"Please don’t: A socio-pragmatic analysis of public signs in the Phili" by Henelsie B. Mendoza

Please don’t: A socio-pragmatic analysis of public signs in the Philippines

Date of Publication

5-24-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Linguistics

Subject Categories

Linguistics | Semantics and Pragmatics

College

Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC College of Education

Department/Unit

English and Applied Linguistics

Thesis Adviser

Jose Cristina M. Pariña,

Defense Panel Chair

Rochelle Irene G. Lucas

Defense Panel Member

Jennifer Tan-de Ramos
Eden Regala Flores
Leah E. Gustilo
Arceli M. Amarles

Abstract/Summary

The study investigated the public signs found in the three metropolitan cities in the Philippines which represent the three island groups in the Philippines—Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Employing the typology suggested by Huddleston and Pullum, (2002), Huang (2014) and Perez-Hernandez (2003), the study highlighted the patterns of differences as evident in the sign’s linguistic realization procedures to examine the choice of illocutionary act based on its force, directness and sentence type. The force of each public sign is analyzed using Takahashi’s (2012) parameters which cover cost, capability, desire, obligation, power, and benefit. Also, the public signs are scrutinized based on the languages used, type, description of the signs’ appearance, target audience and content of the signs.
To assess the significant relationship of the structure and function of the directives to the characteristics of the public signs, Chi-square is used to assess whether the illocutionary type, directness and sentence type of the directives have a significant relationship with the public sign’s type force exertion. To comprehensively analyze the force exerted by these signs, signs’ characteristics along with its linguistic realizations are also evaluated. Then, these characteristics of public signs are further analyzed using the semiotic and nexus analysis of Scollon and Scollon (2003) used to discuss how the social practices of the people, the language policies and language ideologies interact within different socio-political frames.
Using 1513 photographs from Manila (468), Cebu (496) and Davao (549) from 9 different social domains, it was found that there is a greater preference for indirect forms as evidenced by mitigation specification links attached to imperative base constructions used in the realization of the illocutionary acts found in the data. Mostly, the signs are either in a form of advice, recommendations or warnings, if not command, orders and demands. The linguistic realization procedures are found to be statistically dependent to five parameters set by Takahashi (2012) which are desire, power, capability, obligation and cost. Only benefit is not reflected much on the pragmatic forms as this is seen as inherent and automatic in the case of public sign.
Furthermore, characteristics of public signs has shown inclination to internationalization and globalization where a majority of the signs are written in English when most locales do not speak this language as their L1. Notably, Filipino was not very visible and salient in the LL of the three metropolitan cities. This could partly be attributed to de facto policies set by most bottom-up signs that are framed in English. Also, the language choice could be influenced by economy principle where signs in English is much shorter than when it is stated in Filipino. Bottom-up signs also tend to occur more frequently than top down signs. Most of these bottom-up signs are consultative in nature which partly explains the dominance of indirect forms as most of the domains that set-up these signs are profit-oriented. Despite the dominance of multilinguals in the population, public signs tend to be monolingual. Apart from this requires less effort in writing and interpreting, local languages and even Filipino seems to not compete with English at all. A socio-pragmatic model is then proposed in analyzing public signs to cover all the facets previously discussed.

Abstract Format

html

Language

English

Format

Electronic

Accession Number

CDTG008232

Keywords

Signs and signboards--Philippines; Sociolinguistics--Philippines

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Embargo Period

3-10-2025

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