Research On Female Images In Zuo Zhuan From The Perspective Of Cultural Semiotics

With an overview of previous studies on Zuo Zhuan topics on females have been found always controversial.Impacted by Western gender theories,numerous scholars have examined female images in Zuo Zhuan over the past few years.Moreover,an enormous amount of related studies have been performed.After an introspection of research status,many problems have been found as follows: On one hand,research scope is relatively narrow and typical characters are repeatedly studied,as a result of which research findings are too unilateral;on the other hand,studies are mostly perceptual without methodological support,so research findings are not quite systematic.In this paper,all females who spoke and acted in Zuo Zhuan are studied to systematically explore the cultural implications bhind the female world constructed by the writer of the book from the perspective of “cultural semiotics”,in order to theoretically acquire new understanding about female images in Zuo Zhuan.This paper consists of four parts: In part 1,the feasibility for studying female images by cultural semiotics is discussed.Part 2 expounds two modes of thinking adopted by the author to code female images and how female languages constitute signifier and signified evocative architectures.Focusing on studying females who not only spoke but also acted,part 3 illustrates the semiotic structural space formed by female images in Zuo Zhuan.Aiming at females who only acted,part 4 analyzes semiotic functions of the female images in narrations from the perspective of semiotic narratives.Instead of analyzing content based on “what to say” like previous studies on characters' images,this paper intends to methodologically analyze “how to say”.