Element contents
Series: Elements in Applied Linguistics
Viral Discourse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2021
Edited by
Summary
This Element consists of ten short pieces written by prominent discourse analysts in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each piece focuses on a different aspect of the pandemic, from the debate over wearing face masks to the metaphors used by politicians and journalists in different countries to talk about the virus. Each of the pieces also makes use of a different approach to analysing discourse (e.g. Critical Discourse Analysis, Genre Analysis, Corpus Assisted Discourse Analysis) and demonstrates how that approach can be applied to a small set of data. The aim of the Element is to show how the range of tools available to discourse analysts can be brought to bear on a pressing, 'real-world' problem, and how discourse analysis can contribute to formulating 'real-world' solutions to the problem.
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Series: Elements in Applied LinguisticsOnline ISBN: 9781108986465Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 11 March 2021
References
Aaro, D. (2020, May 8). Ted Cruz slams San Antonio plan declaring ‘Chinese virus’ to be hate speech: ‘This is NUTS’. Fox News. Accessed 6 May 2020, www.foxnews.com/politics/ted-cruz-slams-san-antonio-plan-declaring-chinese-virus-to-be-hate-speech-this-is-nuts.Google Scholar
Adami, E. (2020, May 19). How, where and who will we meet and hug again? And why this matters. Understanding communication in a global pandemic and the future of social interaction – Towards a collective semiotics. PanMeMic. Accessed 20 August 2020, https://panmemic.hypotheses.org/114Google Scholar
Adami, E., Al Zidjaly, N., Canale, G., et al. (2020). PanMeMic Manifesto: Making meaning in the Covid-19 pandemic and the future of social interaction. Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies no. 273. Accessed 20 August 2020, https://f-origin.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/8699/files/2020/08/WP273_Adami_et_al_on_behalf_of_the_PanMe.pdfGoogle Scholar
Antanasova, D., & Koteyko, N. (2017). Obesity frames and counter-frames in British and German online newspapers. Health, 21(6): 650–69.Google Scholar
Assimakopoulos, S. 2020. Incitement to discriminatory hatred, illocution and perlocution. Pragmatics and Society, 11(2), 177–95.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Backhaus, P. (2006). Multilingualism in Tokyo: A look into the linguistic landscape. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 52–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bausch, A. W., Faria, J. R., & Zeitzoff, T. (2013). Warnings, terrorist threats and resilience: A laboratory experiment. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 30(5), 433–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Hasan Amara, M., & Trumper-Hecht, N. (2006). Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Israel. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 7–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analyzing genre: Language use in professional settings. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bhatia, V. K. (2004). Worlds of written discourse: A genre-based view. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Blommaert, J. (2020). COVID19 and globalization. Accessed 12 May 2020, https://alternative-democracy-research.org/2020/03/06/covid19-and-globalization/Google Scholar
Blommaert, J., & Backus, A. (2013). Superdiverse repertoires and the individual. In De Saint-Georges, I. & Weber, J.-J. (eds.), Multilingualism and multimodality: Current challenges for educational studies (pp. 11–32). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonilla, T., & Grimmer, J. (2013). Elevated threat levels and decreased expectations: How democracy handles terrorist threats. Poetics, 41(6), 650–69.Google Scholar
Boroff, D. (2020, March 31). Cop pulls over doctor for speeding but gives her his coronavirus masks instead of a ticket. The Sun. Accessed 2 April 2020, www.thesun.co.uk/news/11291749/cop-pulls-over-doctor-for-speeding-but-gives-her-his-coronavirus-masks-instead-of-a-ticket/Google Scholar
Bosh, K., (2020). A marine biologist friend working from home due to coronavirus [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3273060779389601&set=gm.3173374926058875&type=3&theater&ifg=1Google Scholar
Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2006). Linguistic landscape and minority languages. International Journal of Multilingualism, 3(1), 67–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, Y. W. (2020, March 31). Mask or no mask: Is culture the reason for differing doctor’s advice? South China Morning Post. Accessed April 2 2020, www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3077558/mask-or-no-mask-cultural-assumptions-heart-coronavirus-crisisGoogle Scholar
Chiluwa, I. (2015). Radicalist discourse: a study of the stances of Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Somalia’s Al Shabaab on Twitter. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 10(2), 214–35.Google Scholar
Choi, C. (2020, March 24). Fearing new round of coronavirus, mask-wearing Hong Kong targets barefaced foreigners. Los Angeles Times. Accessed 2 April 2020, www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020–03-24/you-might-get-shamed-for-wearing-a-mask-in-california-but-in-asia-its-the-oppositeGoogle Scholar
