The pragmalinguistic characteristics of injunctive texts in COVID-19 pandemic discourse

The aim of this article is to analyse injunctive/procedural text by describing its linguistic and pragmatic characteristics. Given the specific social context of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a notable increase in the production and dissemination of informative and descriptive texts with the practical outcome of prompting action. Texts such as posters, notices, and user guides/instructions represent relevant models with specific features. These include the requirement and obligation for both the speaker and the recipient to acknowledge the issuing governmental authority. The objective nature of medical terminology imposes informational precision. Additionally, the use of imperative and infinitive verbs can be considered as successive directive acts. The segmentation of the text into distinct paragraphs, the inclusion of images and photographs, and the use of schemes are important elements for identifying these types of texts. The degree of intensity of the injunctive depends on the type of texts, being more important for posters and notices and less significant for user guides/instructions or other prescriptive texts.