Interpretation Of Regional Cultural Symbols In Gansu Province From The Perspective Of Cultural Semiotics

As the main market of inbound tourism and domestic tourism along the "Belt and Road Initiative" route,Gansu province’s unique tourism resources attract tourists from all over the world and the promotion of its popularity and influence has ushered in a great opportunity for development.At present,people’s enthusiasm for cultural symbols promotes the symbolic interpretation of regional culture.This paper adopts the method of "purposeful sampling" to determine four typical regional cultural symbols in Gansu province,namely,Fuxi Temple,the Bronze Galloping Horse,Jiayuguan and Mogao Grottoes,which are analyzed from the relationship between the symbol and the context,the symbolic meaning generation mechanism and the symbolic cultural memory mechanism of Lotman’s cultural semiotics.According to the definition of symbol in Lotman’s cultural semiotics,both the expression and content of symbol are "text",which have the functions of information transmission,information generation and information memorization.The four regional cultural symbols in this paper carry cultural symbolic meaning,which preserves,memorizes and generates the regional cultural information of Gansu province,forming independent texts,thus becoming the regional culture of Gansu province.As the regional culture is a part of Chinese culture,and the symbolic meaning it carries tends to be stable,the regional cultural symbols in Gansu province reflect certain connotation of Chinese culture.The research shows that the complex symbols composed of lines,circular and other simple symbols in the Taiji-Bagua Diagrams and the Taiji-Heluo Eight Trigrams and 64 diagrams in the Fuxi Temple convey rich "Yin" and "Yang" culture;the "dragon" element is widely used as a whole text to present the national self-confidence and national pride of Chinese people;the color of Fuxi painted statue as a simple symbol presents the concept of symbiosis and harmony of all things.The Bronze Galloping Horse,the symbol of Chinese tourism is analyzed as a whole symbolic text,which shows self-confidence,enterprising and optimistic spirit and horse culture in China.Jiayuguan,as a cultural symbol,has unique Chinese characteristics and charm in terms of architectural color,architectural structure and architectural style.Architectural color is regarded as a simple symbol and architectural structure and style as a complex symbol.In the Hexi Corridor,the ancient Chinese architecture headed by Jiayuguan embodies the supremacy of ancient imperial power,the norm of behavior system and the demeanor of a great power;analyzing Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang from two aspects of murals and architecture helps people realize awe of nature and yearning for a better life and freedom,in which the patterns in the murals are analyzed with simple symbols such as triangles and lines,and architecture is analyzed as a complex symbol.In addition,these symbols are known by people with the help of various media and forms,and produce new meanings through the integration of people’s own cultural background,knowledge reserve and personal experience.Therefore,these regional cultural symbols carry out invisible communication and interaction among symbols,tourists and Chinese traditional culture.At the same time,the functions of text transmitting information,generating meaning and memorizing culture among symbols have been realized.This study interprets typical regional cultural symbols in Gansu province from the perspective of linguistics,which enriches the content of cultural semiotics interpretation of regional cultural symbols.It attempts to help tourists better understand Chinese regional culture and Chinese traditional culture from cultural semiotic perspective.