The Reconstruction of Western Semiotics and Literary-Artistic Theory by Chinese Semiotics: Ma Dakang’s Research on Cognitive Semiotics

Since Saussure proposed "semiotics" at the beginning of the twentieth century, (1) there have successively appeared many schools of semiotic research—linguistic semiotics, ontological semiotics, logico-rhetorical semiotics, cultural semiotics, social semiotics, cognitive semiotics, and so on—and the research path has shifted from the sign itself to the relation between sign and context, between sign and culture, and between sign and the human himself. The importance of semiotics today is self-evident; it has long since seeped into every domain of the humanities and social sciences, with a broad and far-reaching influence. However, the foundation of current semiotic research is the Western framework of subject-object dualism, a framework that very easily leads cultural and literary-artistic research into a blind alley and produces theoretical bias. Ma Dakang's new book Cognitive Semiotics: A New Path for Aesthetic and Literary-Artistic Research, on the basis of clarifying the maladies and crux of Western semiotics, recasts the foundation of semiotic research from the standpoint of traditional Chinese cultural thought, pointing out that the sign is the relational model of human and world, and that the relation of human and world is both monistic and dualistic. This view not only lays a new foundation for semiotic research but also opens a new horizon for literary-artistic research, aesthetic research, and cultural research.

Ma Dakang's cognitive semiotics is mainly composed of three successive layers of activity: modeling activity, symbolic activity, and cultural activity. Modeling activity is the establishing of the relational model of human and world, including behavior-modeling, language-modeling, and symbolic modeling; the representational role of the sign is grounded in modeling. Symbolic activity is the tension-activity between two types of primary sign—behavior-language and the speech-act—from which all other signs are constructed. Cultural activity is the process of using signs to shape humanity's inner and outer worlds, and literature and art are the most complex and most creative constructive activity among them.

I. The Laozi-Zhuangzi Philosophy's Treatment of Western Semiotics

In Cognitive Semiotics, Ma Dakang first points out that "Western semiotics is often entangled with logocentrism, rationalism-centrism, and dualism," (2) and these various centrisms and dualism are precisely the crux of Western semiotics.

Ever since Saussure took language as the model for studying signs, the Western academy formed what Richard Rorty calls the "linguistic turn." (3) Language became the core of human culture: not only were the various studies in the humanities and social sciences founded theoretically on linguistics—such as Lévi-Strauss's anthropology, Roland Barthes's structuralism, Jacques Derrida's deconstruction, Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis, and Michel Foucault's historical research—but many scholars further regarded language as the core of humanity and its culture, as when Wittgenstein proposed "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world," (4) Heidegger proposed "language is the house of Being," (5) and Foucault said "cognition and language are strictly interwoven." (6) The nature of language is differentiation. So long as one places language at the core of humanity and its culture, one cannot avoid logocentrism, rationalism-centrism, and dualism, thereby limiting human thinking and causing human understanding to be "simplified, one-sided, producing a blindness of thought." (2) Behind language lurks the duality that Saussure pointed out between the concept (the signified) and its material carrier (the signifier), and the relation between the two is an arbitrary, conventional one—this dooms language itself to already harbor dualism within it. And to regard language as the sole mediation connecting subject-consciousness with object is bound to fall into the trap of dualism. This notion conceals the complex connection between human and world and, with the single perspective of epistemology, cancels the manifold ways of grasping the world—experience, intuition, comprehension, and so on.

The cognitive semiotics that has risen in recent years is of one lineage with the notions of cognitive linguistics. Cognitive linguistics holds that meaning does not exist in the external world but in the body. George Lakoff points out that the core idea of cognitive linguistics is "embodiment." (7) He holds: "All our thought comes from our body and brain and the way we interact with them in this world; thought is not an abstract thing… thought is computed by the nervous system." (7) Evidently, cognitive linguistics no longer regards thought or meaning (the signified) and the material carrier (the signifier) as a closely-connected dyadic relation, but regards thought or meaning (the signified) as the monistic result of the operation of the human body or nervous system, attempting to replace the body-mind dualism of the Western cultural tradition with a fleshly monism. Cognitive semiotics, on the basis of cognitive linguistics, studies the psychological generative mode of sign-meaning: "Cognitive semiotics… attends to the semantics of expression and the phenomenology of cognition, compares this semantics with that phenomenology, and studies the structures they share." (8) However, whether cognitive linguistics or cognitive semiotics, in fact they still stand outside the relation of cognition and language, of cognition and sign, examining them as "objects," and have not leaped out of dualism. Therefore, even the cognitive semiotician Per Aage Brandt holds that "cognitive research… sounds monistic in theory but is dualistic in practice." (8) In other words, cognitive semiotics too can hardly thoroughly cast off dualism in essence. Ma Dakang further points out that, in order to highlight the importance of the body, cognitive linguistics or cognitive semiotics "again conceals the more important, more essential characteristic of language: its relative independence," (2) so that the human spirit and reason lose their basis. On the whole, whether traditional Western semiotics or cognitive semiotics, their framework of thought belongs to dualism, or attempts to cast off dualism toward monism while remaining dualistic in essence. This is precisely the crux of Western semiotics, and of the Western literary-artistic theory and cultural theory founded upon it.

