认知过滤器:跨文化符号学中的: 他者性、外在性和无意识性

his article proposes a semiotic framework for understanding cross-cultural experience through the concept of “cognitive filters,” focusing on three interrelated dimensions of estrangement: otherness, externality, and unconsciousness. Drawing on cultural semiotics and comparative analysis between Chinese and Western contexts, the study argues that encounters with cultural difference unfold along a continuum ranging from interpretable alterity to radical exteriority and, ultimately, to unconscious structures that remain invisible until disrupted by intercultural contact. Through examples drawn from literature, everyday practices, food culture, and spatial design, the article shows how cultural meaning is mediated by historically sedimented interpretive codes that shape perception and translation across cultures. The analysis demonstrates that while otherness can often be integrated through existing semiotic frameworks, externality challenges interpretation by resisting familiar translation mechanisms, and unconsciousness reveals the naturalized assumptions embedded within one’s own cultural environment. By articulating these layers, the study advances cultural semiotics as a methodological approach capable of transforming intuitive experiences of difference into reflective understanding, fostering deeper cross-cultural awareness and reducing symbolic conflict.