Beyond “Made in China”: visual rhetoric and cultural functionality in translating the traditional Chinese totem <i>Loong</i> 龙

Abstract Current inter-disciplinarity has rendered it feasible to utilize implements and methodologies to navigate around the communication of fashion at textual as well as material levels, reified by inter-semiotic and cultural translation. Fashion communication, from the perspective of post-translation studies, is a process of cultural translation with visual symbols as its text, visual rhetoric as its core meaning system, and visual stylists as its translator. This study takes one of the most formidable and awe-inspiring icons – the Chinese totem Loong 龙 as the main research object, through the analysis of multifarious styles of visual text structures across the entire process of fashion communication, to deconstruct the semiotic transformation of Loong 龙 by means of visual rhetoric. In forging this rhetorical dynamic within the realm of visual art, the cultural translative procedure is orchestrated primarily through the registers of field, tenor, and mode . Furthermore, it is molded by the intricate interplay of transitivity , mood , and modality , culminating in this newly proposed concept – “cultural functionality” through the lens of systemic functional grammar. This study, by means of this rhetorical, semiotic approach, forays into the profundity of what is named as “Made in China” and showcases Chinese spirit in fashion communication.