Meaning construction in legislative discourse: a sociosemiotic interpretation on supervision system reform in China

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the reform of supervision system in China through the Supervision Law, and identifies this Law as a sign within its corresponding social and political purposes and intentions from the sociosemiotic perspective. Within its legislation process, the Supervision Law could be identified as both a sign textualized among the disciplinary regulations, and as a signifier configured with the successive interpretants by relevant laws, for example, the Constitution Amendment 2018 and the Criminal Procedure Law 2018, showing the social construction of legislative meaning as infinite semiosis. In other words, from the whole process of sign perception, reception, acceptation, and interpretation, a legislative text could be interpreted both as a sign constructed in the external but relevant sign systems and as a signifier reconstructed with the successive but infinite interpretants in the internal sign system. This study also finds that the social construction of meaning is achieved and represented to the extent which is constructed through the representation and interpretation of law-making process by sign receivers or legal participants.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervision law
• meaning
• legislative
• sociosemiotic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jian Li is Associate Professor of Forensic Linguistics and Phonetics, School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang Gongshang University. Her interests and publications are in legal discourse and translation, semiotics and discourse analysis.

Yuxiu Sun is Research Fellow in Center for Legal Discourse and Translation, Department of Linguistics and Translation, School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. Her research fields include legal discourse and translation, semiotics and legal interpretation.

Notes

1 Regulated in Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Carrying out the Pilot Program of Reforming the National Supervision Mechanism in Beijing Municipality, Shanxi Province, and Zhejiang Province, adopted at the 25th Session of the Standing Committee of the Twelfth National People’s Congress on 25 December 2016.

2 In this approach to meaning the overriding concern is the interest of the maker of a sign: what is it that she or he wishes to represent and communicate, and what is the apt form – the form that already, through its histories of use as much as in its material aspects – suggests itself as the best, the apt means, of being the carrier of that which is to be represented and communicated? (Kress 2001, 73).

3 These include amendments on national organs (Amendment 37), amendments on the functions and powers exercised by the national and local people’s congress (Amendment 41, 42, 48), amendments on the functions and powers exercised by the standing committee of the national and local people’s congress (Amendment 44, 49, 50), amendments on the functions and powers exercised by the State Council and local governments (Amendment 46, 51).

4 This definition is regulated in the 19th CPC Report 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation under [grant number 15BYY012], and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.