Lee, Hye-Kyung. (2023). “The Speech Act of Explanation in Closure Signs”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea, 31(4), 1-32. This study investigates the speech act of explanation within a corpus of approximately 243 closure signs posted during the Covid-19 pandemic in Korea. Using a classification system derived from Bella and Ogiermann (2022), the explanations are categorized into four distinct groups. Category 1 explanations are further divided into three subcategories: signs revealing the relationships between government decisions and closures, those with expressions of support for official mandates, and those presenting dissent with closure directives. A comparative analysis between the third sub-category and pandemic-related activities (i.e., My Body My Choice Activities) is also conducted, highlighting similarities and differences. Category 2 centers on safety concerns, emphasizing public health and safety as the primary justification for closures. Notably, this category showcases an elevated sense of agency among sign authors. Explanations in Category 3 combine Categories 1 and 2. Category 4 explanations, which attribute closure to Covid-19, necessitate an investigation of terms referring to Covid-19. It is observed that the naming closely adheres to normative and public guidelines, reflecting a collective awareness of the crisis and a commitment to cooperation. The findings contribute valuable insights into the linguistic and cultural characteristics of explanations within Korean business closure signs, indicating phenomena specific to Korean communities.

1. INTRODUCTION
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
    2.1. Covid-19 Closure Signs
    2.2. The Speech Act of Explanation/Account
3. DATA COLLECTION AND METHOD
4. RESULTS
    4.1. Category 1: Official Measures
    4.2. Category 2: Safety Concerns
    4.3. Referential Terms for Covid-19 in Category 4
5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
REFERENCES

• Hye-Kyung Lee(Professor, Dept. of English, Ajou University; 206 Worldcup-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi 16499, Korea)