Research On The Graph-icon Relation Of Chinese Compound Pictographs In The Shang Dynasty

Based on the general principles of semiotics and"Integrated approach to the study of graph"theory as the theoretical basis and methodological guidance, regarding Chinese compound pictographs in the Shang Dynasty as the research subject, this paper mainly researches the distinctive"similarity to Chinese characters"nature of Oracle Compound Pictographs from a new perspective which brings the Oracle Compound Pictographs into graph-icon relation framework. The research methods and results obtained here may provide some new theoretical references to future research in various fields such as linguistics, philology, semiotics, visual culture, etc. This article is divided into five chapters and chapters of the main contents as follows.The first chapter is the background and literature review, pointing out academic research problems and existent insufficiency of the"single form"and"compound form"in Compound Pictographs, this paper explains the research method and idea. In the"integrated approach to graph"research method, Oracle Compound Pictographs consist of"hieroglyph component"and"icon component", which is a pair of interrelated items in a semiotic field. With the study materials, this paper makes a statistical analysis of Oracle Compound Pictographs and researches in the relation pattern and principles between their internal components.In the second chapter, throughout analyzing the confusable difference between Self-explanatory Characters and Associative Compounds, the paper makes a detail explanation on the definition of Oracle Compound Pictographs and compiles statistics of the amount of these characters. Based on the existed materials, research methods and new standard and principles in this paper, the author finds seventy-four Oracle Compound Pictographs.In the chapter three, seventy-four Oracle Compound Pictographs are classified into four kinds from the angle of graph-icon relation. According to separateness principle, which is how to separate the graphic element or the icon element from a semiotic unit, icon component of Oracle Compound Pictographs is found in this article. According to unity principle, this paper has a full realization of the mutual complement, influence and transformation between graph and icon element in Oracle Compound Pictographs. This article summarizes four kinds of graph-icon relations which are hieroglyph dominant type, icon dominant type, intertextuality between hieroglyph and icon type and a complex structure type. Then, it focuses on three aspects of Oracle Compound Pictographs in the composition of the internal graph-icon relation rules.The chapter four makes a theoretical enhance and deep analysis on the graph-icon relation of the Oracle Compound Pictographs, noting that Oracle Compound Pictographs consist of hieroglyph component and icon component. The intertextuality relationship between graph and icon inside of the Oracle Compound Pictographs shows a sophisticated system of writing on the one hand and iconic nature which was born out of the primitive hieroglyphic picture on the other hand. All the complexity of the Oracle Compound Pictographs could be summed up by"similar as Chinese character". The research of"similar as Chinese character"nature reveals a vast field of heterogeneous symbols with profound theoretical significance and value. It not only reveals the graph-icon rules of Chinese characters, but also applies to general symbol regulations and will certainly be a unique and precious visual language to provide new thinking for philology, semiotics, visual culture and many other areas of research.Conclusions are drawn on in the last chapter. This part makes a summary of the whole thesis and presents some new enlightenments in the end.