Public Notices as Social Commentary: An Analysis of Thematic Concerns from Linguistic Faults on Signage in Kenya

ABSTRACT:

This paper examines the thematic concerns that arise from linguistic errors found in public signage. Essentially, it seeks to analyse the veiled emerging and topical issues surrounding the author which makes him/her commit such linguistic blunders in their signage that subsequently interfere with the entire communication process. There is some concern as to why authors make linguistic errors in their signage; but it has not been considered from the perspective of the public signage themselves. Therefore, this paper scrutinises the public signage in an attempt to identify some of these elusive concerns. To assist in this analysis, the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as propounded by Halliday (1994) is applied to twenty-three public signage collected from around the country on both on-line and off-line platform. The sampling procedure was purposefully selected to cover various parts of the country catering for their unique people and features. It was important to select only those public signage which contained linguistic errors which reflected emerging themes found in the society. Tabular representation was used to portray the relationship of various components of societal commentary present in the respective signage. The study sought to enhance specific areas of linguistics by identifying fundamental aspects therein including the relationship between language, society and culture. Similarly, the education sector would greatly benefit by reviewing language competence and performance tasks in students to avoid such linguistic errors in future.

Key terms: Context/sociolinguistic situation/ setting: environment surrounding the author of the public notices Discourse analysis: to determine meaning through text and context analysis Linguistic errors: mistakes associated with language performance Linguistic Competence: proper knowledge of rules and grammar of language Linguistic Performance: proper usage of language through writing Linguistic landscape: environment including public notices Public Notices: messages hang, printed or printed for purposes of public consumption Social Commentary/thematic concerns/ topical issues: topics emanating from the society about lifestyle of the citizens