This research focuses on verbal and non-verbal methods of prevention actualization in short texts accounting for such parameters as structure, function, communication, and pragmatics of body language, communication tactics, and social distance. The corpus of English-language resources used in this research has been gathered by continually sampling electronic periodicals, websites of medical institutions, unions, and centers, public and administrative organizations, educational institutions, and popular social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest on the topic of COVID-19.
The analysis results suggest that English-language short texts on the topic of COVID-19 are characterized by the multimodal semiotic resources, both verbal and non-verbal. These resources include pictograms, ideograms (such as mathematical symbols, numbers, hashtags, and ampersands), typographic signs, logos, emblems, maps, tables, charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, illustrative images, emoticons, additional graphic means (such as arrows and lines), and specific graphic symbols (such as ticks and crosses), all coexisting in a single textual canvas.
The texts under analysis contain a variety of verbal and non-verbal means of prevention actualization, such as warning, request, advice, requirement, order, recommendation or prohibition. Their communicative and pragmatic aim is to inform the audience about the importance of preventive measures to effectively treat or avoid COVID-19 infection.
After analyzing a corpus of medical texts, it was determined that short medical texts possess such differentiating features as information density, succinctness, persuasiveness, structural coherence, varied resources, and graphical compression. Within the research the texts can also be categorized into those that have a title, heading, and subheading, and those that lack them.
It has been noticed that English-language short texts on the topic of COVID-19 contain a variety of signs from different semiotic systems, including non-verbal ones with different placements on the page. Based on their structure, these texts can be classified into five types: heterographic, pictographic, verbally dependent, illustrative, graphic, and schematic. Depending on the location or placement of text components, the corpus under study contains texts that are vertically-linear, horizontally-linear, mixed (vertical-horizontal), circular, symmetrical, and asymmetrical. Clear structuring of the content in these texts is achieved through block representation of information.
According to the study, prevention is actualized by verbal actualization means, particularly by using verbs in the imperative mood, either in affirmative or negative form, which represent algorithms of correct actions or prohibitive instructions to avoid infection.
It has been discovered that pictograms play a crucial role in representing preventive measures to stop the spread of coronavirus disease. These pictograms can be categorized into two types: verbally dependent (38%) and verbally independent (62%), with the latter being more prevalent. The analysis of the studied texts has helped to identify three groups of pictograms. The research reveals that, in some cases, the same phenomenon, object, or process is represented by a series of graphically synonymous/antonymous pictograms.
It has been proven that short texts that use various multimodal means of communication, such as images and text, are multifunctional. They help readers understand the message, focus on key information, supplement the text, and provide information through their variability. The analyzed short texts are often characterized by the use of certain colors, such as blue, green, red, and yellow, as well as different fonts and sizes that serve an attractive and meaningful function. The analysis of the illustrative material has shown that they often use a combination of linguistic and non-linguistic signs, such as multimodal graphemes, multimodal lexemes, and multimodal syntactic constructions.
It has been discovered that kinetic, taciturn, and proxemic graphic markers play an active role in conveying the semantics of the preventive.
The recommended way to prevent the spread of coronavirus is by avoiding tactile contact such as touching, hugging, kissing, shaking hands, etc. This is not only transmitted through the airborne droplets but also through fleeting touch.
There are three different types of short texts that refer to proxemic constraints. The first type is multimodal texts that only include non-verbal components such as drawings of real and imaginary events or objects, and photographic evidence of certain processes, phenomena, and actions. The second type is multimodal texts that provide units of measuring safe distance. The third type is multimodal texts that combine both verbal and non-verbal components, where the non-verbal components are prevalent.
