that semiotics is the science of discourse meaning unit. Therefore, at present, the research on Semiotic Rogie has also turned to Semiotic, so the connotations of these two terms are beginning to approach.

French semiotics research has formed a basic theoretical framework from the beginning to today, which has contributed to the "self-reliance" of semiotics and become a world leader in this field. Therefore, it is necessary to have a deeper understanding of it.

Generally speaking, China's semiotics research has been in the "introductory" stage for a long time. Of course, some related theories of semiotics have been applied in some fields in China. Linguistics, logic, translation theory and literary research all draw lessons from semiotics to varying degrees. The publication of this series will undoubtedly promote our research and application. The bibliographies in the series are all influential works of French semiotics research in different periods, including two research achievements named sémiologie and sémiotique (most of the latter), and mainly works by Graeme, Christeva and todorov. Mr. todorov himself agreed to be honorary editor of the series, which further increased the authority of the series.