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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. 306–333

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Finnish and French public signs from commercial premises during the Covid-19 pandemic

ORCiD logo with link | University of Helsinki
Published online: 6 July 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.22012.iso
Abstract
This paper studies 200 signs displayed in commercial premises during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Finland and in France. The data were collected through crowdsourcing via social media platforms and analysed from the perspective of cross-cultural pragmatics. The vast majority of Finnish and French directives were direct, but cross-cultural differences emerged in relation to perspective and mitigation. Specifically, French signs preferred an impersonal perspective, whereas Finnish signs favoured a hearer perspective, and Finnish signs were more often mitigated than French signs. The signs balanced between attracting customers and imposing safety measures on them through the justification of measures, the presentation of measures taken by businesses themselves, as well as by addressing clients and thanking them. The findings suggest that the directives in Covid-19 signs differ from directives in other data types.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Finnish and French public signs
    • 2.2Directives
      • 2.2.1Directive studies from different approaches
      • 2.2.2Finnish and French directives
  • 3.Data, theoretical framework and method
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Theoretical framework and method
  • 4.Analysis and results
    • 4.1Finnish and French directives
      • 4.1.1Head acts and perspective in Finnish directives
      • 4.1.2Head acts and perspective of French directives
    • 4.2Mitigation of directives
    • 4.3Balancing between attracting clients and imposing measures
  • 5.Discussion & conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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