Cover not available
Part of
Risk Discourse and Responsibility
Edited by Annelie Ädel and Jan-Ola Östman
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 336] 2023
► pp. 142–169

Chapter 6
“Your health is in your hands”

The linguistic construction of responsibility in COVID-19 storefront signage in New York City

| CUNY
| CUNY
| CUNY
| CUNY
| CUNY
COVID provided researchers an unfortunate but opportune moment to examine the relationship between disease transmission, public health messaging, and cultural values. Most studies highlight the effectiveness of collective messaging and concerns regarding individualist messages. However, these studies examine COVID message effectiveness from a public health perspective and do not investigate signs from a linguistic or discourse perspective. Contributing to research on the linguistic/discursive construction of responsibility and risk (e.g., Ädel et al., Chapter 1 in this volume; Östman & Solin 2016) and research on linguistic landscape (Chun 2022; Shohamy & Gorter 2009), this study uses Scollon and Scollon’s (2003) Discourses in Place to examine (1) how responsibility and risk are constructed in storefront COVID signage and (2) how those constructions index cultural values of individuals and collectivism. Data include over 500 photographs of COVID-19 storefront signage, including 171 individual, unique signs, gathered across four of New York City’s five boroughs between September of 2020 and January of 2021. Findings describe both linguistic and structural (sign layout) constructions of responsibility and risk.
Keywords: linguistic landscape, responsibilization, COVID-19, cultural values, public health messages, neoliberalism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Culture in the time of COVID
  • 3.Political discourses in the linguistic landscape
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Data analysis
    • 5.1Responsibility, when?
    • 5.2Who is responsible, and for what?
    • 5.3Responsible to whom?
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 24 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.336.06lan
References (55)
References
Ahmed, A., and J. Jackson. 2021. “Race, Risk, and Personal Responsibility in the Response to COVID-19.” Columbia Law Review Forum 121: 47–50.Google Scholar
Airhihenbuwa, C. O., J. Iwelunmor, D. Munodawafa, C. L. Ford, T. Oni, C. Agyemang, C. Mota, O. B. Ikuomola, L. Simbayi, M. P. Fallah, Z. Qian, B. Makinwa, C. Niang, and I. Okosun. 2020. “Culture Matters in Communicating the Global Response to COVID-19.” Preventing Chronic Disease 17 (17): 1–8. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Allen, L. 1958. Management and Organization. McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Bori, P. 2018. Language Textbooks in the Era of Neoliberalism. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, P., and S. C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Canagarajah, S. 2017. “Translingual Practices and Neoliberal Policies.” In Translingual Practices and Neoliberal Policies, 1–66. Springer, Cham. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Card, K. G. 2022. “Collectivism, Individualism and COVID-19 Prevention: A Cross Sectional Study of Personality, Culture and Behavior among Canadians” Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine 10 (1): 415–438. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cardona, B. 2021. “The Pitfalls of Personalization Rhetoric in Time of Health Crisis: COVID-19 Pandemic and Cracks on Neoliberal Ideologies.” Health Promotion International 36 (3): 714–721. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carlson, J. 6/21/2020. “Everything you Need to Know about Phase 2 of Reopening NYC.” Gothamist. [URL]
Cho, H., Y. Guo, and C. Torelli. 2022. “Collectivism Fosters Preventive Behaviors to Contain the Spread of COVID-19: Implications for Social Marketing in Public Health.” Psychology & marketing 39 (4): 694–700. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chun, C. W. 2014. “Mobilities of a Linguistic Landscape at Los Angeles City Hall Park.” Journal of Language and Politics 13 (4): 653–674. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016. “Exploring Neoliberal Language, Discourses and Identities.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Identity, ed. by S. Preece, 584–597. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
2021. A World Without Capitalism?: Alternative Discourses, Spaces, and Imaginaries. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(ed). 2022. Applied Linguistics and Politics. Bloomsbury Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coates, J. 1987. “Epistemic Modality and Spoken Discourse.” Transactions of the Philological Society 85 (1): 110–131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Courtney, E. P., R. N. Felig, and J. L. Goldenberg. 2022. “Together We can Slow the Spread of COVID-19: The Interactive Effects of Priming Collectivism and Mortality Salience on Virus Related Health Behaviour Intentions.” British Journal of Social Psychology 61 (1): 410–431. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Curl, T., and P. Drew. 2008. “Contingency and Action: A Comparison of Two Forms of Requesting.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41 (2): 129–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deleuze, G. 1992. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” October 59: 3–7.Google Scholar
Egede, L. E., and R. Walker. 2020. “Structural Racism, Social Risk Factors, and Covid-19 – A Dangerous Convergence for Black Americans.” New England Journal of Medicine 383 (12): e77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ehrlich, Susan. 2021. “Rape Victims.” In The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics, ed. by M. Coulthard, and A. Johnson. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ekwall, Per Erik, Annelie Ädel, and Catharina Nyström Höög. 2021. “Towards a Unified Affordance Approach: Searching for Congruent Meaning Making in COVID-19 Warning Designs.” Social Semiotics. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fayol, H. 1949. General and Industrial Management. [Translated by C. Storrs.] Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. [Originally published in 1916.]Google Scholar
