Open AccessColour me Revolutionary
Author(s) -
Avital Zuk Avina
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of the british association for chinese studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2048-0601
DOI - 10.51661/bjocs.v11i0.60
Subject(s) - grammar , symbol (formal) , context (archaeology) , linguistics , sign (mathematics) , meaning (existential) , component (thermodynamics) , politics , chinese grammar , interpersonal communication , computer science , sociology , psychology , communication , history , political science , philosophy , law , mathematical analysis , physics , mathematics , archaeology , thermodynamics , psychotherapist
Colour in China has a long history of artistic, symbolic, religious, and mythological use. This paper takes the idea of colour as a meaningful element within Chinese society and introduces the use of visual colour grammar as a new way to identify and breakdown the use of colour within political art and propaganda posters. The use of colour has been adapted by visual linguists into its own unique visual grammar component, relaying much more information than just a symbolic transfer from sign to signifier. Meaning within political posters can be derived from regularities in use, presentation, and conventional meanings. Colour as a visual grammar component is expressed through the three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual.
This paper explores how the Chinese views on colour interconnects with the metafunctions of colour to look at the political posters of the PRC. I will discuss both the approach to art as a text that can be ‘read’ through visual grammar and present colour in the Chinese context as more than a symbol making device but as a meaning component in and of itself.