A SEMIO-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION’S CAMPAIGN POSTERS AGAINST COVID-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed hundreds of thousands of human lives in various parts of the world. As an authoritative body, the World Health Organization (henceforth WHO) has made efforts to prevent the Covid-19 outbreak by releasing appealing messages through posters. The study aims to to explore the types of linguistic elements used in the WHO posters and to uncover the meanings of the elements to express the messages. The study employed descriptive qualitative research using a semio-pragmatic analysis framework. The data were presented in the form of linguistic elements in posters themed #HealthyAtHome, taken from the World Health Organization’s official website. The study found two linguistic elements as poster-forming elements, namely visual and verbal elements. Through icons, indexes, and symbols, visual elements reinforce the meaning of the poster’s theme so that it is easily understood by readers. Meanwhile, verbal elements are realized by the directive speech to facilitate understanding of the intended message as well as indirective speech to consider politeness in delivering the messages. The implication of this study is to increase public knowledge and awareness on the best health practices that can be performed at home during the pandemic.


INTRODUCTION
In 2020, the world was shocked by the discovery of a new virus that originated in Wuhan, China, and began to spread to surrounding countries. The spread of the Coronavirus or Covid-19 has grown rapidly and this makes WHO urge Asian countries, including Indonesia, to always be vigilant (Alodokter.com, 2020). Under the conditions, international efforts to handle and control the Covid-19 outbreak are the main focus (WHO, 2020). Therefore, WHO as the official agency of the United Nations (UN) responsible for handling world public health has given recommendations for member countries on steps that must be taken to improve public health and prevent the virus spread.
Efforts to handle the Covid-19 pandemic have been carried out in various fields of life, such as health, social, economics, psychology, and including linguistics. In this case, WHO has responsively utilized several linguistic elements in the campaign against Covid-19, such as speeches by authority officials, health articles, educational videos, and public service posters.
This study focuses on investigating the use of linguistic elements in the delivery of health advice by WHO during Covid-19 pandemic packaged in poster, named as public service advertisement (Subekti et al., 2014). It includes the use of visual and verbal elements that can attract the public interest to read and understand the appeal message more easily. A poster is one of the visual media that has the most visible strength as a medium for conveying messages by presenting facts, ideas, and ideas through words, sentences, numbers, and various symbols or images (Megawati, 2017).
Posters are visual media in the form of images on a large sheet of paper that can be hung or pasted on a wall, or other surfaces that serve to convey certain information that can influence and motivate the behavior of others who see it (Azizah & Budijastuti, 2021). Posters can take many forms, such as text posters, illustrated posters, propaganda posters, campaign posters, people search posters, cheesecake posters, movie posters, comic book posters, affirmation posters, research and activity posters, classroom posters, commercial posters, and community service posters. Based on its contents, the campaign poster against Covid-19 themed #HealthyAtHome released by WHO can be categorized as public service poster, which contains messages, information, and explanations to make the public aware of something that raises the common interest (Rukiah, 2016), including health promotion (Shintadewi & Sumartias, 2017).
The world is a collection of signs and each sign contains a meaning that accompanies it, including image and text marks in a poster. The meaning of the sign in the image can be seen from the type of sign, namely icons, indexes, and symbols (Peirce, 1991;Trifonas, 2015). This is further discussed by Mittelberg (2019) who explains that an icon is a sign that is similar to the object it represents, which has a sign that has the same characteristics as the object concerned. Meanwhile, an index is a sign that has a causal relationship with what it represents. Lastly, a symbol is a sign based on a mutually agreed convention, regulation, or agreement. In this context, public service posters released by WHO also use image signs, such as icons, indexes, and symbols in conveying the health message.
