Solar Eclipse As A Love Sign

The solar eclipse in July,2009 aroused nation-wide and even world-wide attention. With the help from various media reports and relevant activities, people gained more knowledge about this astronomical phenomenon. While collecting and analyzing the relevant news from the main stream media, however, the author finds this solar eclipse is not only reported as an astronomical event, but also promoted as a love sign. With the help and support from semiological theories, including Saussure's structuralist semiology, Perice's pragmatical semiotics, and Barthes'theory of myth, the author explores this transition from an astronomical event to a love sign, and argues that the arbitrary nature of signs, the partial similarity between the sign and the object, the fuzziness of the boundary between different kinds of signs, and the unlimited semiosis play important roles in this transition. Further analysis reveals that the arbitrary nature of the signifier-signified relationship is by no means equal to randomness. In fact, the arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified, or between the represent amen and the object, is the result of the deliberate human choice with some purpose. By comparing the eclipse-love relationship with others like rose-love, diamond-love, and chocolate-love, the author points out that, in terms of the theory of myth and two-level signification, love signs on the first level of signification promoted by the power of media may be various and even endless, but the implied meaning, with ideology and social establishment, at the second level remains simple and single:love and happiness can be purchased by money. In this sense, what lies behind the transition of the solar eclipse from an astronomical even to a love sign is the driving power from interest and profit.