本文首先解釋龐德和艾森斯坦如何從中文符號的「去熟悉化」特質，發展出一種以中文符號為媒介的「震攝」美學。除了詳盡闡述龐德和艾森斯坦如何從中國文字中建構出兩種「意象主義」，本文作者亦對他們的「表意符號藝術」提出了一種思想意識層面上的解讀。再者，晚近研究西方學界對中文符號探索的學者，多認為龐德和艾森斯坦誤解中文符意的建構過程。作者對此觀點持保留態度，並聚焦於龐德和艾森斯坦如何從他們對羅蘭•巴特「第三種意義」的領略當中，對前衛藝術發展出一致的理論。

This essay explicitly sets out to explain how Ezra Pound and Sergei Eisenstein use the Chinese sign to create an aesthetics of ”shock” based on the dc-familiarizing character of the Chinese sign. In addition to a detailed explanation of how Pound and Eisenstein construct two kinds of ”imagism' out of the Chinese character, I also offer an ”ideological” reading of their theories of ”ideogrammic art.” Moreover, unlike other recent critics (Fleming: 1989, Ming Xie: 1998, Makin: 2003) interested in the Western uses of the Chinese sign, I do not insist that Pound and Eisenstein were necessarily wrong about their intuitions regarding Chinese signification. Rather, I focus on how they managed to create coherent theories of avant-garde art based on their insights into what Roland Barthes called the ”third term,” or metaphysical aspect of the image.