Jie Zhang: 文学符号王国的探索: 方法与批评 [Exploration of the realm of literary signs: method and criticism]

1 Introduction

From the perspective of institutional history, semiotic studies in China have been developing for about 30 years and have made some encouraging achievements, but they are still in a scattered state, separated, individualized, and fragmented to some extent, and have not, either in breadth or in depth, fully exhibited the essential characteristic of semiotics, namely interdisciplinarity. For example, the semiotic seminar established by the Chinese Logic Society is basically limited to the field of philosophy, while the Chinese Language and Semiotics Association pioneered by the Departments of Foreign Languages is rarely attended by non-foreign language scholars. There is little communication between the two societies, and most of the scholars engaged in semiotic studies just play to their existing strengths and dare not go beyond their specialty. At present, there are few real interdisciplinary studies in the study of semiotics in China, and there are even fewer scholars who systematically conduct comparative studies of Chinese and foreign semiotics and construct their own views. Jie Zhang’s recently published book 文学符号王国的探索:方法与批评 [Exploration of the realm of literary signs: Method and criticism] points out the direction for the study of semiotics in China for the future (Zhang 2021).

Jie Zhang is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Nanjing Normal University, Vice President of the IASS, and Vice President of the Chinese Language and Semiotics Research Association. This new book by Zhang was published by Peking University Press in May 2021. The book is part of the series “Academic Library of Renowned Contemporary Chinese Semioticians,” which is edited by Professor Mingyu Wang, president of the Chinese Language and Semiotics Research Association.

As its title suggests, Exploration of the realm of literary signs: Method and criticism is a collection of the author’s decades of hard work in the realm of semiotics, that opens up new horizons for examining literary and artistic classics. The book aims to prompt change in the passive situation of some Chinese scholars’ one-way acceptance of Western semiotic theories and urge Chinese semiotics to secure a place for itself on the international academic stage. The book includes both a clear analysis and a precise critique of classical semiotic theories from which Zhang’s fresh and relevant personal insights are derived, and a penetrating analysis of the application of semiotic theory to literary and cultural phenomena.

The book is a collection of 47 papers published by the author in domestic and foreign academic journals from 1989 to 2010. It is divided into two parts, namely Method and Criticism. In the part on method, the first four papers specifically discuss semiotic methodology and the general trend in the development of semiotics, focusing on the three pillars of the former Soviet Union realm of semiology, namely, the semiotic theories of Bakhtin, Lotman, and Uspensky. Zhang systematically analyzes the theory of the Tartu semiotic school and presents a new interpretation from the perspective of cognitive semiotics in relation to the features of the discipline. Furthermore, he predicts the inward-turning trend in the study of linguistic signs in the twenty-first century. On the basis of discussing the semiotic theories and methods of Bakhtin, Lotman, and others, the following six papers generally investigate the acceptance of Russian and Soviet semiotics and even Western semiotics in China. The next six articles mainly use the research methods and thinking paths of semiotics to record the author’s reflections on the methods of literary criticism and linguistics in the twenty-first century. The last seven papers in the first part attempt to explore literary tradition, literary translation, literary criticism, Eastern Orthodox culture, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and human civilization from the perspective of semiotic research, showing the author’s unique semiotic research line.

In the part on criticism, the first 11 papers mainly summarize and evaluate the development of the characteristics of Russian and Soviet literary theory and literature from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century and Western literature and its literary and artistic concepts in the twentieth century from a macro perspective using the methods of semiotic research. The following four papers use the methods of semiotics to comment on and analyze individual theorists and different schools of criticism such as Bakhtin, ethical literary criticism, Russian formalism, and Florensky. From paper 16 to paper 22, the theory of semiotics is fully integrated into the practice of literary criticism, using the method of text analysis from semiotics to specifically analyze the literary creations of Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, and others. The last two papers are a result of comparative research in the field of semiotics. Starting from the field of semiotics, these papers summarize the Sinicization of Russian and Soviet poetics and the origins of the connection between Bakhtin and Chinese literature.

