VISUAL MEANING-MAKING IN SIGNAGE TRANSLATION: A MULTIMODAL ANALYSIS OF INDONESIAN–ENGLISH PUBLIC SIGNS

Abstract

Public signage constitutes a multimodal text in which images and verbal language jointly construct meaning for a linguistically diverse audience. This study investigates how visual meaning-making operates in the Indonesian-to-English translation of public signage, focusing on how pictorial elements support, reinforce, or independently convey meaning across languages. Using multimodal discourse analysis grounded in Kress and van Leeuwen's Social Semiotic framework, three bilingual public signs from restroom and building environments in Indonesia were examined, comprising instructional signs pairing pictograms with bilingual text and a directional-cautionary sign combining an evacuation icon with a belongings-security icon. The analysis focuses on the intersemiotic relationship between image and text and how this relationship is maintained or renegotiated in translation. Findings indicate that images often bear communicative weight equal to, or greater than, the verbal text, allowing translators to prioritize brevity while relying on the image to sustain comprehension. Strategies such as omission, condensation, and functional equivalence emerge as made possible by the semiotic support of images. This study contributes to translation studies by foregrounding visual meaning-making in signage translation and offers implications for translators and signage designers in bilingual public spaces.