Chun, C. (2020) Facebook comment. Accessed 11 May 2020, www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156751980630670&set=p.10156751980630670&type=3&theaterGoogle Scholar
Coronavirus: Leaders unite against PM’s ‘stay alert’ slogan. (2020, 10 May) Sky News. Accessed 11 May 2020, https://news.sky.com/story/stay-alert-the-governments-new-coronavirus-slogan-falls-flat–11985891Google Scholar
Dorfman, L., & Wallack, L. (2007). Moving nutrition upstream: the case for reframing obesity. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 39(2): 45–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dressen-Hammouda, D. (2008). From novice to disciplinary expert: Disciplinary identity and genre mastery. English for Specific Purposes, 27(2), 233–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dynel, M. (2016). ‘I has seen image macros!’ Advice animal memes as visual-verbal jokes. International Journal of Communication, 10, 660–88.Google Scholar
Facer, K., & Pahl, K. (eds.). (2017). Valuing interdisciplinary collaborative research: Beyond impact. Bristol: Bristol University Press.Google Scholar
Fearnly, C. J., & Smith, D. (2020, October 17). Government’s tiered Covid alert systems are all flawed says expert. Accessed 18 November 2020, WalesOnline website: www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/disaster-expert-says-uk-governments–19120253Google Scholar
Firth, J. R. (1957). Modes of meaning. In Papers in linguistics (pp. 1934–51). London, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
godoftitsandmemes., (2020). [Me after washing my hands for 20 seconds for 57 times a day] [digital image]. Viewed [6 October 2020]. www.instagram.com/p/B9nOQjdAxky/Google Scholar
Gogonas, N., & Maligkoudi, C. (2019). Translanguaging instances in the Greek linguistic landscape in times of crisis. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 32, 66–82.Google Scholar
Grey, A. (2020, June 1). How to improve Australia’s public health messaging about Covid-19. Language on the move. Accessed 3 June 2020, www.languageonthemove.com/how-to-improve-australias-public-health-messaging-about-covid–19/Google Scholar
Hafner, C. A. (2010). A multi-perspective genre analysis of the barrister’s opinion: Writing context, generic structure, and textualization. Written Communication, 27(4), 410–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hafner, C. A. (2013). The discursive construction of professional expertise: Appeals to authority in barrister’s opinions. English for Specific Purposes, 32(3), 131–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haynes, N. (2019). Extreme speech/writing on the walls: Discourses on Bolivian Immigrants in Chilean meme humor. International Journal of Communication, 13, 3122–3142.Google Scholar
Heymann, D. (2020, April 3). Do face masks protect against coronavirus? Here’s what scientists know so far. The Guardian. Accessed 6 April 2020, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/03/face-masks-coronavirus-scientists-evidence-covid-19-publicGoogle Scholar
Ho, W. Y. J., & Li, W. (2019). Mobilizing learning: A translanguaging view. Chinese Semiotic Studies 15 (4): 533–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkyns, S. (2020, July 17). Linguistic diversity and inclusion in the era of COVID-19 Language on the move. Accessed 20 July 2020, www.languageonthemove.com/linguistic-diversity-and-inclusion-in-the-era-of-covid–19/Google Scholar
Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Hyland, K. (2010). Constructing proximity: Relating to readers in popular and professional science. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9(2), 116–27.Google Scholar
Iedema, R. (2003). Multimodality, resemiotization: Extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice. Visual Communication 2(1), 29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
imgflip.com, (2020a). Corn teen [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. https://imgflip.com/i/3tq82tGoogle Scholar
imgflip.com, (2020b). Corona Virus [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. https://imgflip.com/i/3n4ejqGoogle Scholar
Jaworska, S., and Leuschner, T. (2018). Crossing languages – crossing discourses: a corpus-assisted discourse study of Kulturkampf in German, Polish and English. Pragmatics and Society, 9(1), 119–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jewitt, C. (2016). Multimodal analysis. In Georgakopoulou, A. & Spilioti, T. (eds.), Handbook of language and digital communication (pp.69–84). Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jones, R. H. (2013). Health and risk communication: An applied linguistic perspective. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kirby, P. (2013). The end of the rainbow?: Terrorism and the future of public warning. The RUSI Journal, 158(4), 54–60.Google Scholar
Klein, E. (2020, April 3). What social solidarity demands of us in a pandemic (Interview with Eric Klinenberg). Vox. Accessed 5 April 2020, www.vox.com/podcasts/2020/4/3/21204412/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-social-distancing-social-solidarity-the-ezra-klein-showGoogle Scholar
Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge and learning. Computer Composition, 22, 4–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kuiper, G. (2020). Ethnographic fieldwork quarantined. Social Anthropology, 28 (2), 300–301.Google Scholar
Kullenberg, C., & Kasperowski, D. (2016). What is citizen science? A scientometric meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 11: e0147152.Google Scholar
