Constructing Semiotic System : A Study of Traditional Chinese Woodblock New Year Pictures

Abstract: Traditional Chinese woodblock New Year pictures face the danger of being marginalized and disappearing in the context of industrialization and technological development. It is, therefore, imperative to conduct research on traditional New Year pictures to address this challenge. This thesis analyses the content of New Year pictures from four representative bases (Yangliuqing, Taohuawu, Wuqiang, and Mianzhu) in China. The semiotic perspective is selected as a theoretical framework. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of representative New Year pictures, this study identifies commonly used signs in New Year pictures and explores their meanings from the perspectives of connotation and myth. The study also examines the construction relationship between the signifier and the signified of the signs. These findings preliminarily construct the semiotic system for Chinese woodblock New Year pictures. Furthermore, the analytical framework provides an innovative quantitative research approach to the study of traditional New Year picture signs, contributing to the current research on the New Year pictures’ semiotic system. In previous studies, quantitative methods have never been applied to the study of New Year pictures, nor have they been widely used in other similar folk art forms. Distant reading methods from the field of digital humanities open new frontiers in the study of folk art. While visual art may be better suited for traditional close-up reading, computational methods can help capture the overall characteristics of art from a macroscopic perspective.