An Investigation of the Communicative Purposes of Road Signs: How Signs Do Things

Jennifer D. Ewald

Abstract


This study explores the important communicative roles carried out by road signs both directly and indirectly. The qualitative analysis is based on a corpus of 150 road signs collected from signage on state and local highways and roadways in seven U.S. states. Road signs were identified as either full, grammatical sentences or as block language. They were further analyzed as speech acts and their performativity was briefly explored in three areas: agency, lexis, and emplacement. Road sign ambiguity in regard to punctuation and syntactic ambiguity was also identified. The findings pointed to several areas for future research including drivers’ behavioral reactions, road safety and wayfinding potential.

Keywords


Road Signs, Speech Act, Performativity, Agency, Lexis, Emplacement, Ambiguity, Linguistic Landscape

Full Text:

PDF

References


Amend, O. (1927). Road signs. American Speech, 2, 191-192.

Austin, J.L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Burns, P.C. (1998). Wayfinding errors while driving. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 18, 209–217.

Cassell, P. (2009). Ambiguous roadworks signage is ‘ridiculous’. http://www.getreading.co.uk/lifestyle/ambiguous-roadworks-signage-is-ridiculous-4239505. Accessed on 5/28/2017.

Dewar, R.E. (1995). Traffic Signs: The state of the art of research and improvement possibilities. Zeitschrift für Semiotik, 17(1-2), 35-63.

Driver Education. (1986). Supplemental Lessons and Activities for Use with Limited English Proficient (LEP) Studnets Enrolled in ESL or Special Education Classes. Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs (ED), Washington, DC.

Drucker, J. (1984). Language in the landscape. Landscape, 28(1), 7-13.

Hollingsworth, C. (1995). Traffic-ometry: The new shape of mathematics. Teaching PreK-8, 25(4), 62-63.

Koyuncu, M. & Amado, S. (2008). Effects of stimulus type, duration and location on priming of road signs: Implications for driving. Transportation Research Part F, 11, 108-125.

Language Everywhere. National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, Illinois. Live Wire, 1(4-5) & 2(1).

Mackenzie, C., & Paton, G. (2003). Resumption of driving with aphasia following stroke. Aphasiology, 17(2), 107-122.

Marottoli, R.A., Van Ness, P.H., Araujo, K.L.B., Iannone, L.P., Acampora, D., Charpentier, P., & Peduzzi, P. (2007). A randomized trial of an education program to enhance older driver performance. Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, 62A(10), 1113-1119.

Mautner, G. (2012). Language, space and the law: A study of directive signs. Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 19(2), 189-217.

Milleville-Pennel, I., Hoc, J-M., & Jolly, E. (2007). The use of hazard road signs to improve the perception of severe bends. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 39, 721-730.

Murph, D. & McCormick, S. (1985). Evaluation of an instructional program designed to teach minimally literate juvenile delinquents to read road signs. Education & Treatment of Children, 8(2), 133-151.

Pavlenko, A. & Mullen, A. (2015). Why diachronicity matters in the study of linguistic landscapes. Linguistic Landscape, 1(1-2), 114-132.

Peirce, C.S. (1982ff). Writings, 1-6; 8. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana U.P.

Prieto, M.S., & Allen, A.R. (2009). Using self-organising maps in the detection and recognition of road signs. Image and Vision Computing, 27(6), 673-683.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, g. & Svartik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.

Rastall, P. (2003). Following the signs—English road hieroglyphs? English Today 76, 19(4), 57-60.

Rice, W. (1927). Go slow—Proceed slowly. American Speech, 2, 489-491.

Scollon, R. & Scollon, S.W., (2003). Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. New York and London: Routledge.

Searle, J.R. (1975). Indirect speech acts. In Cole & Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (59-82). New York: Academic Press.

Shakir, A. (1995). Reference and representation in translation: A look into the translator’s resources. Meta, 40(4), 693-701

Stanyar, A. (1985). Safe driving and road signs. Fordson Bilingual Demonstration Project. Department of Education, Washington, D.C.

Stjernfelt, F. (2014). Road signs revisited. RASK, 40, 373-377.

Test, D.W., & Heward, W.L. (1983). Teaching road signs and traffic laws to learning disabled students. Learning Disability Quarterly, 6(1), 80-83.

Viganò, R. & Rovida, E. (2014). A proposed method about the design of road signs. Journal of Transportation Safety & Security, 7(1), 56-75.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.11n.6p.72

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2010-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.

Advances in Language and Literary Studies

You may require to add the 'aiac.org.au' domain to your e-mail 'safe list’ If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox'. Otherwise, you may check your 'Spam mail' or 'junk mail' folders.