Semiotic Approach To Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five

As an influential contemporary postmodernist writer in American literature,Kurt Vonnegut not only diligently pursues a new form of literature,but also continuously expresses his concern about the history and reality of human existence.His representative postmodernist work Slaughterhouse-Five,which is built on its own experience during the Second World War,describes the firebombing of Dresden during that time.Although Slaughterhouse-Five appears to be a ridiculous science fiction with chaotic structure,actually it expresses Vonnegut's humanism and his profound reflection on the future of human beings.The researches abroad and at home are mainly focused on literary critical approach to the themes,the narrative techniques,and other approaches such as ecological and new historism.This study extends to do researches on the language signs in Slaughterhouse-Five and reveals narrative techniques and themes of the novel from the perspective of Morris' s semiotics,which provides the readers a new and inter-discipline angel to analyze the language in fiction.Morris believes that there are three meanings of language signs,namely referential meanings,linguistic meanings,and pragmatic meanings.He divides language signs into the five types of modes of signifying: identifior,designator,appraisor,prescriptor,formator.In postmodernist novels,the so-called meaning only comes from the differences of man-made language symbols or the effect of permutation and combination of symbols.This study selects and analyzes the language signs in Slaughterhouse-Five according to Morris' s classification,and further explores referential meanings,linguistic meanings,and pragmatic meanings of language signs by qualitative analysis.Through illustrating the three dimensions of meanings,the findings of the study are as following: 1.By analyzing referential meanings of descriptors,linguistic meanings of Prescriptors and formators,it can be found that some postmodernist narrative techniques such as irony,parody,non-linear narrative model and collage are used in Slaughterhouse-Five to deconstruct the horrible catastrophe,leaving readers to think in a gloomy morbid laughter.2.By interpreting the pragmatic meanings of identifiors,designators,appraisors,and prescriptors,the themes of the novel are well expounded.The war not only brings the indelible damage to people's mind and soul,but also results in the weakness,paleness and powerlessness of human beings during the war.3.In Slaughterhouse-Five,Vonnegut directly expresses his hatred towards the war,and he uses the postmodern narrative techniques to deconstruct pain and fear brought by war and death and advocate people to fight against war and pursue the value of human existence.