A cross-cultural interpretation of artistic terms in Chinese and Western art theory and practice: A semiotic analysis

This research is an inquiry into cross-cultural misunderstandings arising over Chinese and English art terms in translation in the light of a semiotic investigation of the meaning of these terms within their cultural contexts.; The research consists of four case studies, in which the investigator examines inadequate or incorrect translated art terms found in the literature of cross-cultural communication between China and the West. They are (a) terms already existing in each language before the cultural exchange, such as "painting," "landscape," and "still-life" and their seeming counterparts in Chinese; (b) terms adapted from English for concepts unknown in China before cultural exchange, such as "naturalism" and "realism" and their Chinese translations. Moreover, this analysis of the problem of translation required a further investigation of the concept of art itself in these two cultures. The words "art" and "aesthetics" and their Chinese translations are subjected to a semiotic examination in addition to the words listed above.; The theoretical bases of this research are drawn from Charles Peirce's triadic theory of signs in semiotics, W. V. O. Quine's indeterminacy doctrine of translation in logic, and David W. Ecker and Eugene Kaelin's conception of levels of discourse in aesthetics. In addition, Umberto Eco's semiotic analysis of the sign system is fundamental to this study of cross-cultural communication of art, while phenomenological reduction, as applied to the interpretation of the original meaning of the art terms, methodologically directs the implementation.; The most unsettling interpretation of the findings of the study is that any translation will lead to some measure of misunderstanding. That is, not only the method of using existing terms found in one's own language to translate foreign art terms is problematic, but also the adoption of existing terms from one's native language to define art works, styles, or artistic activities of another culture results in distortion. In our efforts to pursue a cross-cultural aesthetic inquiry, therefore, the translation of foreign art terms into one's own language requires thorough investigation into the concepts and use of terms of both languages. And examination of both inside and outside understandings of the art of the alien culture in which a given word functions is indispensable. It is only by creating a kind of "encyclopedia of living traditions in art" that the researcher will be able to learn about the art of an alien culture.