COVID-19 discourse in linguistic landscape: Linguistic and semiotic analysis of directive signs

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the way people communicate and convey information, particularly in public spaces. This paper investigates the use of language and signs in COVID-19-related directives in Japan from a pragmatic perspective. Using data collected through a linguistic landscape survey, the study qualitatively examines the use of politeness in linguistic formulation and the semiotic use of space through the combination of signs and objects. The analyses reveal the differences in politeness strategies used in top-down signs compared to bottom-up signs. Top-down signs, such as those produced by the government or large organizations, tend to use an invitation form and incomplete sentences, whereas bottom-up signs, created by individuals or small shops, often use more formal language and formulaic request expressions. The study highlights the role of addressers of bottom-up signs as “handlers” who play an active role in pragmatically utilizing space through the arrangement of semiotic signs. The study argues that a detailed linguistic and semiotic analysis is crucial in comprehending how meaning is co-constructed in the linguistic and semiotic landscape. This is particularly relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where clear and effective communication is of utmost importance in order to maintain public health and safety. The findings of this study provide valuable insights into the use of language and signs in public spaces, and have implications for the development of effective communicative strategies in the context of the pandemic and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• directives
• semiotic analysis
• positioning
• honorifics; linguistic landscape

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, SI, upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 Note that it is hardly possible to use exalting forms in directives due to the nature of a directive speech act.

2 In Japan, COVID-19 is often simply referred to as “corona”, a shorter version of shingata (new-type) coronavirus.

3 The signs that indicate “take out available” were excluded in the investigation. These seemed to be emerging as a way of living “with corona”, but it was not clear when the signs appeared, and they may have had the service before the pandemic started.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (C) Grant Number [22K00519] Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Linguistic Landscapes: Life “with Corona”.

Notes on contributors

Saya Ike

Saya Ike is an Associate Professor at Meijo University, Nagoya, Japan. She serves as handling-editor of the Taylor & Francis journal Asian Englishes. Her research interests include pragmatics in interaction, interaction analysis, along with world Englishes and English as a lingua franca. Her most recent publication includes a co-authored chapter in Modelling World Englishes: A Joint Approach towards Postcolonial and Non-Postcolonial Englishes (Edinburgh University Press, 2020).

Yaeko Hori

Yaeko Hori is a lecturer at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, teaching English as a global language. She gained an MA in Comparative Cultures and also an MA in TESOL; currently, she is pursuing a PhD degree (Humanities and Communications). Her (interdisciplinary) research interests include translanguaging, human self/identity formation, language ideologies and phenomenology.