Cover not available

Article published In: The interpersonal functions of public signs during the Covid-19 pandemic
Edited by Eva Ogiermann
[Pragmatics and Society 14:2] 2023
► pp. 358–381

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Covid-19 WhatsApp sticker memes as public signs in Oman

ORCiD logo with link | Sultan Qaboos University
Published online: 6 July 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.22007.zid
Abstract
In this article, we identify a new form of public discourse that takes the shape of WhatsApp sticker memes personally created and nationally shared on WhatsApp by citizens in Oman during the Covid-19 pandemic to concomitantly act as carriers of information and as promoters of relational work. The data consist of 67 public sign stickers culled from a larger set amassed as part of an ethnographic project on Arabs and Covid-19. Drawing upon interpersonal pragmatics and visual semiotics, we examine the interplay of textual and visual modes in featured stickers, demonstrating how Omanis translated official Covid-19 instructions into three types of terse memes to facilitate communal distribution. We suggest that to encourage public cooperation, the stickers struck a culturally-imperative balance between keeping traditional norms intact while committing socially offensive acts. The article contributes to research on digital discourse by exploring sticker use as public signs in the understudied Arabic context.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1Arabic discourse systems
    • 2.2Public signs as social action
    • 2.3Sticker memes as public signs
  • 3.Analytical and methodological background
    • 3.1Analytical perspectives
    • 3.2Data collection and coding
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1The Covid-19 narrative in Oman
    • 4.2Analysis of public sign sticker memes
      • 4.2.1Advisory sticker memes
        • Low modality advisory stickers
        • High modality advisory stickers
      • 4.2.2Disseminating knowledge stickers
      • 4.2.3Warning stickers
        • Inclusive warnings
        • Police warnings
    • 4.3Public sign stickers in use
  • 5.Discussion and concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
References
Ali, Abbas. 1989. “Decision Style and Work Satisfaction of Arab Gulf Executives: A Cross-National Study.” International Studies of Management and Organization 19 (2): 22–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Maroof, Rana, Said Salloum, Ahmed Al-Hamadand, and Khalid Shaalan. 2020. “A Unified Model for the Use and Acceptance of Stickers in Social Media Messaging.” In: AISI 2019: Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Systems and Informatics 2019, ed. by Aboul Ella Hassanien, Khaled Shaalan, and Mohamed Fahmy Tolbaet, 370–381. Springer Nature Switzerland. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Naimat, Ghazi K. 2020. “Semiotic Analysis of the Visual Signs of Protest on Online Jordanian Platforms: Code Choice and Language Mobility.” Theory & Practice in Language Studies 10(1): 61–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Suwaidi, Muna. 2008. “When an Arab executive says ‘yes’: Identifying Different Collectivistic Values that Influence the Arabian Decision-Making Process.” Unpublished Master of Science in Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al Zidjaly, Najma. 2017. “Memes as Reasonably Hostile Laments: A Discourse Analysis of Political Dissent in Oman.” Discourse & Society 28 (6): 573–594. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Arab Omanis and Covid-19.” PanMeMic, 10/6/2020. [URL]
. 2022. “Covid-19 WhatsApp stickers in Oman.” Discourse & Society 33 (5): 690–716. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bassiouney, Reem. 2019. Arabic Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dabashi, Hamid. 2012. The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Danielewicz-Betz, Anna and Radhika Mamidi. 2009. “Three Dimensions of Relational Work in Saudi Arabia: (Over) Politeness, Praise and Appreciation.” An unpublished paper presented at 11th IPrA conference 12–17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