Lehrke, J. P. (2016). Terrorism alerts and target transference: Evidence and implications from the 2010 Europe-wide terrorism alert. European Security, 25(1), 3–27.Google Scholar
Leuschner, T., & Jaworska, S. (2018). Anglo-German discourse crossings and contrasts: Introduction to the special issue. Pragmatics & Society, 9 (1), 2–7.Google Scholar
Lewenstein, B. V. (2016). Editorial: Can we understand citizen science? [Special Issue on Citizen Science]. JCOM: Journal of Science Communication, 14, 1–5.Google Scholar
Li, W. (2011). Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5),1222–1235.Google Scholar
Li, W. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39 (1), 9–30.Google Scholar
Li, W., & Ho, W. Y. J. (2018). Language learning sans frontiers: A translanguaging view. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 38, 33–59.Google Scholar
Li, W. & Zhu. (2020). Making sense of handwritten signs in public spaces. Social Semiotics. Published online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2020.1810549Google Scholar
Lou, J. J. (2016). The linguistic landscape of Chinatown: A sociolinguistic ethnography. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynteris, C. (2018). Plague masks: The visual emergence of anti-epidemic personal protection equipment. Medical Anthropology, 37(6), 442–457.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
makeameme.org (2020a). [Quarantini] [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. https://makeameme.org/meme/quarantini-its-justGoogle Scholar
makeameme.org (2020b). [Quaran-teen] [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. https://makeameme.org/meme/quaran-teenGoogle Scholar
makeameme.org (2020c). [Coronials] [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. https://makeameme.org/meme/in-9-toGoogle Scholar
makeameme.org (2020d). [Covidiot] [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. https://makeameme.org/meme/covidiot-someone-whoGoogle Scholar
Malnick, E. (2020, May 9). Stay alert: Boris Johnson’s new message to the nation. The Telegraph. Accessed 11 May 2020, www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/09/stay-alert-boris-johnsons-new-message-nation/Google Scholar
Mamadouh, V. (2018). Transient linguistic landscapes of activism. In Kraus, P. A. & Grin, F. (eds.), The politics of multilingualism: Europeanisation, globalisation and linguistic governance (Studies in World Language Problems 6; pp. 111–142). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mauss, M. (1966). The gift: The form and reason for exchange in Archaic societies. London: Cohen & West.Google Scholar
McDermott, R., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2006) The psychological consequences of terrorist alerts. In Bongar, B., Brown, L.M., Beutler, L.E., Breckenridge, J.N. & Zimbardo, P.G. (eds.), Psychology of terrorism (pp. 357–70) Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Milner, R. (2016). The world made meme: Public conversations and participatory media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Miltner, K. M., (2014). ‘There’s no place for lulz on LOLCats’: The role of genre, gender, and group identity in the interpretation and enjoyment of an Internet meme. First Monday, 19(8). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v19i8.5391Google Scholar
moonshot (2020, April 29). COVID-19: Conspiracy theories, hate speech and incitements to violence on Twitter. Accessed 6 May 2020, http://moonshotcve.com/covid-19-conspiracy-theories-hate-speech-twitter/Google Scholar
Otheguy, R., García, O., & Reid, W. (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3): 281–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary (OED). (2020). Corpus analysis of the language of Covid-19. Accessed 15 November 2020, https://public.oed.com/blog/corpus-analysis-of-the-language-of-covid-19/#note1Google Scholar
Papacharissi, Z. 2015. Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parkinson, J., & Adendorff, R. (2004). The use of popular science articles in teaching scientific literacy. English for Specific Purposes, 23(4), 379–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Partington, A., Duguid, A., & Taylor, C. (2013). Patterns and meanings in discourse. Theory and practice in corpus-assisted discourse studies (cads). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Penney, J. (2019). ‘It’s so hard not to be funny in this situation’: Memes and humor in US youth online political expression. Television & New Media, 21(8), 791–806.Google Scholar
Piata, A. (2016). When metaphor becomes a joke: Metaphor journeys from political ads to internet memes. Journal of Pragmatics, 106, 39–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
plavonk., (2020). Trump Virus [digital image] [Viewed 6 October 2020]. https://imgflip.com/i/3r74q3Google Scholar
Pollock, D. (1995). Masks and the semiotics of identity. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1(3), 581–597.Google Scholar
Ravelli, L. J., & van Leeuwen, T. (2018). Modality in the digital age. Visual Communication, 17(3), 277–294.Google Scholar
Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R., 2005. Discourse and discrimination: Rhetorics of racism and antisemitism. Routledge.Google Scholar
Renwick, D. (2020, April 2). Face masks: Can they slow coronavirus spread – and should we be wearing them? The Guardian. Accessed 6 April 2020, www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/02/face-masks-coronavirus-covid-19-publicGoogle Scholar