In response to the malady of Western semiotics and of literary-artistic theory and cultural theory, Ma Dakang found the good remedy for treatment in the Laozi-Zhuangzi philosophy of pre-Qin China.

Language is not only not the sole way for humanity to grasp the world, but is also not the most important way, and may even conceal or distort humanity's feeling of the world. The Laozi says at its opening: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the constant Dao; the name that can be named is not the constant name." (9) Zhuangzi too holds that "the Dao cannot be spoken; to speak it is to miss it." (10) The meaning is that the "Dao" that can be expressed in language is no longer the constant, unchanging "Dao," and the "name" that can be expressed in language is no longer the constant, unchanging "name." Language not only cannot grasp the "Dao" but even conceals the "Dao."

Behavior is an important way of grasping the world. Since language cannot cognize the "Dao," how then is one to grasp the "Dao" outside of language? Zhuangzi, through a series of parables—the cook carving the ox, the wheelwright at his wheel, Carpenter Qing carving the bell-stand, and the like—gives a distinctive path for grasping the "Dao," namely behavior. In these parables, the cook, Carpenter Shi, and Carpenter Qing are all attainers and knowers of the "Dao," and their way of attaining and knowing it is precisely their behavior: through carving (the ox), wielding (the adze), and shaping (the bell-stand), they gradually establish a relation of identity between performer and performed object, realizing the fusion of the performer's experiential structure with the structure of the performed object, and thereby reaching a bodily realization of the Dao. (2) Zhuangzi holds that the bodily realization of the "Dao" is not only non-linguistic but must even strenuously reject language. To this end, Zhuangzi proposes "sitting in forgetfulness" and "the fasting of the mind," that is, not seeing, not hearing, not feeling, not thinking; for once one sees, hears, feels, and thinks, the human is already within conscious activity, language takes the chance to enter, human and world are in an objective relation, and one can no longer bodily realize the Dao. The "modeling" by which the human reaches a relation of identity with the world through behavior in fact has a special symbolic character; it is the representation of unconscious experience and can therefore be regarded as a "sign," as "behavior-language."

Humanity's most basic symbolic activity includes both the speech-act and behavior-language. In the "Debate on the Bridge over the Hao" in the "Autumn Floods" chapter of the Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi, seeing the fish swimming in the water, exclaimed: "The minnows swim out so leisurely—this is the joy of fishes." Huizi, however, disagreed: "You are not a fish; how do you know the joy of fishes?" and the two debated over this. In fact, neither Zhuangzi nor Huizi was wrong; the root of their divergence lies in this: Zhuangzi experiences through the non-objective relation, while Huizi cognizes through the objective relation, and behind these two different ways are implicit different symbolic activities—behavior-language and the speech-act. The speech-act and behavior-language are two symbolic modes by which humanity connects with the world. On the basis of his analysis of the Laozi-Zhuangzi philosophy, Ma Dakang proposes that "the relation of human and world is both monistic and dualistic." (2) This view not only transcends the dualistic specter in Western semiotics and literary-artistic theory but also dissolves the theoretical predicament of Western philosophy, opening a new world for human semiotics and for literary-artistic theory and cultural theory.

II. The Theoretical Constitution of Cognitive Semiotics

Ma Dakang's cognitive semiotics regards the sign as the relational model of human and world, as the mediation through which the human experiences and cognizes the world, and the human's world as a world constructed by signs. "The human can grasp the world only in the mode of signs; the human's world is a world constructed in the mode of signs." (2) In other words, the sign is generated, changes, exerts its effect, and constructs the human's world within the relation of human and world. Therefore, Ma Dakang's cognitive-semiotic theory is mainly composed of three successive layers of activity—modeling activity, symbolic activity, and cultural activity—of which modeling activity is the basis of the sign's formation; the difference of modeling mode determines the difference in the nature of symbolic activity; and cultural activity is the process of using the various types of sign to construct the human's world.