In addition to visual elements that can be studied using a semiotic approach, verbal elements in posters also contain discourse that can be studied using a pragmatic approach, especially Searle's (2005) speech act theory. Verbal data is in the form writing or text of posters. Basically, the simplest text is a text whose literal meaning can be easily understood. Searle (2005) argues that every utterance is intended to produce effects that make the speaker/ reader understand the meaning of the utterance. The speech effects are divided into five types, namely representative (stating, describing, asserting, etc.), directive (commanding, requesting, forbidding, etc.), commissive (promising, refusing, offering, etc.), expressive (thanking, congratulating). greeting, etc.), and declarative (marrying, sentencing, firing, etc.) Yule (1996) adds that judging from the relationship between the structure of speech and its communicative function, speech acts are divided into two, direct speech act (DSA) and indirect speech act (ISA). DSA is characterized by a direct relationship between the form of speech and its function. For example, declarative utterances are used to make statements, interrogative utterances to ask questions, and imperative utterances to give orders. On the other hand, if there is no direct relationship between the two, the utterance is categorized as an ISA. More specifically, DSA has two characteristics, namely the suitability of sentence types with illocutionary power and the involvement of explicit performative forms (Huang, 2005)but also to offer the curious reader interesting facts about the origins of phrases and examples of their use. This second edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms is based on the first edition, edited by Jennifer Speake. It maintains the first edition's focus on contemporary and historical phrases, sayings, and proverbs, and uses a combination of definition and (where required, which ISA types do not have.
In linguistics, the use of visual and verbal elements in WHO campaign posters against Covid-19 can be studied through a combined analytical framework between semiotics and pragmatics, the so-called semio-pragmatics.
Research on semio-pragmatic strategies in COVID-19 handling posters needs to be done because so far it has not been explored. For example, previous research looked into media coverage (Nor & Zulcafli, 2020)2020. Scientists and researchers immediately took interests to find a vaccine. While researchers in various discipline, particularly in medicine, began to study about the virus to help us understand the situation from various perspectives, there is limited research on linguistics analysis to date about Covid-19. Therefore, the present study aims to contribute to research in linguistics about Covid-19, by employing corpus-driven approach for data analysis. Online newspaper reports about Covid-19 were downloaded from the Star online from March 1st to March 31st, 2020. A total of 1018 news reports were processed and analysed, with 140 themes being identified.100 top collocates with the MI score set at a minimum of 5, using AntConc software revealed that verb and noun collocates cooccurred frequently with the node word Covid-19. Generally, thecollocates reflect fear, anxiety and uncertainty that majority of Malaysians feel. have. It also shows how the virus is taking a toll on Malaysia and Malaysians with regards to economy and social life. On the other hand, some of the collocates portrayed the government to be in total control of the situation, despite the threat to health and economic situations in the country. A study indicated that the Indonesian government attempted to present discourses to dominate public discussions and made changes to manage opposing discourses during the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of communication (Eriyanto & Ali, 2020). Olimat (2020b)the president of the greatest country in the world, has frequently received heavy criticism as a result of his language use in the period of Covid-19. Therefore, the present paper examines dysphemistic expressions used in Trump's discourse on Covid-19. A sample of dysphemistic examples adopted in Trump's daily speeches in a crucial week of 11th till 18th of March 2020 was analysed. The researcher relied on the Critical-political Discourse Analysis by Van Dijk (1997;2001 looked at Trump's Covid-19 speech for dysphemism. The data show that the US President uses more abusive language and is more prone to insults, discontent, and discrimination. Furthermore, the likelihood of a Covid-19 pandemic can be effectively decreased if the government communicates facts accurately and instructs the public to act sensibly and without fear (Kim & Kreps, 2020). During the Covid-19 pandemic, ineffective government communications can produce confusion, misunderstanding, and social consequences for citizens, prolonging the pandemic period.
Using the paradigm of Positive Discourse Analysis, Sultan & Rapi (2020) focused their research on the discursive strategies employed by Indonesian government spokespersons in daily news conferences during the Covid-19 pandemic. The spokesperson utilized nomination, prediction, argumentation, viewpoint and intensification, and mitigation tactics to transmit information to the audience. To enhance public hope and promote citizen solidarity as a moral strength to combat the pandemic, all discursive tactics are employed.
More specifically, Alkhawaldeh (2021) offered a persuasive analysis of the Jordanian government's discourse on the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings show that government officials make persuasive efforts by relying heavily on six linguistic strategies, namely metaphor, repetition, flattery, warning, personal pronoun "we", and religious quotes. They also point out that this strategy is designed to persuade rather than inform the target audience about the government's efforts and policies to combat the coronavirus.
The discussion of previous studies finally found a gap in pandemic linguistic studies that had not been explored, namely the use of visual and verbal elements in delivering health messages through WHO posters against Covid-19. Referring to the background, the study aims to explore the visual and verbal elements used to convey the WHO posters' messages themed #HealthyAtHome and uncover the meanings of the elements through semio-pragmatic analysis. This study has a key significance since it represents the communicative function of language in handling the pandemic through visual and verbal messages in posters that contain best health practices that can be performed at home during a pandemic situation.

