Fix typography in axis labels

Perhaps draw the axis and labels manually, rather than accepting the defaults?

plot(-20:-1, rnorm(20) + 1 : 20, xaxt="n")
Axis(-20:-1, at=seq(-20,-5,5), side=1,
  labels=paste("\U2212",seq(20,5,-5),sep=""))

Here is how to do it with ggplot. The pdf device doesn't render the unicode symbols, so use cairo_pdf instead.

unicode_minus <- function(x) sub('^-', '\U2212', format(x))

# change the default scales
scale_x_continuous <- function(..., labels=unicode_minus)
                        ggplot2::scale_x_continuous(..., labels=labels)
scale_y_continuous <- function(..., labels=unicode_minus)
                        ggplot2::scale_y_continuous(..., labels=labels)

qplot(-20:-1, rnorm(20) + 1:20)

The new package signs doing exactly what the OP asks for. Here is an example from the website:

library(dplyr)
library(ggplot2)
library(ggrepel)

theme_set(theme_gray())
theme_update(panel.grid.minor = element_blank())

p <- 
  ggplot(sleep) +
  aes(group, extra) +
  geom_point() +
  xlab("Drug") +
  ylab("Extra Sleep (hours)")

label_hours <- function(mapping) {
  geom_text_repel(
    mapping,
    nudge_x       = -.1,
    direction     = "y",
    segment.size  = .4,
    segment.color = "grey75",
    hjust         = "right"
  )
}

p +
  label_hours(
    mapping = aes(
      label = case_when(
        group == 1 ~ signs(extra, accuracy = .1), # Unicode minuses
        group == 2 ~ number(extra, accuracy = .1) # ASCII minuses
      )
    )
  ) +
  scale_y_continuous(
    limits = c(-4, 6),
    breaks = seq(-4, 6),
    labels = signs_format(accuracy = .1) # Unicode, analogous to number_format() 
  )

Another way which is almost the same as the one provided by Joshua Ulrich, except that you can let R compute the axis ticks :

plot(-20:-1, rnorm(20) + 1 : 20, xaxt="n")
at <- axTicks(1, usr=par("usr")[1:2])
labs <- gsub("-", "\U2212", print.default(at))
axis(1, at=at, labels=labs)