Modeling activity is not only where the theoretical foundation of Ma Dakang's cognitive semiotics lies but also the key to his treatment, on the basis of the Laozi-Zhuangzi philosophy, of the malady of Western semiotics. Although the concept of "modeling" stems from Thomas A. Sebeok, Ma Dakang has only borrowed the term "modeling," and its connotation differs from Sebeok's. Sebeok holds that "modeling is the innate capacity to produce forms that represent objects, events, feelings, actions, and scenes, as well as ideas considered to have some meaning, purpose, or useful function." (11) In other words, Sebeok's modeling is the activity by which an organism makes "models" in order to realize some purpose or satisfy some need. Such a model is in fact what Peirce calls a sign, constituted by its form and the meaning it represents. Evidently, Sebeok's modeling theory still inherits the Western semiotic notion and has not leaped out of dualism. But Ma Dakang's "modeling" has another sense, specifically referring to "establishing a relational model" between organism and world; (2) and this relational model of human and world is precisely the key to the sign's formation.

The sign itself is form, is the object of perception and the object of interpretation; to discuss the nature of the sign with respect to the sign cannot cast off objective thinking and dualism. But Cognitive Semiotics both distinguishes and connects "modeling" and "sign," and places "modeling" in the foundational position, first considering the relational model of human and world; this makes it possible to start from modeling and reveal the diversity of modeling modes, especially the distinctiveness of behavior-modeling. And it is precisely here that Ma Dakang introduces the Laozi-Zhuangzi philosophy and the thought of "the unity of Heaven and humanity," fundamentally changing the theoretical foundation of semiotics and revealing two utterly different modeling activities: behavior-modeling and language-modeling.

Laozi holds: "Looked at but unseen, it is called 'the level'; listened to but unheard, it is called 'the rare'; grasped at but ungraspable, it is called 'the minute.' These three cannot be further probed, and so they merge into one." (9) Here "merge into one" refers to the unification of human and world: the world is not the human's object, the human is within the world—that is, the unity of Heaven and humanity—and the "Dao" operates therein. Since the world and the "Dao" enfold the human rather than being the human's object, the "Dao" is bound to be "looked at but unseen," "listened to but unheard," "grasped at but ungraspable": "The great sound is rare in voice; the great image has no form; the Dao is hidden and nameless," (9) and so "the Dao cannot be heard—what is heard is not it; the Dao cannot be seen—what is seen is not it; the Dao cannot be spoken—what is spoken is not it." (10) The Laozi-Zhuangzi philosophy and the thought of the unity of Heaven and humanity reveal precisely the non-objective relation of human and world; and once one sees, hears, and speaks, the relation of human and world splits into an objective relation, and the "Dao," because of this splitting, hides and does not appear. Therefore the grasping of the Dao can only proceed through the experience of behavior unified with the world—this is precisely the origin of behavior-modeling.

Behavior-modeling is the relational model by which an organism, through long-term adjustment of its own behavior, adapts to and merges into the external world—that is, the organism, by regulating "a particular behavioral mode to connect, coordinate, and match with a particular external environment, establishes a relation of identity." (2) The most important characteristic of behavior-modeling is non-objectivity, the unified relation in which organism and surrounding world merge and adapt. In this non-objective relation, the organism understands the world not through consciousness but experiences the world through unconscious instinctive behavior. Evidently, behavior-modeling is a relation that reaches a fused, unified state with the world through bodily behavior. This is precisely the way in which Zhuangzi's cook, Carpenter Shi, and Carpenter Qing grasp the Dao through behaviors such as carving, wielding, and shaping. Humanity inherited the organism's modeling mode and, from the human perspective, regarded it as a special sign expressing meaning (unconscious experience), as behavior-language.

