A SEMIO-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF  THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION’S  CAMPAIGN POSTERS AGAINST COVID-19

Mohammad Muhassin

doi:10.24198/sosiohumaniora.v24i1.34748

A SEMIO-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION’S CAMPAIGN POSTERS AGAINST COVID-19

Mohammad Muhassin

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed hundreds of thousands of human lives in various parts of the world. As an authoritative body, the World Health Organization (henceforth WHO) has made efforts to prevent the Covid-19 outbreak by releasing appealing messages through posters. The study aims to to explore the types of linguistic elements used in the WHO posters and to uncover the meanings of the elements to express the messages. The study employed descriptive qualitative research using a semio-pragmatic analysis framework. The data were presented in the form of linguistic elements in posters themed #HealthyAtHome, taken from the World Health Organization’s official website. The study found two linguistic elements as poster-forming elements, namely visual and verbal elements. Through icons, indexes, and symbols, visual elements reinforce the meaning of the poster’s theme so that it is easily understood by readers. Meanwhile, verbal elements are realized by the directive speech to facilitate understanding of the intended message as well as indirective speech to consider politeness in delivering the messages. The implication of this study is to increase public knowledge and awareness on the best health practices that can be performed at home during the pandemic.

Keywords

Covid-19; public service announcement; poster; visual and verbal elements; semio-pragmatics

Full Text:

PDF

References

Ad-Darraji, H., Voon Foo, T., Ismail, S., & Shaker, E. (2012). Offering as a comissive and directive speech act: Consequence for cross-cultural communication. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 2(3), 1–6.

Aldarhami, A., Bazaid, A. S., Althomali, O. W., & Binsaleh, N. K. (2020). Public perceptions and commitment to social distancing “staying-at-home” during covid-19 pandemic: A national survey in saudi arabia. International Journal of General Medicine, 13, 677–686. https://doi.org/10.2147/IJGM.S269716

Alkhawaldeh, A. A. (2021). Persuasive strategies of jordanian government in fighting COVID-19. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 21(1), 274–293. https://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2021-2101-16

Alodokter.com. (2020). Waspada, Virus Corona Mulai Menyebar. Accessed on 3 April 2021 from https://www.alodokter.com/waspada-virus-jenis-baru-mirip-sars-mulai-menyebar

Astuti, S. P. (2019). Tuturan Langsung dan Tidak Langsung antara Penjual dan Pembeli di Pasar Tradisional Semarang. Nusa: Jurnal Ilmu Bahasa Dan Sastra, 14(2), 239–252. https://doi.org/10.14710/NUSA.14.2.239-252

Azhar, F., & Suratminto, L. (2021). Poster Larangan Mudik Masa Pandemi Covid-19 Kajian Semio-Pragmatik (Konferensi Linguistik Tahunan (KOLITA) Atma Jaya 19., Issue January).

Azizah, V. N., & Budijastuti, W. (2021). Media pembelajaran ilustratif e-book tipe flipbook pada materi sistem imun untuk melatihkan kemampuan membuat poster. Jurnal Inovasi Pembelajaran Biologi, 2(2), 40–51. https://journal.unesa.ac.id/index.php/jipb/article/view/12348

Boggu, A. T., & Singh, J. S. (2015). Poster presentation as an effective communication tool in an EFL context. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 2(5), 203–213. www.ijllnet.com

Eriyanto, & Ali, D. J. (2020). Discourse network of a public issue debate: A study on covid-19 cases in indonesia. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 36(3), 209–227. https://doi.org/10.17576/JKMJC-2020-3603-13

Favareau, D. (2008). Iconic, indexical, and symbolic understanding: Commentary on Aragno. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 56(3), 783–801. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003065108322687

Fowler, J. H., Hill, S. J., Levin, R., & Obradovich, N. (2021). Stay-at-home orders associate with subsequent decreases in COVID-19 cases and fatalities in the United States. PLoS ONE, 16(6 June), e0248849. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248849

Haradhan, M. (2018). Qualitative Research Methodology in Social Sciences and Related Subjects. Journal of Economic Development, Environment and People, 7(1), 23–48.

