ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses toilet signs, more precisely, signs placed on toilet doors in public spaces. The toilet signs must be understood within the context where they are situated and contribute to the construction of social meaning. Signs, in the vernacular sense of the word, are all around us in our everyday life: on shops, street corners and traffic signs. Seen in passing, they are meant to be read quickly and efficiently, and to be designed in a way that will immediately be understood by passers-by with different backgrounds and competencies. A basic understanding in social semiotics is that semiotic resources for making meaning are closely connected to the social context, and the influence goes both ways: semiotic systems both shape and are shaped by social systems. The area of feelings, emotions, evaluation and stances towards things is expressed through what in social semiotics is called modality.