El-Yasin, Mohammed, and Radwan Mahadi. 1996. “On the Pragmatics of Shop Signs in Jordan.” Journal of Pragmatics 261: 407–416. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferenčík, Milan. 2018. “Im/politeness on the Move: A Study of Regulatory Discourse Practices in Slovakia’s Center of Tourism.” Journal of Pragmatics 1341: 183–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ge, Jing. 2020. “Anatomy of Memetic Stickers: An Analysis of Sticker Competition on Chinese Social Media.” Workshop Proceedings of the 14th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1967. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. 1985. Spoken and Written Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Herring, Susan C., and Ashley Dainas. 2017. “‘Nice picture comment!’ Graphicons in Facebook Comment Threads.” In Proceedings of the Fiftieth Hawai’i International Conference on System Sciences, 2185–2194. Los Alamitos, Calif.: IEEE Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hofstede, Geert, and Gert Jan Hofstede (2005). Cultures and Organizations. Software of the Mind. New York etc.: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jocuns, Andrew. 2021. “The Geosemiotics of a Thai University: The Narratives Embedded in Schoolscapes.” Linguistics and Education 611: 100902. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konrad, Artie, Susan C. Herring, and David Choi. 2020. “Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 25 (3): 217–235. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther, and Theo van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 1985. Talking Power: The Politics of Language. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Locher, Miriam A. 2012. “Politeness Research from Past to Future, with a Special Focus on the Discursive Approach.” In New Perspectives on (Im)Politeness and Interpersonal Communication, ed. by Lucía Fernández Amaya, Maria de la O Hernández Lòpez, Reyes Gómez Morón, Manuel Padilla Cruz, Manuel Mejias Borrero, and Mariana Relinque Barranca, 1–22. Cambridge: Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Locher, Miriam A., and Brook Bolander. 2014. “Relational Work and the Display of Multilingualism in two Facebook Groups.” In Face Work and Social Media, ed. by Kristina Bedijs, Gudrun Held, and Christiane Maaß, 157–191. Muenster: Lit-Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Locher, Miriam A. and Sage L. Graham. 2010. “Introduction to Interpersonal Pragmatics.” In Interpersonal Pragmatics, ed. by M. A. Locher, and S. L. Graham, 1–13. Berlin: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, Siying, and Renji Sun. 2020. “To Express or to End? Personality Traits are Associated with the Reasons and Patterns for Using Emojis and Stickers.” Frontiers in Psychology 11(1076): 1–11. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen. 2018. “Emotional Self-presentation on WhatsApp: Analysis of the Profile Status.” Russian Journal of Linguistics 22(1): 144–160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noordyanto, Naufan, and Nugrahardi Ramadhani. 2020. “Designing WhatsApp Stickers with Madurese Cultural Identity as a Visual Communication Media to Raise Awareness of Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19).” Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Arts and Humanities (IJCAH 2020). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norris, Sigrid. 2019. Systematically Working with Multimodal Data: Research Methods in Multimodal Discourse Analysis. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ogiermann, Eva, and Spyridoula Bella. 2021. “On the Dual Role of Expressive Speech Acts: Relational Work on Signs announcing closures during the Covid-19 pandemic.” Journal of Pragmatics 1841: 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oman Social Media report. 2015–2020. Oman: Sultan Qaboos University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Qiannan, Ma. 2012. “Research on the Translation of Public Signs.” English Language Teaching 5(4): 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1976. “A Classification of Illocutionary Acts.” Language in Society 5(1): 1–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scollon, Ron, and Suzie Wong Scollon. 2003. Discourses in Place. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Svennevig, Jan. 2021. “How to Do Things With Signs. The Formulation of Directives on Signs in Public Spaces.” Journal of Pragmatics 1751: 165–183. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1994. Gender and Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Al-Subhi, Aisha Saadi
2025. Interactional multimodal metadiscourse in public health posters during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pragmatics and Society 16:2 ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo
Tong, Ying & Chaoqun Xie
2025. Beyond bonding icons: memes in interactional sequences in digital communities of practice. Multimodal Communication 14:2 ► pp. 237 ff. DOI logo
Oyebode, Oluwabunmi O & Foluke Olayinka Unuabonah
2024. Multimodality and appraisal choices in Nigerian coronavirus-related WhatsApp memes. Communication and the Public 9:3 ► pp. 328 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue