Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Linguistic Landscapes: Life 'with Corona'
| Project/Area Number |
22K00519
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Review Section |
Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
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| Research Institution | Meijo University |
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Principal Investigator |
池 沙弥 名城大学, 外国語学部, 准教授 (10738214)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2022-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2022)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,030,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥930,000)
Fiscal Year 2024: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000)
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| Keywords | Linguistic Landscape / COVID-19 / directive speech act / signage / positioning / multimodal analysis / positioining |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
This study quantitatively documents the current Linguistic Landscapes (LL) in Japan and their changes reflecting COVID-19 over a three-year period. It will show what social norms have emerged under the global pandemic and how they change in LLs as the phases of the pandemic shift. Employing a triangulation method of LL investigation, ethnography, and multimodal discourse analysis, this study will show how people’s beliefs are realised in individual signs and how handlers of the signs position themselves in creatively using the space to display signs for viewers.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
We conducted three data collections in two cities, Nagoya and Kyoto. The total number of Covid-19-related signs is over 2,000 so far.
The analysis revealed the following points. First, only around 10% of the signs are bi-/multilingual in both cities. This supports earlier works elsewhere. The limited global mobility led the sign producers to oversee the fact that there are still non Japanese-speaking residents in Japan. Second, the multimodal analysis of request signs suggest that,the use of multimodal signs are an indicator of obeyance to government orders, but also of the effort of the shop/restaurant owners to maximise their power of controlling and eliciting customer's behaviour. By placing governments' signs next to their requests, shops are trying to justify their requests and trying to position themselves to a more equal status to their customers.
Third, the comparison of two data sets from Kyoto shows that bottom-up signs (produced individually by shop/restaurant owners) have become largely standardised over time. Many of the request signs have been reorganised and sorted out, and some signs have become standardised. The standardised forms not only indicate stronger community and regional efforts rather than individual efforts, but also indicate more authority within the local context.
The analysis findings were presented at the 25th Annual Conference of the Pragmatics Society of Japan, and accepted for publication.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
The size of data collection had to be reduced due to time constraints, but the amount of data is considered sufficient for detailed documentation and analysis.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Now that the WHO has announced the end of Covid emergency, it is expected that the linguistic landscape will change rapidly this year, and there will be far less covid-related signs. Instead, there may be newly emerging local language policies in welcoming the return of overseas travellers. The data collection will include multilingual signs that seem to be added recently.
Ethnographic interviews will also be conducted this year, with a selected group of individuals.
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Report
(1 results)
Research Products
(2 results)
