Reshaping the Semiotic Landscape in Tunisian Cities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Social Semiotic and Sociological Perspectives

A semiotic landscape (SL) refers to all meaning-making resources in public spaces ( Adami, 2020 ). This study examines an unexplored aspect of SL by focusing on the layout of public spaces—the display and arrangement of people and things. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the layout of public spaces in Tunisia has witnessed a significant reshaping. This article argues that even though the reshaping of SL was initially motivated by health considerations, its social implications extend beyond the sanitary. This “new” SL has contributed to constructing new experiences and communication patterns that potentially reinforce social values of exclusion and distinction and are exploited to perpetuate existing power dynamics. This article explores this phenomenon from two perspectives. By means of Scollon and Scollon's Geosemiotic Model ( Scollon & Scollon, 2003 ) and van Leeuwen's Framing System ( van Leeuwen, 2005 ), this article describes the new SL while underscoring its potential to index new experiences and social relations. Using a questionnaire administered to 130 Tunisian participants and a focus group discussion annotated by the Attitude System of Martin and White's Appraisal Theory ( Martin & White, 2005 ), this study also probes social actors’ attitudes towards the new SL and their perceptions of their roles and relations within it.