A Study Of Intercultural Communication Of Japanese Anime From The Perspective Of Semiotics

The influence of Japanese anime in the international commercial market indicates that Japanese culture has penetrated into the mass popular sphere and occupied the cultural discourse globally.In contrast,Chinese animation industry has developed relatively slowly and does not have much advantage in intercultural communication.Anime now is already a very important part of national cultural soft power,no matter it is due to the global influence of Japanese anime or the demand of China’s anime’s intercultural communication,there is a need for a deeper academic discussion on Japanese anime.Based on semiotic theory,this thesis adopts literature analysis,text analysis and case study method,takes the representative work of the new era of Japanese anime Demon Slayer as the research object.It conducts an in-depth analysis in three aspects: the construction of its symbol system,the application of image symbols in intercultural communication and the inspiration to intercultural communication of Chinese anime,to clarify the symbolic rules in intercultural communication of Japanese anime and provide some reference for the creativity of Chinese anime.This thesis is divided into five chapters,the first chapter gives an overview of the background and significance of the selected topic and gives a brief introduction of the previous research.The second chapter defines the concept of “Japanese anime” and“intercultural communication”,composes the relevant theories of semiotics adopted in this thesis.The third chapter divides the symbolic narrative system of Demon Slayer into four aspects: character symbols,scene symbols,costume symbols and music symbols,analyzes the meaning conveyed by each type of symbol in the system and its role in the overall narrative.The fourth chapter interprets the intercultural communication of the symbols of Demon Slayer from three aspects: cultural differences,cultural identity and cultural integration.First,it deliberately retains cultural symbols that are unfamiliar to foreign audiences,so as to attract audiences through self “othering”;Second,it captures the themes with universal values and achieves cultural identity with different cultural audiences through the presentation of common values;Third,the reorganization of different cultural symbols changes the original reference of the symbols,which lowers the threshold of understanding for foreign cultural audiences and reduces the communication barriers arising from cultural differences in intercultural communication.The fifth chapter offers suggestions for the intercultural communication of Chinese animation from three aspects: symbol production,symbol consumption and communication mechanism.First,focus on the excavation of traditional cultural symbols,maintain an international perspective,in order to keep the balance between“local” and “global”;Second,pay more attention to the protection of animation property rights and anime talent training,vigorously develop the long tail effect of the animation industry;Third,it is necessary to seize the international cultural discourse and broaden the communication channels,then finally realize the collaborative communication of the whole platform.