Semiotic stratification of pine-cypress: from arboreal totems to confucian ethics

Abstract This study tackles a key question in cultural semiotics: How does a natural entity become a core moral symbol? Focusing on pine–cypress symbolism in Chinese thanatological culture, we propose a novel four-tier semiotic encoding model – comprising material, logographic, institutional, and ethical dimensions – to theorize its millennia-long metamorphosis. Critically synthesizing Ye Shuxian’s N-level coding with Peircean–Saussurean semiotics and Foucauldian–Bourdieusian power analysis, we argue that this process is dialectical, not linear: each tier interacts with and transforms the others. Our analysis reveals that materiality (e.g., Sanxingdui bronze trees) provides the sensual foundation; the logographic (e.g., the mu radical) enables conceptual abstraction; institutions (e.g., Zhouli texts) discipline the symbol into a tool of social hierarchy; and finally, ethical praxis (e.g., Confucian analogical thinking) creatively appropriates it for moral interiority. Cross-cultural comparison with Roman and Nordic arboreal symbols highlights China’s unique trajectory, where state power, textual canonization, and literati agency fused material durability with ethical perpetuity. This study offers a robust, non-Eurocentric paradigm for analyzing how culture dynamically constructs meaning through the interplay of objects, texts, power, and human imagination.