The Semiotic Analysis OfThe Cultural Elements In The Chinese And American Pavilions Of Shanghai Expo

As the communication between people from different cultures becomes increasinglyfrequent, the study of intercultural communication has been given more attention thanever before. Misunderstanding and prejudice against different cultures will causecommunication barriers between communicators, so the understanding of differentcultures seems particularly important. Nowadays, scholars research the interculturalcommunication problems from various perspectives and disciplines, such as linguistics,sociology, psychology and anthropology. However, most of their studies are abstract, andthe case studies of certain cultural element are rare.The communication process can be considered as a sign exchanging process fromperspective of semiotics. Every sign contains the specific semiotic meanings which areoriginated from human cultures. Correct understanding of the meanings in signs can helppeople know the cultural connotations contained in them. As a grand feast of displayingcivilizations all over the world, Shanghai Expo provides people a chance to communicatewith each other and learn from other cultures. With its purpose of displaying science,technology and culture, the pavilions of it contain many elements with typical cultures.American scholar Peirce had classified sign into three categories: Firstness,Secondness and Thirdness. This category considers the action of sign as “semiosis” thatinvolves the interaction among three factors: the representamen, the object and theinterpretant. According to Peirce’s theory, a sign or a representamen is the form of signthat stands to people for something which can be called the object in some aspect orcapacity. The sign can encourage people to create in their minds an equivalent sign or amore developed sign that can be called interpretant. From this perspective, the culturalelement in Chinese and American pavilions in this research also consists of three aspects:the cultural element of pavilions (representamen), the cultural form reflected by culturalelement (object) and the cultural connotations (interpretant).With the help of Peirce’s semiotic theory, this thesis adopts qualitative research andcase study methods to analyze the semiotic significances and cultural connotationscontained in the cultural elements of the Chinese and American pavilions in ShanghaiExpo. Mainly for the above reasons, this thesis proposes two questions:1. What are the semiotic significances and cultural connotations of the culturalelements in the Chinese and American pavilions of Shanghai Expo?2. What are the cultural differences reflected from the semiotic analysis? Different people may have different views on the classification of the culturalelements of Shanghai Expo on the basis of their distinct cultural backgrounds andpersonal feelings, so the cultural elements in this thesis are those focused more in theintroduction of Shanghai Expo official website and the mass media. The culturalelements of Chinese pavilion generally include the architectural style and outlook of itand some typical cultural elements displayed in it. The cultural elements of Americanpavilion contain the outlook of it and the elements in the video-Garden displayed in it.The analysis of these cultural elements based on semiotic theory not only can helppeople appreciate the classical displays of each country but also better understand thedifferent cultural features. Besides, this thesis also discusses the cultural differences anddeep reasons of cultural difference with the help of Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck’s ValueOrientations theory. The analysis of the cultural elements of Shanghai Expo indicates thatthese signs contain rich cultural connotations and can reflect the cultural divergencescaused by different cultural values of different countries. Moreover, the deep culturalvalues can influence people’s concepts and behaviors unconsciously and can hardlychange in short time, though cultural globalization and integration become more and moreacceptable because of frequent communication between people. Last but not the least,cultural differences are not absolute, and it is affected by many factors such asenvironment and society, so people should avoid cultural stereotype and cultural prejudiceand keep an objective attitude towards cultural differences.