Abstract
In China, the increasing traffic pressure has created traffic policing problems such as the heavy workloads of traffic police, as well as more conflicts between traffic police and road users. The treatment of traffic policing as a semiotic practice provides both a new perspective in and a helpful approach to dealing with these problems, yet few studies have investigated how semiotic resources are used in traffic policing interactions. This article examines the supportive role of semiotic resources in traffic policing, and draws upon genre and exchanges involved as an illustration. The data include three audio recordings of traffic accident handling cases in Shanghai, China. Through qualitative analysis of the data from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, this article identifies the genre stages (both obligatory and optional stages) in traffic accident handling and their logico-semantic relations, and situates the typical exchanges and moves used by traffic police in different stages. It also discusses the usefulness of semiotic resources for traffic policing and the implications of these resources in tackling the existing problems of traffic policing in China.
Funding source: National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science, China
Award Identifier / Grant number: 16BYY051
Funding source: China Scholarship Council
Award Identifier / Grant number: CSC No. 201806230187
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Research funding: The study was supported by the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science, China (grant no. 16BYY051) and China Scholarship Council (CSC No. 201806230187).
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© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Derrida’s “chimerical experimental exercise”: an ecolinguistic dream of a more biocentric language
- The plastic of clothing and the construction of visual communication and interaction: a semiotic examination of the eighteenth-century French dress
- A zoosemiotic approach to the transactional model of communication
- Complexes, rule-following, and language games: Wittgenstein’s philosophical method and its relevance to semiotics
- The distribution of handshapes in the established lexicon of Israeli Sign Language (ISL)
- On the blankness of blank-signs
- Systematizing evil in literature: twelve models for the analysis of narrative fiction
- The use of semiotic resources in traffic policing: an exploration of genre structure and exchanges in traffic accident handling in China
- Practical Esotericism and Tikkun Olam: two modern renditions of a medieval mystical idea
- Bühler’s organon model of communication: a semiotic analysis of advertising slogans
- Book Reviews
- Semiotics in visual communication: review of Doing Visual Analysis
- Review of A (bio)semiotic theory of translation: the emergence of social-cultural reality
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Derrida’s “chimerical experimental exercise”: an ecolinguistic dream of a more biocentric language
- The plastic of clothing and the construction of visual communication and interaction: a semiotic examination of the eighteenth-century French dress
- A zoosemiotic approach to the transactional model of communication
- Complexes, rule-following, and language games: Wittgenstein’s philosophical method and its relevance to semiotics
- The distribution of handshapes in the established lexicon of Israeli Sign Language (ISL)
- On the blankness of blank-signs
- Systematizing evil in literature: twelve models for the analysis of narrative fiction
- The use of semiotic resources in traffic policing: an exploration of genre structure and exchanges in traffic accident handling in China
- Practical Esotericism and Tikkun Olam: two modern renditions of a medieval mystical idea
- Bühler’s organon model of communication: a semiotic analysis of advertising slogans
- Book Reviews
- Semiotics in visual communication: review of Doing Visual Analysis
- Review of A (bio)semiotic theory of translation: the emergence of social-cultural reality