Humanity's behavior-modeling includes not only action but also "gesture, expression, vocalization, and other coordinated behaviors." (2) Vocalizing behavior has the dual character of being both embodied and able to leave the body to be transmitted, which makes vocalizing behavior the most important mediation of group communication and a stable carrier that projects and condenses unconscious experience. It is precisely in the process of screening, classifying, and condensing unconscious experience that "concepts" with intension and extension are formed, and the "concept / sound-image" language of which Saussure speaks is formed. Language possesses both inner mind-character and outer material-character, and this dual feature gives it relative independence and the function of differentiation, at the same time differentiating the human from the world and the myriad things, thereby constructing the "objective relation"; and so consciousness (the object of consciousness) arises. It is precisely in this sense that Ma Dakang points out: "Language, consciousness, and the object of consciousness are constructed synchronously; they are all the fruit of the transcendent evolution that occurs in modeling activity." (2) The birth of language changed the relation of human and world, converting the originally fused, unified non-objective relation into an objective relation that is both split and connected. In the process of language-modeling, humanity regards the world as an object external to itself, and what grasps the object is precisely consciousness and language.

Behavior-modeling and language-modeling are the most basic modeling modes constituting all of humanity's symbolic activity; all the various other signs are jointly constructed by these two. Behavior-modeling is the relational model by which all organisms adapt to and merge into one with the world, thereby establishing the non-objective relation and unconsciously grasping the world; language-modeling is a modeling mode possessed by humanity alone, which differentiates the human from the world and establishes an objective relation by which the world is consciously known. But the formation of language-modeling does not exclude or replace behavior-modeling; behavior-modeling and language-modeling together become humanity's basic ways of grasping the world.

The second layer of Ma Dakang's cognitive semiotics is symbolic activity—that is, the tension-relation between behavior-language and the speech-act. Because language and consciousness (the object of consciousness) are constructed synchronously, in human consciousness, language, while establishing the objective relation, has already made an interpretation of the object; and so language-modeling itself becomes the symbolic mode of meaning-interpretation, becomes the speech-act. In fact, language-modeling and the speech-act are one, two different facets of the same generative process: from the angle of setting up the objective relation of human and world it is language-modeling; from the angle of representing meaning it is symbolic activity—that is, the speech-act.

Ever since human language (consciousness) arose, behavior too has been regarded as an object of consciousness and an object of interpretation, becoming a form possessed of meaning. And because behavior-modeling sediments into unconscious experience, in the horizon of human consciousness, behavior itself "represents unconscious experience"; (2) therefore behavior too is a kind of "sign," namely behavior-language. Evidently, although behavior-language has a direct connection with behavior-modeling, there is a clear distinction between the two: behavior-modeling is a non-objective relation in which all organisms (including the human) merge with the world, before language has intervened; behavior-language exists only after human language (consciousness) has arisen, regarding behavior in the mode of language, within which the signifier (behavior) and the signified (unconscious experience) have already been differentiated.

In fact, behavior can only be bodily behavior; it has no dividing line from the body. When language forcibly differentiates behavior from the body, regards behavior as an object, and tries to use language to interpret its meaning—that is, at the moment it regards it as behavior-language—the meaning of behavior has already been distorted. Cognitive Semiotics recognizes the fissure between behavior-modeling and behavior-language and points out that language cannot exhaust the meaning of behavior, and that the meaning of behavior must be participated in and experienced by behavior itself. Behavior-language is merely a name the human gives, according to his own understanding, to behavior-modeling—just as in the Laozi-Zhuangzi the "Dao" is "forcibly named," so "behavior-language" too is, by convention, "forcibly named." And when behavior itself participates in experience, the behavior-language originally set up by language as an object reverts again to a non-object, and the fissure between behavior-language and behavior-modeling is healed anew. That is to say, although behavior-language represents unconscious experience through behavior, its true meaning is grasped, in the fused non-objective relation, by way of experience, intuition, and comprehension. Therefore behavior-language is a special "sign"; it is the way of grasping the world in the non-objective relation. The speech-act, by contrast, is different: it screens, classifies, and condenses unconscious experience and raises it to the threshold of consciousness, constructing the world as an object of consciousness; it is the objectification of the organism's non-objective world, the decomposition and reconstruction of the fused relation of thing-and-self-as-one, the "'conceptualization,' 'abstraction,' and 'objectification'" of the world, (2) and so the world becomes the object of the human's observation, analysis, and cognition. In sum, the main distinction between behavior-language and the speech-act is this: behavior-language, by constructing the non-objective relation, experiences, intuits, and comprehends the world; the speech-act, by constructing the objective relation, observes, analyzes, and cognizes the world. Behavior-language sediments into the human's unconscious experience; the speech-act constructs the human's consciousness. Behavior-language embodies the core content of the human's sensuous activity; the speech-act is the premise of the human's gaining reason, for it is precisely the reflexivity that the speech-act possesses that endows the human with reason. These are two symbolic modes of opposite nature; they are mutually intertwined and mutually influencing, and the two form an ineradicable tension-relation.