METHOD
The research design is descriptive qualitative, which refers to qualitative research for a descriptive study, generally used in social phenomenology (Seixas et al., 2018). Qualitative descriptive studies are focused on answering research questions related to who, what, where, and how an event or experience occurs until it is studied in depth to find patterns that arise in the event (Haradhan, 2018). In the context of this study, this type of research is used to describe and analyze the meaning of the communicative messages contained in the campaign posters against Covid-19 by WHO from the use of visual and verbal elements through a semio-pragmatic analysis framework.
The data came form public service posters released by WHO related to Covid-19 which include visual data in the form of picture signs and verbal data in the form of text. Data was collected through the documentation method by downloading the e-poster document from the WHO official website (https://www.who.int). There were several poster themes available, but this study focuses on the #HealthyAtHome theme, which is supported by four posters with a different focus for each poster. This theme was chosen purposively by considering the urgency of public understanding and awareness about living a healthy life during Covid-19 pandemic, starting from the smallest social unit, namely the house where we live. This is an effective effort to prevent the spread of Covid-19 by implementing social distancing through physical activity at home (Setyawan & Lestari, 2020).
The data collection stage was followed by data analysis. In this stage, the data is analyzed through Pearce's semiotic meaning process to find the meaning relation between the sign and the object it represents, including the iconic, indexical, and symbolic meanings for visual data (Favareau, 2008). In addition, pragmatic analysis is applied to verbal data which includes 5 types of illocutionary power (Searle, 2005) and the structure and function of speech acts (Yule, 1996). With the application of the two analytical frameworks, the meaning of signs and utterances contained in the posters becomes more comprehensive and complementary to each other to facilitate understanding of the message of appeal mandated in the posters.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The main discourse that is foregrounded in this paper is a campaign against Covid-19 in the WHO posters themed #HealthyAtHome. The campaign urges an important preventive action to cut off the Covid-19 spread. This theme was then supported by 4 posters with more specific sub-themes or titles, namely (1) "Be active at home during the #COVID19 outbreak", (2) "Be active & stay healthy at home!", (3) " If you are at home during #COVID19 outbreak", and (4) "Tips to stay active at home during #COVID19 outbreak". Semiotic analysis of visual data from the signs in this poster on healthy at home using Peirce's semiotic theory. As described by Mittelberg (2019), in Pierce's semiotics, iconic signs are interpreted as signs based on similarities with objects, index signs in line with a causal relationship with the object, and symbols based on conventions. The identification of the signs and their explanation can be seen in figure 1.  Figure 1 contains a poster entitled "Be active at home during #COVID19 outbreak". The poster includes several signs that can be categorized as icons, indexes, and symbols. The combination of the three types of signs becomes information that makes it easier for the public to understand the message of the poster themed #BeActive and #HealthyAtHome, namely maintaining health by always being active at home during the Covid-19 outbreak. The semiotic process of signs in the poster is divided into three types, namely iconic, indexical, and symbolic meanings.
The iconic meaning in figure 1 is shown by an image that resembles the reference object. The icon includes people and objects, such as a woman practicing tennis online via a mobile phone guide, a woman dancing to music, a man in a red shirt playing an active video game on a TV, a woman playing jump rope, and a man is practicing stretching and balance. In addition, the iconic markings were also found in five unbroken white lines around people who were doing physical activity, similar to a sports track marking a physical activity arena around the house.
Indexical meaning is represented by the tools used as sports facilities, such as the presence of cellphones and tennis rackets that mark online sports classes, skipping ropes that mark rope jumping, and TV screens as a sign (index) of a man playing video games online. In addition, the color aspect indicated by green as the poster background color is believed Meanwhile, the symbolic meaning is represented by the logo and writings of the World Health Organization as a marker of the official UN agency that is concerned with improving the health of the world community, especially in dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak. The placement of the symbol in the lowerleft position shows the authority of the institution that launched the #BeActive and #HealthyAtHome movements as an appeal to citizens of the world to maintain their health by staying physically active at home during the pandemic.
