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With the fast development of the current society, public signs can be seen here and there, which play an important role in our daily life. Many scholars studied public signs from different aspects. Some scholars applied Linguistic Adaptation Theory to study the pragmatic strategies of the Chinese public signs. (Chen Xinren, 2001). Others focused on the features of the literary forms of public signs on school campus, which are concise, striking and accurate. (Zhang Nana, 2011; Li Changjiang, 2003). Some expects studied the stylistic features of public signs. They thought that public signs are simple and short. (Wang Zuoliang, 1987). Some studied the translation of public signs (Zhao Yanfei, 2007; Lv Hefa, 2004).文献综述
Although there are numerous studies on public signs, only a few people have studied the public signs on environmental protection. In this environmentally friendly society, it is really a significant and urgent issue for us to protect environment. As a result, it makes sense to do some research on the public signs on environmental protection.
1.2 Research Design and Methodology
The subjects of this paper are 150 public signs on environmental protection I have collected from the campus of a national key university in Nanjing and from the gardens and streets in the Xuanwu District of Nanjing. This paper is to explore the linguistic features and pragmatic strategies used in these signs through analysis and comparison of these public signs.
2 Linguistic Features of Public Signs on Environmental Protection
As other kind of social phraseology, public signs on environmental protection have similar linguistic features, which are grammatically simple and easy to understand. For example,
①A faucet flows five cubic meters of water in a minute.
② I am growing up, please do not hurt me.
③Any enterprise must enforce environmental regulations!
④Please keep off the grass!
It is not hard for us to draw a conclusion that these public signs have the same features: with specific purpose and simple structure. The sentence ① is a simple sentence, which has only one subject and one predicate, and it tells us that we should cherish water. ‘Please keep off the grass!’ stops us from stepping on the grass in a direct and transparent way. ②and③ are the same to④. However, when we have a closer observation, we will find that they have different design styles. ① is a statement of facts. ② uses personification to discourage people to step on the grass. ③ And ④ directly forbid people to do some inappropriate behaviors.
Though the grammatical forms of the public signs on environmental protection are not various, some sentence patterns are widely used in public. According to the manner of speaking, sentences can be pided into declarative sentence, interrogative sentence, imperative sentence and exclamatory sentence. The following is the table showing the sentence patterns of public signs on environmental protection I have collected.
Table 1 Sentence patterns of public signs on environmental protection
Sentence pattern Number Percentage Example
declarative sentence 10 6.7% This process must pass the environmental protection approval.
interrogative sentence 30 20% Except pollution, what have we left?
imperative sentence 83 55.3% Please do not waste water.
exclamatory sentence 27 18%