The Meaning Composition of Chinese Calligraphy Sign

This paper clarifies the composition of meaning in the art of Chinese calligraphy on the basis of American semiotician Charles Morris’s three divisions of sign, namely, “Syntactics, Semantics, Pragmatics”. The syntactical dimension of Chinese calligraphy sign is the artistic meaning of the form of Chinese character. “Semantical dimension” refers to semantic referents of linguistic signs and their literary significance, “pragmatical dimension” refers to the use and interpretation of calligraphy. The study of the three dimensions of meaning in Chinese calligraphy reveals a complex and unique composition of sign meaning. Chinese calligraphy deforms the structure and form of Chinese characters while retaining their semantic invariance. In this way, calligraphy acquires more practical semantic and symbolic meanings through the carrier of Chinese characters which are also linguistic symbols at the same time. Chinese calligraphy is dominated by the meaning of sign forms, taking into account the linguistic reference and the use of sign, and the three dimensions of meaning interact and promote each other, building a dynamic and multidimensional space of sign meaning.