The next symbol is the advisory text from WHO, which is visually displayed in white contrasting with the green background of the poster for easy reading. This text is the core of the WHO's appeal to the world's citizens to maintain their health during the Covid-19 outbreak by doing various physical activities at home. The systematic arrangement of the text starts from a theme containing an appeal to stay active in carrying out physical activities at home during the pandemic, such as "try exercise classes online", "dance to music", "play active video games", "try skipping rope", and "do some muscle strength & balance training". Large printed yellow numerals symbolize the details of the physical activities concerned.
Other symbols are slogans starting with the hashtags #BeActive and #HealthyAtHome which are often used nowadays to become slogans in the world of social media. Slogans are usually made with simple words that are attractive and reflect the essence of an appealing message. In this case, the appeal contains a message to maintain health by being physically active at home during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Pragmatic analysis was used to examine verbal data using the Speech Act framework from Searle (2005) and the direct speech act and indirect speech act from Yule (1996). The text "Be active at home during #COVID19 outbreak!" is a poster title in the form of an imperative with directive illocutionary power so that it is categorized as a direct speech act. The following sentences, namely "Try exercise classes online", "Dance to music", "Play active video games", "Try skipping rope", and "Do some muscle strength & balance training" are also imperative with directive illocutionary power so that they are categorized as a direct speech act.
In line with the previous theme, figure 2 contains a poster titled "Be active & stay healthy at home!". However, the substance in this poster is simpler, which only involves a woman. The iconic meaning of this poster is shown by the image of a fat woman practicing muscle stretching and balance. Iconic marks were also found in five unbroken white lines, indicating that the physical activities carried out were still around the house, by the poster's theme, namely staying healthy at home. The impression of a location in the house is created by the iconic 3 seat cushions and a mat for gymnastics which are usually in the family lounge.

Figure 2. Be active & stay healthy at home!
The indexical meaning is indicated by the position of the hands towards the back above which indicates that the woman is doing stretching movements and practicing balance. The image of a fat woman displayed in the poster is indexation of a less than ideal body posture so that physical activities such as gymnastics and stretching are needed to keep the body healthy and fit. The green color as the background color of the poster marks mental and physical relaxation, healing from depression and anxiety in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak under the important message of the #HealthyAtHome movement.
Meanwhile, symbols were found in a series of letters in the text that displayed the WHO's call to actively exercise and stay healthy at home during the pandemic. The text is composed of the following sentence constructions. "Be active & stay healthy at home!". "Doing any activity around the home is better than none at all". "Be active during #COVID19 outbreak to maintain your heart health, muscle strength, and flexibility". "It is good for your mental health too!" The visibility of the text is clear with the choice of white color that contrasts with the green background to make it easier to read and interpret the writing. The systematics of the text starts with the theme "Be active & stay healthy at home!" which is printed in capital letters as an emphasis on the meaning of the appeal to maintain health by doing physical activities at home. This is beneficial for maintaining heart health, as well as muscle strength and flexibility. Other symbols include the WHO logo, the words World Health Organization, and the slogans #BeActive and #HealthyAtHome which reinforce the contents of the appeal by the WHO authority to maintain health by actively doing physical activities at home during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Next, pragmatically, the text "Be active & stay healthy at home!" is a form of direct speech act because it is an imperative type with a directive illocutionary power, while the sentence "Doing any activity around the home is better than none at all" is an indirect speech act because it is in the form of a declarative with a directive illocutionary power. Meanwhile, the sentence "Be active during #COVID19 outbreak to maintain your heart health, muscle strength, and flexibility" is of imperative type with directive illocutionary power as a direct speech act, and "It is good for your mental health too" is a declarative type with directive illocutionary power as a form of indirect speech act. Still, on the theme of staying healthy at home by actively engaging in physical activities during the pandemic, figure 3 contains a poster titled "If you are at home during #COVID19 outbreak". However, the focus of this poster is different from the previous 2 posters, namely the ideal duration needed by someone to carry out physical activities at home. The iconic meaning of this poster is shown by the image of an adult woman in a yellow shirt with a brown scarf around her neck and a boy doing hand stretching exercises. Another icon sign is an hourglass image on the background that shows the recommended duration of physical activity while at home.
The indexical meaning is shown by an hourglass that marks the time limit for physical activity and is clarified by a speech balloon that limits the duration of physical activity to 30 minutes for adults and 1 hour for children. In addition, the movement of the child's hands up and legs bent shows stretching exercise activities. The green color on the poster background marks mental and physical relaxation, healing from depression and anxiety in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak following the important message of the #HealthyAtHome movement.
