This paper offers a semiotic and postcolonial investigation of how the two terms of Orient and Morgenland shape German cultural discourse about the East.Drawing on Ferdinand de Saussure’s principle of the arbitrarine...This paper offers a semiotic and postcolonial investigation of how the two terms of Orient and Morgenland shape German cultural discourse about the East.Drawing on Ferdinand de Saussure’s principle of the arbitrariness of the sign and postcolonial concepts of othering,this research examines how these terms legitimize colonial hierarchies while fueling Romantic idealizations.The analysis reveals that Orient frequently frames the East as a developmental void requiring external intervention,whereas Morgenland casts it as Europe’s elusive spiritual cradle.Quantitative corpus data underscores their historical divergence in usage patterns across text types.Despite their apparent contrasts,Orient and Morgenland operate symbiotically to sustain Western centrality–a dual construct whose historical for-mation continues to inform intercultural perceptions.The study concludes by advocating a decolonial reconfiguration of these categories,demonstrating how attending to the specific interplay of such signifiers is crucial for dismantling the linguistic mechanisms that perpetuate power asymmetries.展开更多
文摘This paper offers a semiotic and postcolonial investigation of how the two terms of Orient and Morgenland shape German cultural discourse about the East.Drawing on Ferdinand de Saussure’s principle of the arbitrariness of the sign and postcolonial concepts of othering,this research examines how these terms legitimize colonial hierarchies while fueling Romantic idealizations.The analysis reveals that Orient frequently frames the East as a developmental void requiring external intervention,whereas Morgenland casts it as Europe’s elusive spiritual cradle.Quantitative corpus data underscores their historical divergence in usage patterns across text types.Despite their apparent contrasts,Orient and Morgenland operate symbiotically to sustain Western centrality–a dual construct whose historical for-mation continues to inform intercultural perceptions.The study concludes by advocating a decolonial reconfiguration of these categories,demonstrating how attending to the specific interplay of such signifiers is crucial for dismantling the linguistic mechanisms that perpetuate power asymmetries.
