SOS, Semiotics, and Society

｛我也想了好一陣子，要否把這篇文章 post 上來作分享呢？因為我始終想這個 blog 集中於討論書籍設計，但最後，我也決定放上來。這是一篇以符號學的角度去分析日劇《Strawberry On the Shortcake》的文章。我想，如果我把電視劇當作是「書籍的延伸」或「劇本的延伸」（以一系列的流動畫面去說故事）去看的話；那麼，我們可以以相同的手法分析一套日劇或分析一本書。《SOS》是著名劇作家野島新司先生的作品，他在這作品大玩符號。｝

“Television is absolutely central to contemporary Japanese culture.”_*1]

—Andrew A. Painter, 1996

To a certain extent, the Japanese TV dramas, or dorama reflect the reality in the society. They are closely related and some of the plots in the story are always picked up from the social phenomenon. If you want to know more about Japanese culture, watching Japanese TV drama is inevasible. In this passage, using a TV drama “Strawberry On the Shortcake” (SOS) as a specific example to explain how the TV drama reflects the society and its impact to us. Through breaking down SOS by using semiotic means, we can go deeper to see what’s behind the story and the spirit the writer really wants to tell us.