The Representation of Children and Society in Chinese Fifth Generation Cinema: A Test of Semiotics in Film Interpretation

Abstract

In the exploration of the representation of children and the influence stemming from the dominant ideology in Chinese cinema, I attempt to conduct this research using “semiotics”. The method in question is pretty useful in mirroring the meanings of my chosen stills from the Fifth Generation cinema and is able to set up some linkages with the social environment. The mainstream semiology works in the aspect of single elements and the social semiotics is in operation in the arena of interactive meaning-making among components as a whole. The Syntagmatic comparison keeps track of any slight changes happened to the children, the props serve as the signifiers of interpersonal relationships and power relations, the metaphor between the Tiananmen Square and the class in power acts as a shared code to take into account the external environment. However, semiotics is too dependent on the interpretative practice, and will not be strong enough without the participation of existing theories and Foucaultian analysis to take into account the particular historical discourse and power relations.