Besides behavior-language and the speech-act, humanity also possesses numerous other types of sign. On the basis of Peirce's triadic relation of sign, object, and interpretant, Ma Dakang proposes that the interpretant is not monistic but is a "tension-field concerning the interpretation of meaning" jointly participated in by behavior-language and the speech-act; (2) that is, behavior-language and the speech-act are the ultimate interpretant of all human signs, which Ma Dakang calls "primary signs," "humanity's most intimately-its-own signs," (2) while he calls the signs in which behavior-language and the speech-act jointly endow other things with meaning "secondary signs." In other words, humanity's modeling activity includes three types: behavior-modeling, language-modeling, and the modeling of other signs. Correspondingly, humanity's symbolic activity also has three types: behavior-language, the speech-act, and other symbolic activity. The third type of sign is constructed by the cooperation of behavior-modeling and language-modeling, and therefore this secondary sign also harbors the tension-structure between behavior-language and the speech-act: experiencing the world in the non-objectification of behavior-language, and interpreting the world in the objectification of the speech-act. This tension-structure among primary signs, and the diversity of symbolic modes thereby constituted, is precisely the key to constructing humanity's diverse cultural world.

III. The Sign's Construction of Human Cultural Activity

The main goal of Ma Dakang's cognitive-semiotic research is not the sign itself alone, but, through research into modeling activity and symbolic activity, the reconstruction of modern Western literary, artistic, and cultural theory founded on the linguistic basis. Because the sign is the relational model of human and world, not only is the world perceived through signs, but humanity too creates culture with signs. Therefore the human world, or culture, is constructed by signs: "Culture is the fruit of humanity's symbolic activity." (2) The sign shapes the human's inner world and outer world, manifested especially as literary-artistic creation.

The sign's construction of the human's inner world is manifested first in the construction of the human's own a priori structure. In Western philosophy, the a priori category explores the human's inner world. But this "a priori," in Ma Dakang's view, is not a priori at all, but is shaped by symbolic-modeling activity. "Behavior-modeling, language-modeling, and the modeling of other signs long ago determined the range, mode, order, and measure of the human's sense organs' perception of the world, becoming the various 'a prioris.'" (2) Behavior-modeling is the unified relation of human and world, within which time and space have not yet been differentiated. Behavior unfolds in time and space and itself harbors temporal-spatial experience; only that, in the relation of thing-and-self-as-one, everything is still chaotic, undivided. The differentiating function of language then splits and abstracts out this latent temporal-spatial relation, and continually divides and reconstructs it. Therefore the perception of time and space is truly highlighted only in language—that is, through the naming of the speech-act, time is differentiated into past, present, and future, and space into high and low, up and down, center and periphery, and so on. Evidently, time and space as a priori categories are in fact constructed by humanity's symbolic modeling; the human's perception of time and space is the fruit of the cooperation of behavior-modeling and language-modeling.

The sign's construction of the human's inner world is also manifested in the shaping of the human's sensory structure. The human's sensation appears on the surface to be the human's perception of the world through the five senses, but behind it is also hidden the dual construction of behavior and language, hidden language's differentiation of the world. In other words, the human's sensory activity differs from the sensory activity of other organisms; behind it is hidden a multiple-sign configuration of sensation, constructed simultaneously by behavior-modeling and language-modeling. In behavior-modeling, the human, in agreement with other organisms, reaches through the senses a unified, fused relation with the world—this is the basis of "transference"; while in language-modeling, the human clearly becomes conscious of the object he sees, hears, smells, touches, and tastes, the originally fused sensory perception splits apart, and the world is no longer a fused, unified world but an objectified world dismembered by language. It is precisely this dual modeling that jointly constructs "humanized nature." In addition, the sign also constructs the human's psychological activity, such as imagination. Imagination, as a psychological activity of the human, likewise cannot do without the constructive role of the sign. On one hand, imagination leaves reality and gallops freely, needing the speech-act to transcend the unified relation with the world in order to gain freedom; on the other, it is precisely because imagination transcends reality that it fully arouses behavior-language to cast off the limits of language and reason, letting the human throw himself fully into the imagined world. The psychological activity of imagination is the phenomenon and fruit of the deep intermingling of behavior-language and the speech-act.

