Abstract

A semiotic study seeks to find sign significance in its relation with others. This paper is a search for the semiotic manifestation of certain signs in the contemporary campaign against corruption in mainland China. It uses Greimas’s semiotic square as a theoretical base upon which an examination of official discourse pertaining to anti-corruption is conducted. Power, agency, and sexual relation are the three parameters of analysis. The study comes to the tentative conclusion that the marked combinatory presence of women in anti-corruption discourse implicates women as the primary benefactors in the male-dominated corruption practice, thus directing the public attention to a gender issue of minor importance.