2 Features of the book

With this book, Zhang has successfully achieved a number of goals. He has: 1) outlined some important theories of semiotics and repositioned them from a cognitive perspective; 2) reconstructed the mode of thought of literary criticism from the perspective of semiotics; 3) constructed a new approach to linguistic and literary research in the twenty-first century; 4) expanded the interpretive space of the text from multiple perspectives; 5) achieved deep integration of literary research and cultural research; 6) demonstrated the close links between science, literature, religion, and culture; 7) constructed a regeneration mechanism of textual meaning; 8) and bridged the gap between fiction and reality, sign and authenticity, and carrying out the application of interdisciplinary methodology of semiotics.

Reading through the book, I can’t help but be impressed by the author’s superb academic research ability. Zhang freely wanders among ancient (Plato, Li Bai, and Du Fu), modern (Ermakov, Vladimir, and Lu Xun), Chinese (Wang Wei, Ouyang Xiu), and foreign (Plato, Saussure, and Peirce) scholars and their theories. The book features exquisite academic dialogues and exchanges among the ancients, between ancient and modern scholars, between the author of the book and the scholars mentioned in the book, between different disciplines, between theory and application, and between Eastern and Western ideas. The breadth of knowledge and vision displayed by the author in this book is breathtaking.

The most striking feature of this volume is its interdisciplinary nature. Interdisciplinarity is the basic characteristic of semiotics. The two founders of modern semiotics conceived or described an interdisciplinary approach to the study of signifying activities as early as in the early twentieth century. When Saussure conceived the discipline of semiology, he said:

A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be a part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology […] Linguistics is only a part of this general science of semiology; the laws discovered by semiology will be applicable to linguistics, and the latter will circumscribe a well-defined area within the mass of anthropological facts. (Saussure 1985: 34–35)

Peirce took a similar view of the relationship between semiotics and other disciplines, writing to Lady Welby on December 23, 1908, that:

It has never been in my power to study anything -- mathematics, ethics, metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, history of science, poker games, men and women, wine, metrology - except as the study of semiotics. (cited in Oehler 1987: 4)

American semiotician Charles Morris clearly defined semiotics as “an interdisciplinary enterprise” (Morris 1985: 178). In what sense, then, is semiotics interdisciplinary while avoiding the suspicion of “semiotic imperialism?” As Mingyu Wang points out in the general preface to the series (Wang 2021: 2), human thought and experience depend on the use of signs, and the study of any cultural phenomenon will eventually lead to the study of signs and their functions. In all human activities, there is a signified or signified relationship of a signifier signifying a signified, and this relationship constitutes the core topic of semiotics. Jie Zhang’s publication freely establishes the links between cognitive science, philosophy, sociology, linguistics, rhetoric, culture, media, literature, and literary criticism, breaking through the barriers between disciplines and realizing comprehensively the original intention of semiotics as interdisciplinary research, so that scholars with different backgrounds can gain enlightenment. As a result, they are able to communicate and share valuable insights across disciplinary barriers.

The work crosses not only disciplinary barriers but also national boundaries. Although literary signs are at the heart of the book, Zhang always holds a global perspective and is not trapped in the perspectives of any one country. For example, when he analyzes the inward trend in the twenty-first century study of language signs, he discusses this issue mainly from the perspective of globalization, arguing that “in the process of economic globalization and cultural globalization, language signs as carriers of human civilization and thinking permeate all aspects of human life. The existence of human beings and the world is seen as an existence of language signs, and as a result, linguistic globalization is unfolding on the levels of both communication and thinking” (p. 3). The inward trend in the study of linguistic signs in the twenty-first century has promoted the integration of linguistic globalization and cultural globalization at a deeper level of thinking, and formed a trend of globalization toward pluralism.

