表意学与超语言学:维尔比与巴赫金之“对话”——读《表意与理解》

Significs and Metalinguistics: “Dialogue” between Welby and Bakhtin——A Brief Review of Susan Petrilli's Signifying and Understanding

苏珊·佩特瑞丽所著《表意与理解》一书于2009年出版。该书详细介绍和评论了一位几乎被学界遗忘的伟大的英国学者,一位有着"符号学之母"之称的表意学家—维多利亚·维尔比女士。该书堪称一部里程碑式的作品,其意义在于发现了维尔比女士,让学界更多地了解这位表意学家,从而进一步促进符号学的发展。维尔比与巴赫金虽素未谋面,却持有诸多相似的学术观点。本文对此简要介绍,架起二者"对话"之桥,一方面在维多利亚·维尔比女士逝世(1912年)100周年之际缅怀其重大学术贡献,另一方面为巴赫金对话理论提供新的渊源基础和学术背景。

Susan Petrilli＇ s Signifying and Understanding was published in 2009. It presents a detailed introduction to and profound comments on a great English scholar, a significian referred to as a ＂founding mother＂ of semiotics -- Victoria Lady Welby. In this paper, the author gives a brief introduction to Susan Petrilli＇ s Signifying and Understanding, a milestone work in promoting the development of semiotics, indicating its important role in discovering Lady Welby and making her better known to the world, and then analyzes the commonalities between Lady Welby and Mikhail Bakhtin, following Susan Petrilli to establish an ＂ideal relation＂ between Welby and Bakhtin and helping readers to understand the great significance of recovering the almost forgotten figure -- Victoria Lady Welby. On Welby＇ s 100th anniversary from her death （1912）, this paper is meant to cherish the memory of the great academic contributions she made to semiotics and to provide Bakhtin＇ s theory of dialogue with a new theoretical foundation and academic background.