Meanwhile, symbols were found in a series of letters in the text that displayed WHO's advice on the duration of physical activity at home. The text is composed of the following sentence construction. "If you are at home during #COVID19 outbreak, WHO recommends that all healthy adults do 30 minutes / day of physical activity, and children should be physically active for 1 hour/day".
The visibility of the text is clear with the choice of white color that contrasts with a green background to make the writing easier to read. The yellow color in the text #COVID19 and 30 minutes/day and 1 hour/ day emphasizes something that must get attention, namely being aware of the Covid-19 outbreak and the duration of physical exercise is 30 minutes for adults and 1 hour for children. Separate text construction, namely "If you are at home during #COVID19 outbreak" at the top serves as a heading or main element, then continued by sentence construction at the bottom "WHO recommends that all healthy adults do 30 minutes /day of physical activity, and children should be physically active for 1 hour/ day" as an explanation in the form of a description of the recommended duration when doing physical activities at home. Other symbols include the WHO logo, the slogans #BeActive and #HealthyAtHome which reinforce the contents of the WHO's appeal to maintain health by actively doing physical activities at home during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Pragmatically, the text "If you are at home during #COVID19 outbreak, WHO recommends that all healthy adults do 30 minutes /day of physical activity, and children should be physically active for 1 hour/day" is in declarative type with directive illocutionary power so that it can be categorized as indirect speech acts. #COVID19 outbreak". Here it can be seen that the poster takes a different focus than before, which is to explicitly provide tips for staying active at home during the pandemic. The iconic meaning in figure 4 is shown by an image that resembles a reference object, in the form of a human and object icon. The icon sign is a picture of a man climbing the stairs, a woman practicing stretching, and a woman dancing to the beat of the music. Iconic markings are also found in pictures of stairs used by men to practice going up and downstairs.
The indexical meaning is represented by several images, such as the unequal positions of the hands of men and women which indicate physical movement, stairs which indicate the activity of going up and downstairs, and scales as an index of the presence of music that accompanies the dance. The green color on the poster background marks mental and physical relaxation, healing from depression and anxiety in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak under the important message of the #HealthyAtHome movement.
Meanwhile, the symbolic meaning is represented by the logo and writings of the World Health Organization (WHO) as the official UN agency that is concerned with the health sector, especially in dealing with Covid-19. The placement of the WHO logo in the lower-left position shows the authority of the institution that launched the #HealthyAtHome movement as an appeal to the world's citizens to maintain health by doing physical activities at home during the pandemic.
The next symbol is the WHO advisory text which is displayed in white, contrasting the green background of the poster for easy reading. The systematic arrangement of the text starts from the title about tips to stay active at home during the pandemic, such as "walk up and down the stairs", "do some stretching exercises", "dance to music for a few minutes", and "seek more ideas and resources online". The yellow color in the text #COVID19 and the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 emphasizes something that must get attention, namely being aware of the Covid-19 outbreak and details of 4 activities recommended at home during the pandemic.
The symbols for the slogans #BeActive and #HealthyAtHome contain simple words that are attractive and reflect the essence of the WHO's call to maintain health by actively engaging in physical activities at home during the Covid-19 outbreak. Other symbols found are scales and light bulbs. In the context of this poster, the image of the scales symbolizes the presence of music that accompanies the women's dance movements, while the image of the light bulb symbolizes the effort to find new ideas and sources of inspiration online during a pandemic.
Furthermore, pragmatically, the text "Tips to stay active at home during #COVID19" is an indirect speech act because it is of the declarative type with directive illocutionary power, while the sentence "walk up and down the stairs, do some stretching exercises, dance to music for a few minutes, and seek more ideas and resources online" is a form of direct speech act because it is an imperative type with a directive illocutionary power.
Denoting the results, this study strives to explore the use of visual and verbal elements and the meanings expressed by these elements in the WHO social service posters themed #HealthyAtHome. The research findings contained two linguistic elements found in the poster, namely visual and verbal elements. When viewed in terms of its constituent elements, it can be said that the media used by WHO with this theme has met the poster criteria, namely the presence of visual and verbal elements as a means of delivering messages (Boggu & Singh, 2015).
The WHO posters with this theme were created in the context of the campaign to break the chain of the spread of Covid-19 to prevent the increase in casualties due to this pandemic. Referring to the contents of the appeal message, posters can be categorized in the type of public service poster, which contains messages, information, and explanations whose purpose is to make the public aware of something that raises common interests (Rukiah, 2016).
