Tempo-spatial construction in human-law-society triangle from the perspective of cognitive semiotics

Time and space, habitually seen as the human psychological background, are increasingly being studied as the cognitive foreground for the development and evolution of matters. Via applying the corpus-based method based on the self-complied corpora of the US, the UK, the EU and Chinese data protection laws, this study examines the basic logic framework of time and space, including human psychological representation, semiotic essence, and function, seeking to present a holistic landscape of tempo-spatial construction in humanity, law and society from the perspective of cognitive semiotics. It finds that the human psychological representations in the tempo-spatial construction process contain cyclical time, linear time, place space and field space; the tempo-spatial essence is to express semiotic meanings through social dialogue and power negotiation among legal subjects in social contexts; and the tempo-spatial functions are manifested in mapping cognitive thinking mode of humanity and constructing law and society. It can be argued that legal discourse is the result of the tempo-spatial dialogue between legal subjects that depends on the interaction between society and its members and the overall evolution of its meaning interpretation; the tempo-spatial construction in human-law-society triangle is thus a typical intersemiotic operation. This study demonstrates the utility of sign of time and sign of space as a cognitive perspective in discourse construction and maps the strong interdependence between humanity, law and society.

Le Cheng, Ming Xu, Guang Ma