Reception and Transformation of Former Soviet Union's Cultural Semiotics in China

Since China adopted the reform and open-up policy in the late 1970's, the cultural semiotics from the former Soviet Union has been ushered into China, and exerted substantial influence upon the Chinese academia. This essay starts from the perspective of research discourse to review the influence of Soviet literary theories upon Chinese scholars over the past half century, and to demonstrate the positive role played by the Soviet cultural semiotics in the evolution process of the Chinese literary community from revolution through aesthetic discourse to dialogue and polyphony. Then the essay proceeds to the discussion of the revolutionary shift in critical mindset caused by the changes in research discourses, namely the shift from the scientific way of thinking, featuring scientific induction, to the artistic way of thinking, featuring pluralism and coexistence of various elements. The last part of the essay provides an indepth discussion of the Chinese adaptation of the Soviet cultural semiotics, i. e. the rediscovery of the nature of cultural semiotics by Chinese semioticians.