The sign's construction of humanity's outer world refers mainly to the world constructed by human activity, especially the human cultural world represented by human civilization and literature and art, all of which are constructed by symbolic activity. Therefore, only by analyzing in depth the structural characteristics of the sign-system can one fundamentally reveal the distinctiveness of different cultures and the root of their formation. And the difference among different civilizations is determined by the primary sign-system—that is, the tension-relation constituted by behavior-language and the speech-act. Ma Dakang points out: "The structure of the relation between behavior-language and the speech-act is precisely the 'cultural gene' of a particular people, and the dominant tendency of its tension-relation fundamentally determines the distinctiveness of the national culture." (2) The Chinese people, in the tension-structure of behavior-language and the speech-act, incline more toward behavior-language, and so the Chinese people give more weight to grasping the world through experience, intuition, and comprehension, reaching a comprehension of the Dao and realizing the ideal realm of the unity of Heaven and humanity; Western civilization gives more weight to the speech-act, and, as Edward Hall says, Western people live in a "word world," (12) so Western civilization gives more weight to grasping the world through observation, analysis, and cognition, in order to reach a cognition of truth and a grasp of the world's essence.

Beyond the forms of human civilization, Ma Dakang systematically analyzes the constructive role of behavior-language and the speech-act in aesthetic activities such as literature and art. Ma Dakang holds that aesthetic activity is neither a wholly objective relation—because a wholly objective relation is a practical, rational, cognitive activity, within which there is only disembodied abstract cognition that cannot infuse the sensuous factors of the human's life and emotion and cannot produce resonance—nor a wholly non-objective relation—because a wholly non-objective relation cannot generate a sensuous image, and the world remains mute, the great sound rare in voice, the great image without form, chaos, nothingness. Therefore, "aesthetic activity… is always interwoven with behavior-language and the speech-act, conscious state and unconscious state, objective relation and non-objective relation, the unity of Heaven and humanity and the subject-object division; it is always a transitional, marginal activity." (2) Only in the tension-field of behavior-language and the speech-act can the human, with the aid of the speech-act, construct an imagined world transcending reality, and, with the aid of behavior-language, endow this imagined world with the characteristics of life and throw himself into this world to gain a profound experience. On this basis, Cognitive Semiotics extensively discusses the relation between changes in symbolic structure and the evolution of literature and art and of the human's sense organs and sensation.

Literary activity is the main type of aesthetic culture; literary activity is not a solitary linguistic activity—every aspect of it is permeated by the tension-relation of the speech-act and behavior-language. Ma Dakang carries out a meticulous cognitive-semiotic reconstruction of literary activity, mainly involving the following four aspects: literary image or imagery; literary rhetoric; literary import; and the symbolic connection between the literary possible world and the real world. Because cognitive semiotics first regards the sign as the relational model of human and world and reveals the diversity, complexity, and compositeness of the relation, it changes and enriches the theoretical foundation of traditional semiotics and of literature, and proposes anew a new path and insight for the cognition and solution of many knotty problems. At the same time, it also lets us interpret more deeply and aptly the "meaning beyond words," the "realm beyond images," and the "realm" (jingjie) that traditional Chinese literature and art pursue, and straightens out the legitimate source of the distinctiveness of ancient Chinese literary and poetic theory.

IV. Conclusion

Ma Dakang's Cognitive Semiotics, on the basis of the Chinese Laozi-Zhuangzi philosophy and on the basis of clarifying the crux of Western semiotics and literary-artistic theory, constructs a cognitive-semiotic theory based on Chinese philosophy. This semiotics may perhaps also be called "Chinese semiotics." This is not only because the sign-theory benefits from the inspiration of the Laozi-Zhuangzi philosophy, taking traditional Chinese philosophical thought as its inner core to solve many theoretical problems in the literary-artistic domain, but, more importantly, because the philosophical bedrock of its sign-research thoroughly casts off the Western semiotics founded on dualism, expands the definition of the sign to the relational model of human and world, sees at the same time that the relation of human and world is both monistic and dualistic, and reconstructs literary theory on this basis—it is a contemporary Chinese scholar's treatment of the crux of Western semiotics and literary-artistic theory and a reconstruction of its philosophical bedrock. It is for this reason that we hold Ma Dakang's Cognitive Semiotics to be Chinese semiotics' reconstruction of Western semiotics and literary-artistic theory.