A Pragmatic Analysis Of Chinese Public Signs

Public signs are a form of language that is used in public, with a view to inform, direct, remind, warn, instruct, and so on. Related studies at home and abroad document that most efforts were made to define the linguistic phenomenon, cite errors in bilingual translation, and address methods, strategies and skills for translating such a phenomenon, and that there were no systematic and multiperspective analysis on Chinese public signs. The purpose of this study was to explicitly probe into Chinese public signs; specifically it examined the types, language styles, pragmatic functions and pragmatic strategies of Chinese public signs.For analysis purposes, the author collected 160 real-situation examples, including texts and pictures, from Beihu Anju residential zone, public transportation service locations, some large-scale shopping places in Nanning city and Guangxi University. In addition, she collected 125 examples from some websites such as http://www.e-signs,info, and http://www.chinadaily.com.cn .It was found that (1) Chinese public signs mainly consist of three types, jingshi yu public signs, gaoshi yu public signs, and biaoyu public signs; (2) that public signs do not only provide people with services,helps and information, but also perform functions such as directing, promoting, restricting, compelling and advocating, (3) that public signs with the function of directing are mostly static, while those with functions of prompting, restricting, compelling and advocating are more dynamic; and (4) that in order to attract readers'attention, convey information effectively, and achieve communicative intents, public sign-designers employ pragmatic strategies such as being implicating, avoiding face-threatening, being relevant, and being illocutionary.This study is meaningful in the sense that it leads us to a better understanding of public signs in our daily life, and meanwhile, carries certain implications for public sign-designers in their efforts to compose better signs to effectively communicate their intentions and influence readers. In addition, this study also sheds some lights on the C-E (Chinese-English) translations of public signs.