Abstract
Meaning generation reaches beyond the convenient code-based distinction between the encoding versus the decoding of information. What we need is a more comprehensive perspective that can encompass code-based communication and agency-oriented interpretation, both of which are treated as two subordinate mechanisms of meaning generation or signification. Based on a close reading of Saussure, there are only forms in signification; signs and signification are one. Given the complexity of its usage over the years, the term sign should be reevaluated. In its stead, the present article proposes using Sebeok and Danesi’s term model, although with some modifications, in order to shed a new light on meaning generation. The present article also demonstrates that cultural memory, or culture understood in the sense proposed by Lotman and Uspensky, coupled with emotions and human agency, act as three determinants of the process of meaning generation and make it a semi-autonomous process.
About the author
Hongbing Yu (b. 1984), PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures of Ryerson University and Associate Professor at the School of Foreign Languages and Cultures of Nanjing Normal University. His current research interests include language and cultural semiotics, cultural history, and intercultural relations. His recent publications include “On semiotic modeling” (2019), “Semiotic modeling and education” (2017), and “A semiotic analysis of anti-identity construction in fictional narratives from the viewpoint of modeling systems theory” (2016, with Jie Zhang).
Acknowledgements
The writing of this article was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (19CYY002) and the Third Phase of the Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD: Phase III) (20180101).
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