Hasbullah, M. (2020). Hubugan Bahasa, Semiotika dan Pikiran dalam berkomunikasi. Al-Irfan : Journal of Arabic Literature and Islamic Studies, 3(1), 106–124. https://doi.org/10.36835/al-irfan.v3i1.3712

Huang, Y. (2005). The Oxford dictionary of idioms. In Choice Reviews Online (Vol. 42, Issue 11). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.42-6205

Kim, D. K. D., & Kreps, G. L. (2020). An Analysis of Government Communication in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Recommendations for Effective Government Health Risk Communication. World Medical and Health Policy, 12(4), 398–412. https://doi.org/10.1002/WMH3.363

Li, J. (2016). On the Relationship between Indirectness and Politeness. 410–413. https://doi.org/10.2991/icsshe-16.2016.104

Megawati. (2017). Pengaruh Media Poster Terhadap Hasil Belajar Kosakata Bahasa Inggris : Getsempena English Education Journal, 4(2), 101–117. https://doi.org/10.46244/GEEJ.V4I2.738

Mittelberg, I. (2019). Peirce’s universal categories: On their potential for gesture theory and multimodal analysis. Semiotica, 2019(228), 193–222. https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2018-0090

Nor, N. F. M., & Zulcafli, A. S. (2020). Corpus driven analysis of news reports about covid-19 in a malaysian online newspaper. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 20(3), 199–220. https://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2020-2003-12

Olimat, S. N. (2020a). COVID-19 pandemic: Euphemism and dysphemism in jordanian arabic. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 20(3), 268–290. https://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2020-2003-16

Olimat, S. N. (2020b). Words as powerful weapons: Dysphemism in Trump’s Covid-19 speeches. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature, 26(3), 17–29. https://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2020-2603-02

Peirce, C. S. (1991). Peirce on Signs: Writings on Semiotic. UNC Press Books.

Rukiah, Y. (2016). Kajian Estetika Poster Tadanori Yokoo – 1965. Jurnal Desain, 3(03), 198–212. https://doi.org/10.30998/JURNALDESAIN.V3I03.716

Savavibool, N. (2016). The Effects of Colour in Work Environment: A systematic review. Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal, 1(4), 262–270. https://doi.org/10.21834/E-BPJ.V1I4.167

Searle, J. R. (2005). Expression And Meaning Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. In The Philosophical Review (Vol. 91, Issue 3). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/2184707

Seixas, B. V., Smith, N., & Mitton, C. (2018). The qualitative descriptive approach in international comparative studies: Using online qualitative surveys. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 7(9), 778–781. https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2017.142

Setyawan, F.E.B., & Lestari, R. (2020). Challenges Of Stay-At-Home Policy Implementation During The Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic In Indonesia. Jurnal Administrasi Kesehatan Indonesia, 8(0), 15–20. https://doi.org/10.20473/JAKI.V8I0.2020.15-20

Shintadewi, E. A., & Sumartias, S. (2017). Promosi Kesehatan Hiv-Aids Dan Stigma Terhadap Pengguna Narkoba Suntik (Penasun) Di Kabupaten Sumedang. Sosiohumaniora, 19(2), 128–139. https://doi.org/10.24198/Sosiohumaniora.V19I2.11403

Subekti, P., Hafiar, H., Damayanti, T., & P. Agung, F. A. (2014). Kampanye komunikasi kesehatan melalui model. Jurnal Sosiohumaniora, 16(3), 263–269.

Sultan, & Rapi, M. (2020). Positive discourse analysis of the indonesian government spokesperson’s discursive strategies during the covid-19 pandemic. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 20(4), 251–272. https://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2020-2004-14

Trifonas, P. P. (2015). International handbook of semiotics. In International Handbook of Semiotics. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9404-6

WHO. (2020). Statement from the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee’s second meeting on the new coronavirus pandemic (2019-nCoV). Accessed on 1 April 2021 from https://www.who.int/news/item/30-01-2020-statement-on-the-second-meeting-of-the-international-health-regulations-(2005)-emergency-committee-regarding-the-outbreak-of-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)

Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.