본 연구는 우리의 전통 기물과 함께 풍부한 소재와 다양한 형식으로 발전시켜온 오색전지공예에서 문양을 중심으로 기호학 적 분석방법을 도입하여 어떠한 방식으로 작용하여 상징을 드러내는지 검토한 것이다. 연구는 첫 번째로 전통 기법을 바 탕으로 현대적 공예 디자인으로 발전해 온 과정을 살피고 관련문헌을 체계적으로 분류하면서 전통문양의 일반적 상징의미 를 고찰하였다. 두 번째는 기호로서 오색전지공예문양의 상징적 의미에 대한 분석과 현대적 재해석에 적절한 여러 갈래의 기호학 이론을 살폈다. 여러 이론이 도입된 배경에는 롤랑바르트의 신화체계만을 도입할 경우 민간의 무의식이 침잠된 본 래의 인류 문화적 문양분석이 방기되는 결점 때문에 그 보완으로 소쉬르, 그레마스, 퍼스의 기호학 등 여러 학자의 기호학 을 고찰하면서 이론적 체계를 정리했다. 세 번째로 전통적 분류방식에 대해 포커스 샘플링으로 취한 7개 유형의 문양기물 을 사례로 들어 해석방식이 아닌 추론방식의 기호학 이론을 원용하여 분석했다. 방법으로는 동물, 식물, 길상, 기하, 자연, 음양사상 등 전통분류 소재에서 포커스 샘플된 7개 전통문양을 기호학적으로 분석한 결과, 단순히 불로장생과 악귀퇴치, 자손번창을 기원하는 상징성만이 존재하는 것이 아니라 시지각적으로 체험되는 고상함, 자유, 활동성, 관능성 등 조형적 특 성이 의미복합체로 내재되어 있음을 알 수 있었다. 이는 전통문양이 기호로서의 문양, 대상으로서의 기물, 해석소로서의 상 징성과 함께 이데올로기로서의 신화인 1차성, 민간설화이야기의 2차성, 조형적 미의식의 3차성의 기호를 가지고 있는 것으 로 분석된다. 3차성의 기호는 전통문양의 재해석부분으로 현대생활에서 문화상품개발에 활용할 수 있는 디자인가이드라인 을 제시했다.
In this study, Korean traditional objects and the patterns of five-colored and trimmed paper craft, whose materials and forms had become various, were examined using the semiotic analysis method. The patterns of five-colored and trimmed paper craft are not only visually outstanding but also include signs showing the life and ideas of ordinary people and symbolic meanings, and therefore they are subjected to semiotic research. As signs include all visual images as well as languages, this study examined how patterns and objects with patterns work and reveal symbolic meanings in the aspect of semiotics. First, this study examined the development of the patterns of five-colored and trimmed paper craft into modern craft designs based on traditional techniques, and then looked into the general symbolic meanings of traditional patterns through the systematic classification of relevant literature. Second, several semiotic theories which are appropriate for the analysis and modern reinterpretation of the symbolic meanings of the patterns of five-colored and trimmed paper craft as signs were examined. If the myth's system by Roland Barthes alone was used, the original patterns of human culture, in which ordinary people' subconscious are not revealed, would be abandoned. Therefore, semiotics from several scholars including Ferdinand de Saussure, Algirdas Julius Greimas, and Charles Sanders Peirce were explored, outlining semiotics theories. Third, seven types of objects with patterns, which were selected as focus samples with regard to the traditional classification method, were analyzed based on the semiotics theory of reasoning method, not interpretation method. Semiotics, initially a general term for the study of creation of signs and meaning-making, was largely used as an interpretation method in the field of linguistics. However, in the modern times, it has combined with cognitive science and is understood as a deductive methodology useful for the qualitative analysis for the creation of texts. Given this, a quantitative analysis which depends on relevant cases to verify the aesthetic senses of certain individuals has a limitation here. Whereas, a qualitative analysis which finds the rule of universal aesthetic sense through cases of the same issue is considered appropriate. After all, as semiotic approach to patterns is not finding fixed symbolic meanings but focuses on a meaning complex which ceaselessly changes and is reinterpreted over time, a qualitative approach is possible here. Seven traditional patterns selected as focus samples from materials classified as traditional, including animals, plants, lucky signs, geometric designs, nature, and the thought of yin and yang, were analyzed based on semiotics. The results show that the patterns contain not only symbolic meanings for desiring eternal youth, eradication of evil spirit and prosperity of descendants but also formative characteristics experienced through visual perception such as elegance, freedom, activity and sensuality in a meaning complex. This indicates that traditional patterns represent patterns as signs, things as objects and symbolic meaning as interpretants. In addition, as ideology, they had signs of the first trichotomy of myths, the second trichotomy of folk tales and the third trichotomy of formative aesthetic senses. The signs of the third trichotomy are the reinterpretation of traditional patterns, which suggests a guideline for using the signs in the development of cultural products in modern life.