inashorttimeassoonasTherefore,publicsignsshoulddrawpeople’Sattention
basedonthisrequirement,publicsignsmustbeconciseenoughtObepossibleand
understood.Wordypublicsignscannotexpressinformationclearlyorleaveeasily
thepublicadeepimpressionandwillnotfunctionastheyarcsupposedtO.Asforthewording,“conciseness”meansavoidingcomplicatedwordsandmulti—tensedverbs;asforthesentencestructure,theimperativesentenceisthecommonly—usedone(ho&Li,2006,mytrans).
b.Fixity
Thepatternsandexpressionwaysofpublicsignsin.Englishareusuallyfixed.Itistruethatmanytermshavedifferenttranslationversions;however,theymustfollowthosefixedandcertainonesbecausetheyageacceptedthroughcommonpractice.Forexample,“严禁调头”hasprobablyseveraltranslatingways,buttheauthenticoneis“NoUTurn’jwhichisaccordantwiththelanguagepracticeofthewesterners.c.TheUSeofpicturesandwordstogether
Publicsignsareoftenusedwithpicturesandwordstogether.Picturesgivepeopledeepimpressionandthewordsfurtherexplainthepictures.Forexample:
(http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/herewego/sign_correct_class.shtml)