Semiotics across Cultures:  An Analysis of Shop Signs  in American and Iraqi Contexts

نصير عباس غبن الزبيدي; مروة فراس عبدالله

doi:10.31973/aj.v1i124.112

نصير عباس غبن الزبيدي Department of English College of Arts University of Baghdad
مروة فراس عبدالله Department of English College of Arts University of Baghdad

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31973/aj.v1i124.112

Abstract

This study examines the textual and visual resources of shopfront advertising signs in two different linguistic and cultural contexts, namely, American English and Iraqi Arabic from a semiotics perspective. A multi-analytic semiotics model has been used to examine forty Iraqi and American café and restaurant signs, divided equally into twenty signs for each language. The corpus analysis has revealed that the verbal and visual resources work in parallel in the shop advertising discourse of the two linguistic landscapes under investigation. That is, the discourse of shop advertising signs of the two linguistic landscapes generally tends to use the same textual and visual resources. Moreover, American and Iraqi advertising shop signs are laden with the socio-cultural practices and assumptions of the American and Iraqi societies. Finally, a number of conclusions are presented.

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Author Biographies

نصير عباس غبن الزبيدي, Department of English College of Arts University of Baghdad

Nassier A. G. Al-Zubaidi (PhD)

Department of English

College of Arts

University of Baghdad

nassieralzubaidi@gmail.com

مروة فراس عبدالله, Department of English College of Arts University of Baghdad

Marwa Firas Abdullah (MA)

Department of English

College of Arts

University of Baghdad

marwa_alrawi99@yahoo.com

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