The Intersemiotic Dialogue: Reconstructing Cultural Image through Verbal and Non-verbal Translation

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how cultural image is translated across semiotic modes and how new meanings are generated, using the widely viewed Chinese Festival Shows series as a case study. Seven episodes broadcast in 2021–2022 were purposively sampled for cultural breadth and contemporary relevance. Systematic content analysis yielded twelve recurrent cultural images, which were analyzed via an integrated tripartite framework. First, images are classified into archetypal, symbolic, and conceptual types to illuminate their formal origins, culturally encoded manifestations, and emergent interpretive meanings within the audiovisual text. Second, an intersemiotic-translation model traces how these images are transposed and reconfigured across sign systems, especially between verbal references and non-linguistic visual and auditory modes. Third, the analysis mobilizes the semiotic categories of iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity to specify relations between referents and representations. Findings show that intersemiotic translation is not a simple transfer but a dynamic, generative negotiation: visual resemblance, contextual and causal association, and socially shared conventions jointly anchor and activate meaning. This interplay both preserves traditional cultural connotations and enables novel significations suited to contemporary media contexts. The study concludes that intersemiotic translation is a dynamic renegotiation of meaning that balances the partial loss of original cultural nuances with the creative generation of contextually relevant interpretations.