Zhang further points out that the process of globalization is a multifaceted, multilayered, and complex process. From the main characteristics of various globalizations, economic globalization is mainly one of integration, cultural globalization is mainly one of diversification, and linguistic globalization is the combination of integration and diversification. The study of linguistic globalization can not only help us to understand various globalizations more clearly and comprehensively, but also provide valuable enlightenment for our way of thinking and research methods. As examples, the author mainly discusses the reception and transformation of Western semiotics in China, especially Russian and Soviet semiotics in China, and specifically analyzes the reception of Russian and Soviet poetics in China and the influential relationship between Bakhtin and Chinese literature. The author points out that Russian and Soviet semiotics is exerting a more and more important influence on Chinese academic circles in literature, linguistics, semiotics, and other fields. Zhang focuses on the differences in the three aspects of ideology, religious culture, and thinking mode between the two countries so as to reveal the acceptance and transformation of Russian and Soviet semiotics in China, which serves as a good example for the study of cross-cultural and transnational semiotics. Chinese semiotic researchers do not passively accept foreign theories, but take on a variety of Western semiotic theories with an eclectic attitude, pay attention to the study of the similarities between various theories, try to make use of the diversified method of semiotic interpretation, form multifusional research approaches, and forge their own path of semiotic theory and practice. Therefore, transnational semiotic communication is by no means a one-way route, and indeed, the Soviet semiotician Bakhtin was quite knowledgeable in ancient and modern Chinese literature. He not only knew the ancient Chinese classics like Book of Songs and Four Classics, but also mentioned in his works modern Chinese scholars like Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, Mao Dun, Lu Xun, and others, and even quoted Mao Zedong’s comment on Lu Xun. Bakhtin’s method of discourse analysis combines the strengths of Chinese and Western literary theories and effectively absorbs the overall grasp of ancient Chinese literary theories. All of these reflect the transnational nature of semiotics.

The third feature of the book is its seamless integration of theory and application. Semiotic theories always leave people with an impression of being abstract, esoteric, and difficult, but Jie Zhang has a good command of the use of relevant semiotic theories to analyze language, literary works, national conditions, and cultural phenomena in an easily understandable way, and his accuracy of analysis is convincing. The first part of the book mainly discusses the theories and methods of semiotics, and the second part deals with critical practice. In theoretical discussion, Zhang holds that Chinese semiotic scholars should view foreign theories critically and reform them rationally rather than parroting them. For example, the understanding of semiotics can be combined with modern artificial intelligence to explore the modern relevance of semiotic theory. Based on the context of Bakhtin’s dialogue, this book reconstructs critical thinking paradigms, and, on the basis of Bakhtin’s holistic critical theory, it goes beyond the traditional Western model and excavates the non-dialogic factors from Bakhtin’s dialogue theory.

In terms of the theoretical construction of semiotics, Zhang advocates a principle of raising greater awareness of problems and drawing fewer hasty conclusions. He encourages researchers to combine integration and diversity, to move from formal research to cognitive research, and to adopt two-way interaction and multiple perspectives in cultural interpretation. Zhang keeps renewing his thinking mode, exploring new methods of criticism, and trying to expand the interpretive space of the text. In terms of the practice of criticism, Zhang uses his self-created theory of unity of everything to analyze Orthodox and Russian literature in detail, uses the intelligent mechanisms of text to analyze the history of Russian literature in the nineteenth century, and convincingly summarizes the function of historical reconstruction and the art of psychoanalysis of modernist literature in the twentieth century. Jie Zhang combines literary criticism with ethics, sets up a pluralistic literary ethical criticism method, analyzes the issue of subjectivity in the creation of nineteenth century Russian novels by using the theory of semiotic intersubjectivity, revealing the author’s consciousness and the dialogue relationships in novels by using Bakhtin’s polyphonic theory.

This book also makes a rational analysis of Lotman’s interpretation of the dramatization of Alexander Pushkin’s Yevgeniy Onegin (Eugene Onegin) by means of defamiliarization theory. In addition, Zhang and his collaborators analyze Contemporary Heroes, The Brothers Karamazov, White Noise, and other literary works with relevant semiotic theories, excavating the meaning regeneration mechanism of texts and expanding their interpretive space. The author is skilled at using relevant semiotics to analyze literary works and cultural texts, thus further shortening the distance between semiotic theories and our daily life. Zhang freely and confidently operates between the theory of semiotics and real life, so that the readers can experience not a boring theory, but a kind of enjoyment of semiotics. In this sense, the book is a success in the practical application of semiotic theories, so that semiotics has really come down to earth from its challenging heights.

