Exploring Vehicle Slogans in Al-Mukalla: An Interactional Sociological Analysis

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to investigate the sociolinguistic features of these slogans using Hymes' SPEAKING model and to highlight how they reflect some aspects of the Hadrami identity. In the academic field, the linguistic analysis of slogans has been explored. However, and to the best of my knowledge, no previous study tackles the vehicle slogans using a sociolinguistic framework. This paper is limited to about thirty chosen slogans which were noticed written on the back glasses of different kinds of vehicles in the streets of Al-Mukalla, the capital city of the coastal part of Hadhramout governorate, Yemen. These slogans were collected by the author and some colleagues during the period from 2016-2018. Within Hymes' model, the variables (S), (P), (E), and (I) were redundant, so they were excluded from the analysis. The other variables; (A)ct sequences, (K)eys, (N)orms, and (G)enres were the ones considered in the analysis. The analysed slogans show that the Hadramis are generally sarcastic considering their everyday life issues and attempt to express their opinions in an indirect way as a strategy of soothing their disappointments and managing to overcome them or al least reduce their negative influence on them.