The role of semiotics in creating the image of Russia in the Chinese culture

The paper described the applied aspects of semiotics studied in Chinese science. The author noted that in China as in the West the term ‘semiotics’ appeared early, but the semiotic researches evolved slowly. Modern semiotic studies began in China in the 1980s. Currently, these studies are developing in four main areas: researches on the theory of semiotics; studies on linguistic semiotics; researches on applied semiotics; semiotic studies in the field of culture, art, and literature. The author focused on the analysis of the sign and the symbol. Although the Chinese scientists relied on the theories of F. de Saussure, Ch. Pierce, Ch. Morris, R. Barthes, M. Bakhtin, further Chinese studies on semiotics began to develop in line with the studies of the Soviet cultural scientists Yu. Lotman and M. Kagan. The ideas of F. de Saussure’s linguistic semiotics had a greater impact on the Chinese linguists. The ideas of M. Bakhtin are widely used in semiotic researches in the field of culture, art, and literature. The concept of “sign”, “symbol”, and “image” are closely related, since the sign is endowed with all the organic and inexhaustible polysemy of the image. The author substantiates the thesis that semiotics is one of the principal means of image science in creating the image of another country in the culture of its country; in particular, the author applies the semiotic tools to analyze the image of Russia in the Chinese culture.