Visual elements are very significant in supporting the meaning of the communicative message to be conveyed, making it easier for readers to understand it (Hasbullah, 2020). The study findings found the use of several types of signs, namely icons, indexes, and symbols that were closely related to the chosen theme, namely staying healthy at home by doing physical activity during the pandemic. Broadly speaking, icon signs are represented by images of people and objects that resemble their objects. For example, there are pictures of men, women, and children who are doing physical activities. While objects that reinforce the iconic meaning are found on devices used by humans when doing physical activities at home, such as rackets, skipping ropes, TV, mobile phones for learning sports online, stairs for up and down activities, gymnastic mattress pillows for stretching exercises, and trajectories. sports arena that marks activities around the house. Meanwhile, the hourglass image marks the duration of physical activity recommended by WHO for people to do at home during the pandemic.
The index sign expresses the causal relationship between the sign and the object it represents. Picture signs that reinforce the message of physical activity at home are physical exercise equipment, physical movements/positions of both hands and feet that mark physical activity, and also speech balloons which mean the ideal duration of physical exercise at home. The green color as the background for the poster also marks a campaign to stay healthy at home with physical activities during the pandemic. This finding has a significant meaning in line with Savavibool (2016) who posit that the green color has healing abilities, can relieve and provide mental and physical relaxation, including helping to treat depression and anxiety in dealing with the Covid-19 outbreak following the important message of the #HealthyAtHome movement.
The third sign is a symbol that its understanding has been agreed upon. This can be seen in the WHO logo, hashtags, and text messages, all of which show the message echoed by WHO as a world health authority in the form of an appeal to maintain health by actively engaging in physical activities at home during the Covid-19 outbreak. This finding corroborates Mittelberg's (2019) assertion that icons as signs based on similarities to objects, index signs having a causal relationship with objects, and symbols based on conventions. The use of these three signs indicates that the physical activity carried out is still around the house, following the WHO "Stay at Home" appeal to stay healthy at home during the pandemic (Fowler et al., 2021)but the magnitude of such orders' effectiveness remains uncertain. In the United States these orders were not coordinated at the national level during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 as part of the social distancing campaign to break the transmission of Covid -19 (Aldarhami et al., 2020) Another finding that involves pragmatic meaning is the use of direct speech act (DSA) and indirect speech act (ISA) in verbal poster messages. This is based on the relationship between form and speech function used in delivering poster messages. The DSA type is characterized by the use of the imperative form to convey the directive function, while the ISA type is formed based on the imperativedeclarative pattern. The three pragmatic elements in the text above show that this public service poster uses DSA and ISA. The use of DSA is intended to facilitate the speaker in processing the information to be conveyed because it has a smaller risk of being misunderstood compared to indirect speech (Astuti, 2019). The use of ISA is very common in posters because it considers the level of politeness as part of persuasion (Li, 2016). In addition, cultural considerations in the form of rights and obligations of speakers and addressees affect the continuity of speech (Ad-Darraji et al., 2012;Azhar & Suratminto, 2021) . It can be concluded that WHO as the authority in the field of world health has the right to urge the public to maintain health by doing physical activity in the house area indicated by the use of direct speech.

CONCLUSION
One of the WHO's efforts to break the chain the Covid-19 outbreak is using linguistic elements both visually and verbally through posters themed #HealthyAtHome. The appeal messages in the posters can be easily understood by the readers due to the use of visual elements in the form of icons, indexes, and symbols that connect the sign with the object they represent. In addition, the posters' messages are more meaningful since they are complemented by the verbal elements of directive and indirective speech acts. The present study contributes to linguistic studies of the Covid-19 pandemic since it focuses on the use of visual and verbal elements and the meanings behind the elements in health care posters. Through this study, the readers can understand and be aware of the best health practices that they can perform at home during the pandemic following the guidelines of the WHO posters. This research still has a limitation in terms of choosing one theme to be discussed, namely #HeathyAtHome. Therefore, the findings of the study cannot be generalized to a larger population of the WHO campaign poster themes against Covid-19. By considering the theme of health appeals in the pandemic era by WHO, it is recommended that the next researchers focus on the persuasive strategies utilized in WHO campaign posters against Covid-19 so that the more explicit and communicative messages can be grasped.