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Title Laws and Enskilment: A Forensic Approach to Geosemiotic Analysis of Linguistic Landscape

Author(s) Ayesha Jamil

Abstract Thesis Tilte: Laws and Enskilment: A Forensic Approach to Geosemiotic Analysis of Linguistic Landscape Linguistic Landscape surrounds us everywhere in the form of billboards, advertisements, street names, brand logos, price tags, graffiti, and public signs. These public signs mirror sociological, cultural, political, economic, and historical aspects of a country. Moreover, they not only reflect the hidden state policies but the laws that aim to mold human behavior by instructing, informing, ordering and directing. Owing to their ambiguous nature, the linguistic and pictorial contents of the top-down signboards that announce state rules and regulations lead to multiple interpretations by the viewer. The present study is an endeavor to analyze the top-down signboards of Pakistan displayed at various public places of Islamabad and Lahore by employing a mixed method approach particularly explanatory sequential technique. Using Geosemiotics framework by Scollon and Scollon (2003) and Speech act theory by Searle (1979b), various distinguishing characteristics of 100 public signs deployed by government institutions were identified and analyzed quantitatively. Furthermore, a questionnaire was also circulated among 385 literate citizens of Pakistan after face validity, content validity and reliability tests while the qualitative analysis was conducted through the interviews from twenty-five citizens. The results drawn from the data were discussed forensically by comparing the state laws with the signboards. The study confirmed the presence of such signboards that fall under the category of regulatory discourse but they fail to impart enskilment to the public by communicating law ineffectively. The recurrent use of English lexicon signals the effects of colonization and globalization on the linguistic practices prevalent in Pakistan. Indexicality is a major characteristic of signboards that locates language in the physical space, but it also points to the legal discourse at large. Forensically, it was observed that discrepancies exist between the top- down signboards and the state rules. It is recommended that signboards must be designed in accordance with the rules prescribed in Acts and Constitution of Pakistan to avoid any discrepancy. Simple words and syntactic structures should be used to remove ambiguity. Urdu language should be implemented as an official language. Keywords: Top-down Signboards, Linguistic Landscape, Forensic Linguistics, Enskilment.

Type Thesis/Dissertation PhD

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2023-07-04

Subject PhD English Linguistics

Publisher PhD English (GS)

Contributor(s) Dr. Ghazala Kausar

Format PDF

Identifier PhD

Source PhD

Relation PhD

Coverage PhD

Rights PhD

Category PhD English Linguistics Thesis

Description PhD English Thesis