Exploring the language of traffic signs in the Malaysian linguistic landscape: Its meaning / Lim Chia Wei … [et al.]

A relatively new area of sociolinguistic research today focuses on linguistic
landscape, in which linguistic elements that are emblematic of a society s
identity are found and managed. The notion of linguistic land5cape has been
given varied interpretations, in the sense of what constitutes a linguistic
landscape and its presence in a local, global or multicultural selling. This
systematic study has chosen to focus on just one dimension of social reality
that is brought to life through a semiotic system found in the Malaysian
public domain. A study of this nature helps to uncover an aspect of visual
language use that contours a relationship between the goals of public
authority and the end users in a civil society. Specifically, the study attempts
to give expression and meaning to the use of traffic road signs, as visual
language, from the point of view of school children who are nurtured by
society in a number of ways to participate responsibly in the power dynamics
of a vibrant social structure.