The fourth notable feature of the book is the critique of hot issues and the skillful use of Marxist materialist dialectics. What the author is trying to break through is the traditional binary opposition of the traditional Western mode of thinking, and what he is trying to advocate is a two-way interactional, multi-symbiotic, semiotic thinking paradigm. Zhang can always find the existence of antithesis in thesis, and vice versa. He does not regard the two as in a completely opposite relationship, but thinks that the two should be in an interdependent, symbiotic relationship. For example, when people talk about Bakhtin’s achievements, they tend to first think of his theory of dialogue because it is on the basis of dialogue theory that Bakhtin developed his theory of polyphonic fiction, carnival poetics, and chronotope theory. But Zhang not only sees this, he also critically sees non-dialogicness in Bakhtin’s dialogue theory, discovers closedness, flatness, and subjectiveness in Bakhtin’s discourse system. The author sharply points it out that in order to really build a dialogic criticism and to lead the way of pluralistic criticism, we must first break through the thinking mode of binary opposition and change binary opposition into binary symbiosis or pluralistic symbiosis, which means we should not only pay attention to the contradiction and opposition between things, but also see the internal connection and interdependence between things (p. 66).

When academia regards Western modernist literature as the opposite of realism and thinks that modernism is anti-reality, Zhang sets up a bridge between modernism and reality in this book, and believes that while there exists an opposition between things, there is bound to be a connection between them. In terms of means of expression and literary ideas, modernist art and realist art are undoubtedly different, and even contradictory to each other. However Zhang believes that modernist literature is necessarily similar to realism in that the former expresses historical reality in one way or another. It should be seen that the achievement of modern literature and art is neither a result of anti-realism, nor one of ignoring historical social reality, but only one of broadening the boundaries of the concept of historical reality (p. 260). When people are keen to talk about literary representation by borrowing the concept of defamiliarization from Russian formalism, Zhang sees lifelization hidden in the defamiliarization method. In most people’s eyes, there exist irreconcilable contradictions between defamiliarization and lifelization in literary creation, but in Zhang’s view, so-called defamiliarization refers to the textualization of life, and in addition to this, there exists a process of transforming literature itself into life. So defamiliarization not only includes the textualization of life but also the lifelization of literature. And literariness is not only the result of defamiliarization, but also the product of lifelization. The writer unifies defamiliarization and lifelization in the narration of literary texts (p. 367). Zhang is also well aware of the dialectical relationship between realism and symbolism, and believes that realism is full of symbolic techniques, while symbolism is also characterized by realist expressions, that is, the realness in artistic works is continuously extended through the dialogues and the psychological activities of characters. The symbolization of reality and the realization of symbolization are interwoven in literary texts.

The characteristics of this book are not limited to these four points. The book’s precise anatomy of semiotic concepts, thorough analysis of semiotic theory, and personal insights that emerge from it are both authentic and enlightening. In this book, Zhang closely connects Chinese and Western semiotic theories and cultural phenomena. The book reflects the author’s superb logical reasoning ability, his extensive knowledge, and his theoretical vision. This volume a great advance in the latest semiotic research. It does an excellent job of comparing Chinese and Western critical theories of semiotics. Professor Jie Zhang’s qualifications as a linguist, literary critic, and a semiotician are first-rate, for this book has shown his comprehensive mastery of the developing trend of Chinese and Western literary semiotic research.

3 Significance of the book

Not only is this book a symbol of the development and peaks of the author’s personal academic career, but it also stands for the contributions made by Chinese semiotics to global semiotics. Jie Zhang has published a great number of papers and eight academic monographs, presided over and completed four general projects of the National Social Science Foundation, and is currently presiding over a major bidding project of the National Social Science Foundation. Professor Jie Zhang’s study of semiotics originated from his study of Bakhtin’s semiotics. As early as 1989, Zhang developed a strong interest in Bakhtin’s theories of polyphony, dialogue, carnival, and chronotope, and wrote his doctoral thesis entitled Study on Bakhtin’s theories of polyphonic novels. He completed his thesis defense and received his doctoral degree in 1992. At the same time, he concluded his first project from the National Social Science Foundation, “Study on Dostoyevsky’s works and Bakhtin’s theories of polyphonic novels,” and published the first domestic academic monograph on Bakhtin’s semiotics in China, Study on theories of polyphonic novels(Zhang 1992).

