A Sociosemiotic Exploration of Personal Information Legislation in the United States and China

Abstract

Personal information security has become a critical concern in the digital era, so it is imperative to clearly delimit and define personal information. This study examines personal information legislation from a sociosemiotic perspective to identify the similarities and differences between legislation in the United States and China. It reviews the evolution of personal information in both countries, and explores their differences in the definition of privacy, the status quo of personal information legislation, the definition of personal information and cross-border personal information flow. The findings indicate that (1) personal information, noted as a social sign, has context-sensitive characteristics, i.e., spatiality and temporality; (2) the meaning-making process of personal information is a continuum; and (3) there exists an intersemiotic operation between language, law and society. Such a sociosemiotic exploration can shed light on relevant studies in the sociosemiotic analysis of legal discourse in particular as well as other context-sensitive discourses in general.