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Ewald*\u003Cbr>Saint Joseph's University, United States\u003Cbr>Corresponding Author: Jennifer D. Ewald, E-mail: [jewald@sju.edu](jewald@sju.edu) |  |\n| --- | --- |\n| ARTICLE INFO\u003Cbr>Article history\u003Cbr>Received: September 15, 2020\u003Cbr>Accepted: November 23, 2020\u003Cbr>Published: December 31, 2020\u003Cbr>Volume: 11 Issue: 6\u003Cbr>Advance access: December 2020 Conflicts of interest: None\u003Cbr>Funding: None\u003Cbr>Key words:\u003Cbr>Road Signs, Speech Act, Performativity, Agency,\u003Cbr>Lexis, Emplacement, Ambiguity, Linguistic Landscape | ABSTRACT\u003Cbr>This study explores the important communicative roles carried out by road signs both directly and indirectly. The qualitative analysis is based on a corpus of 150 road signs collected from signage on state and local highways and roadways in seven U.S. states. Road signs were identified as either full, grammatical sentences or as block language. They were further analyzed as speech acts and their performativity was briefly explored in three areas: agency, lexis, and emplacement. Road sign ambiguity in regard to punctuation and syntactic ambiguity was also identified. The findings pointed to several areas for future research including drivers’behavioral reactions, road safety and wayfinding potential. |\n\nINTRODUCTION  \nRoad signs are as taken for granted as the macadam or asphalt on which we drive – until there is an issue. Drivers’awareness of the actual road is understandably heightened when vehicle tires drop mercilessly into damaging potholes or as yellow or white pavement markers become illegible; otherwise, vehicles sail along without much consideration of the work involved in the “Under Construction” zones. Motorists are similarly accustomed to the presence of traffic or road signs (RSs) but rarely are these signs analyzed beyond a superficial level. Nevertheless, RSs fulfill a valuable role by promoting safe and effective vehicle navigation.  \nInterestingly, a recent study (Viganò & Rovida, 2014) emphasized that adding text to signs with only graphics can create communicative challenges for second language drivers as well as increase the time required for reading the signs, a situation these authors claimed is “incompatible with the traffic requirements”(p. 56) . But, signs with only text can also create many other types of comprehension challenges for drivers. Cassell (2009) reported on a comical situation in which drivers were instructed by signs to “travel north or  \nsouth and east or west to negotiate” a detour (p. 1, para. 5-7) . These upset drivers were interviewed by a local reporter who discovered that their frustration stemmed not only from the actual road work which delayed them but also from not knowing how to interpret or apply the signs. One resident complained during his interview,“Why can they not just write access one-way and the other way no entry? How hard is it to do that? Unless you are in the army and have a compass you will have no idea where you are going.…I live round here and I don’t know which way is which…”(Cassell, 2009, p. 1, para. 5-7) . Clearly, road sign messages can have an important effect on motorists.  \nOne reason is that signs function as significant yet often unacknowledged conversation partners. As in spoken conversation, sign designers create them for specific, one-way communicative purposes. Signs communicate to readers, readers receive the words, words carry the messages, and messages are presented in various ways. In transportation contexts, RSs serve as a kind of asynchronous conversational medium between the governmental authorities who authorize the signage and the drivers who read particular signs. Road planners and law enforcement personnel use RSs to  \nPublished by Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.  \nCopyright (c) the author(s). This is an open","cbCairsTrtwb9TyD","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairsTrtwb9TyD","pdf",429538,11,"English","# Introduction\n# Previous Research\n# Methodology and Data\n## Corpus of 150 Road Signs\n# Analysis\n## Speech Acts and Performativity\n## Agency, Lexis, and Emplacement\n## Punctuation and Syntactic Ambiguity\n# Findings and Future Research","[{\"question\":\"What communicative roles do the study attributes to road signs?\",\"answer\":\"The study examines how road signs convey messages both directly and indirectly to support safe and effective navigation.\"},{\"question\":\"How is the road-sign data collected and analyzed?\",\"answer\":\"A corpus of 150 road signs from seven U.S. states is qualitatively analyzed, identifying whether signs appear as full grammatical sentences or block language before applying speech-act analysis.\"},{\"question\":\"What kinds of ambiguity does the research identify in road signs?\",\"answer\":\"It identifies ambiguity related to punctuation and syntactic structure, affecting how drivers interpret sign messages.\"}]","An Investigation of the Communicative Purposes of Road Signs - How Signs Do Things | PDF",28]