Galang, C. M., D. Johnson, and S. S. Obhi. 2021. “Exploring the Relationship Between Empathy, Self-Construal Style, and Self-Reported Social Distancing Tendencies During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Frontiers in Psychology 12: 1–7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, E. 1983. “The Interaction Order.” American Sociological Review 48 (1): 1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, E. 10/05/2022. “Just 8% of Manhattan Office Workers are back Full Time, Survey Shows.” New York Times. [URL]
Gray, J. 2012. “Neoliberalism, Celebrity and ‘Aspirational Content’ in English Language Teaching Textbooks for the Global Market.” Chapter in Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics, ed. by D. Block, J. Gray, and M. Holborow. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gray, J., and D. Block. 2012. “The Marketisation of Language Teacher Education and Neoliberalism: Characteristics, Consequences and Future Prospects.” Chapter in Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics, ed. by D. Block, J. Gray, and M. Holborow. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. 2007. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heritage, John, and Paul Drew. 1992. Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holborow, M. 2015. Language and Neoliberalism. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
James, R. 2020. “‘Individual Responsibility’ and the Visual Rhetoric of COVID-19.” It’s Her Factory [blog] [URL]
Jordan, J., E. Yoeli, and D. G. Rand. 2020. “Don’t Get it or don’t Spread it? Comparing Self-Interested versus Prosocial Motivations for COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors.” PsyArXiv. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kress, G., and T. van Leeuwen. 1996. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. Routledge.Google Scholar
Laurencin, C. T., and A. McClinton. 2020. “The COVID-19 Pandemic: a Call to Action to Identify and Address Racial and Ethnic Disparities.” Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 7 (3): 398–402. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leitner, H., E. S. Sheppard, K. Sziarto, and A. Maringanti. 2007. “Contesting Urban Futures: Decentering Neoliberalism.” Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers 4.Google Scholar
Marshall, S. 2021. “Navigating COVID-19 Linguistic Landscapes in Vancouver’s North Shore: Official Signs, Grassroots Literacy Artefacts, Monolingualism, and Discursive Convergence.” International Journal of Multilingualism, 1–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matarese, M. 2016. “‘Getting Placed’ in Time: Responsibility Talk in Caseworker–Client Interaction.” In Discourse and Responsibility in Professional Settings, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman, and Anna Solin, 120–140. Sheffield: Equinox.Google Scholar
Millett, G. A., A. T. Jones, D. Benkeser, S. Baral, L. Mercer, C. Beyrer, B. Honermann, E. Lankiewicz, L. Mena, J. S. Crowley, J. Sherwood, and P. S. Sullivan. 2020. “Assessing Differential Impacts of COVID-19 on Black Communities.” Annals of Epidemiology 47: 37–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Malley, P. 2009. “Responsibilization”, in The SAGE Dictionary of Policing, ed. by A. Wakefield, and J. Fleming, 277–279. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Östman, Jan-Ola, and Anna Solin (eds). 2016. Discourse and Responsibility in Professional Settings. Sheffield: Equinox.Google Scholar
Phyak, P. 2020. “Neoliberal Placemaking and Ideological Constructions of Standardized Tests in Nepal’s Linguistic Landscape.” Ch. 11 in The Sociopolitics of Language Testing, ed. by S. A. Mirhosseini, and P. De Costa. New York: Bloomsbury. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reeves, J. 2012. “If You See Something, Say Something: Lateral Surveillance and the Uses of Responsibility.” Surveillance & Society 10 (3/4): 235–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reich, J. A. 2014. “Neoliberal Mothering and Vaccine Refusal: Imagined Gated Communities and the Privilege of Choice.” Gender and Society 28 (5): 679–704. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rose, Nikolas. 2000. “Government and Control.” British Journal of Criminology 40 (2): 321–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1984. “On Doing ‘Being Ordinary.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 413–429. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sarangi, Srikant. 2011. “Role Hybridity in Professional Practice”. In Genre(s) on the Move: Hybridisation and Discourse Change in Specialised Communication, ed. by Srikant Kumar Sarangi, Vanda Polese, and Giuditta Caliendo, 271–296. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.Google Scholar
Scollon, R., and S. W. Scollon. 2003. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spectrum News Staff. 2020 (June 8). NY1 News. [URL]
Shohamy, E., and D. Gorter (eds). 2009. Linguistic Landscapes: Expanding the Scenery. Routledge.Google Scholar
Spolsky, B. 2009. “Prolegomena to a Sociolinguistic Theory of Public Signage.” In Linguistic Landscapes: Expanding the Scenery, ed. by E. Shohamy, and D. Gorter, 25–40. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
“Tracking Coronavirus in New York City, NY: Latest Map and Case Count.” (June 14, 2022). Retrieved from: [URL]
Walenski, R. [@CDCDirector]. 2021 (May, 14). “Your Health is in your Hands” [Tweet]. Twitter. [URL]
Watson, M. F., G. Bacigalupe, M. Daneshpour, W.-J. Han, and R. Parra-Cardona. 2020. “COVID-19 Interconnectedness: Health Inequity, the Climate Crisis, and Collective Trauma.” Family Process 59 (3): 832–846. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wee, L. 2016. “Language Policy, Homelessness and Neoliberal Urbanization: The Case of San Francisco’s Union Square.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 20 (3): 263–286. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yong, E. 2021 (June 9). “The Fundamental Question of the Pandemic is Shifting.” The Atlantic Monthly. [URL]