In 1997, Zhang obtained his second project from the National Social Science Foundation “Lotman and his research on art semiotics.” As a result, in 2004, the first monograph on Lotman Structural semiotics of literature and art was published in China (Zhang and Kang 2004). From 1995 to 1996, Zhang started the study of Orthodox cultural semiotics while studying in Russia. In 2004, he was offered a third project from the National Social Science Foundation “Research on the critical theory of Russian religious culture in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.” His research resulted in the academic monograph Exploration towards truth – A study on the critical theory of Russian religious culture in the Silver Age, published in 2012 (Zhang 2012). In 2011, Professor Zhang Jie was awarded his fourth project from the National Social Science Foundation, “Study on the history of Russian and Soviet literary critical theory in the twentieth century,” which resulted in the publication of The history of Russian and Soviet literary critical theory in the 20th century in 2017 (Zhang 2017). At present, Professor Jie Zhang is engaged in the biggest project he has ever obtained – the major bidding project of the National Social Science Fund “Orthodox and Russian Literature.”

Throughout Professor Jie Zhang ’s semiotic research career of nearly 30 years, he has followed a wide range of interests in semiotic research and has experienced a turn from the study of semiotic theories to the analysis of specific works with theoretical methods, revealing the mechanism of text regeneration. In his study of semiotic theories, there is a transition from linguistic signs to cultural signs and finally to religious signs, and from the field of semiotics to the field of civilization interpretation and other fields. This collection is his second collection and the eighth academic book published, but it is his first collection dedicated wholly to the study of semiotics. It is a true and comprehensive record of Professor Jie Zhang’s 30-year semiotic academic voyage.

From an international perspective, the research results of Western semiotics in recent years are mainly reflected in two sets of semiotic series edited by Thomas Sebeok, former president of the IASS. One set, under the general title “Progress in Semiotics,” is published by Indiana University Press; The other, “Methods of Semiotics,” is published by Mouton Press. The two series add up to nearly 120 books on semiotics. After Sebeok’s death, the center of international semiotics began to shift from the United States to Toronto, Canada. After much discussion, the IASS planned the publication of a third series of books on semiotics, edited by IASS leaders like Marcel Danesi, Umberto Eco, and Roland Posner. The third series was named “Toronto Studies in Semiotics and Communication” and was published by the University of Toronto Press. As the voice of Chinese semiotics, the Chinese Language and Semiotics Research Association has planned and published the series “Academic Library of Renowned Contemporary Chinese Semioticians” with Mingyu Wang, President of the Association, as the chief editor. Jie Zhang’s book is one of the centerpieces. On the eve of the publication of the book, he was elected vice president of the IASS, so the publication of the book is also a great contribution of Chinese semiotic scholarship to the development of world semiotics. This fully shows that Chinese semioticians and their theories are starting to gain international recognition, and that the time has come for Chinese semiotics and Western semiotics to truly realize equal dialogue and make contributions to the development of international semiotics.

Jie Zhang’s new book breaks the situation of Chinese semiotic studies only drawing lessons from and passively accepting Western semiotic theory and can really promote Chinese semiotic resources around the world, so that the world can gain a better understanding of Chinese scholarship. Fortunately, some people with insightful vision into semiotics in China have begun to recognize the importance of international communication and the interdisciplinary nature of semiotics. The Eleventh World Semiotics Conference was successfully organized by the School of Foreign Languages, Nanjing Normal University, in October 2012. The theme of the conference was “Globalization of Semiotics – A Bridge between Civilizations.” This conference officially launched semiotic exchange between China and the West. The first Chinese Semiotic Forum was held at the same time. The academic backgrounds of the participants involved linguistics, logic, cognitive science, philosophy, literature and art, journalism, communication, Confucianism, film, aesthetics, psychology, culture, ancient civilization, history, and even natural science. At the same time, more and more Chinese semioticians have begun to participate in international semiotic conferences and to publish articles in international journals, which indicates that international exchange and comprehensive interdisciplinary studies of Chinese semiotics have begun to take place. Professor Jie Zhang’s new book is a pioneering work to achieve this ambitious goal.