Rowling, J. K. (2020, 9 May) Tweet. Accessed 11 May 2020, https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1259229863086612480/photo/1Google Scholar
Rymes, B. (2020). How we talk about language: Exploring citizen sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rymes, B., & Leone, A. R. (2014). Citizen sociolinguistics: A new media methodology for understanding language and social life. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 29, 25–43.Google Scholar
Schröter, M. (2018). How words behave in other languages: The use of German Nazi vocabulary in English. Pragmatics and Society, 9(1), 93–118.Google Scholar
Scollon, R. (2002). What’s the point? Can mediated discourse analysis stop the war? Accessed 18 April 2003, http://www.gutenbergdump.net/mdp/point.htm (no longer available)Google Scholar
Scollon, R., and Scollon, S. W. (2003). Discourses in place: Language in the material world. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
secretNinja (2020). [Rona] [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. http://memerscommunity.com/quarantine-meme/Google Scholar
Security Service (UK) (2020). Threat levels. Accessed on 11 May 2020, www.mi5.gov.uk/threat-levels.Google Scholar
Semino, E., Demjen, Z., & Demmen, J. E. (2018). An integrated approach to metaphor and framing in cognition, discourse and practice, with an application to metaphors for cancer. Applied Linguistics, 39(5), 625–645.Google Scholar
Shohamy, E., & Gorter, D. (eds.). (2009). Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
skywalk3r (2020). [Staying alive] [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. https://imgur.com/gallery/52ayW4fGoogle Scholar
Stilgoe, J., Lock, S. J., and Wilsdon, J. (2014). Why should we promote public engagement with science? Public Understanding of Science, 23(1), 4–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stubbs, M. (2001). Words and phrases: Corpus studies in lexical semantics. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Suls, J. (1972). A two-stage model for the appreciation of jokes and cartoons: an information processing analysis. In Goldstein, J. and McGhee, P. (eds.), The Psychology of Humor, (pp. 81–100). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Svendsen, B. A. (2018). The dynamics of citizen sociolinguistics. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 22(2), 137–160.Google Scholar
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taecharungroj, V., & Nueangjamnong, P. (2015). Humour 2.0: Styles and types of humour and virality of memes on Facebook. Journal of Creative Communications, 10(3), 288–302.Google Scholar
The Crown Prosecution Service (2017). Hate crime. Accessed 3 May 2020, www.cps.gov.uk/hate-crimeGoogle Scholar
The Editorial Board (2020, March 23). Opinion: Call it ‘coronavirus’. The New York Times. Accessed 24 March 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/opinion/china-coronavirus-racism.htmlGoogle Scholar
The Shining Memes (2020). [Isolation with family] [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. www.facebook.com/shiningmemes/photos/a.756790577864299/1332038090339542Google Scholar
Thibodeau, P., & Boroditsky, L. (2011). Metaphors we think with: The role of metaphor in reasoning. PLoS ONE 6(2): e16782.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ting, V. (2020, April 4). To mask or not to mask: WHO makes U-turn while US, Singapore abandon pandemic advice and tell citizens to start wearing masks. South China Morning Post. Accessed 6 April 2020, www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3078437/mask-or-not-mask-who-makes-u-turn-while-usGoogle Scholar
Treichler, P. A. (1999) AIDS, homophobia, and biomedical discourse: An epidemic of signification. (1999). In Treichler, P. A. (ed.), How to have theory in an epidemic (pp. 11–41). Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Tufekci, Z. (2020, March 17) Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired. The New York Times. Accessed 20 March 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.htmlGoogle Scholar
u/rastafaryn (2020). All of a sudden everybody has become Sheldon [digital image]. [Viewed 6 October 2020]. www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusMemes/comments/fi9cp9/all_of_a_sudden_everybody_has_become_sheldon/Google Scholar
United Nations (2019). United Nations strategy and plan of action on hate speech. Accessed 3 May 2020, www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/UN%20Strategy%20and%20Plan%20of%20Action%20on%20Hate%20Speech%2018%20June%20SYNOPSIS.pdfGoogle Scholar
Van Leeuwen, T., 2007. Legitimation in discourse and communication. Discourse & communication, 1(1), pp.91–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vasquez, C., Aslan, E. (2020). ‘Cats be outside, how about meow’: Multimodal humor and creativity in an internet meme. Journal of Pragmatics, 171, 101–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, N., Roulstone, A., & Thomas, C. (eds.) (2012). The Routledge handbook of disability studies. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Weale, S. (2020, March 17). Chinese students flee UK after ‘maskaphobia’ triggered racist attacks. The Guardian. Accessed 5 April 2020, www.theguardian.com/education/2020/mar/17/chinese-students-flee-uk-after-maskaphobia-triggered-racist-attacksGoogle Scholar
Whillock, R. K. 2000. Ethical considerations of civil discourse: The implications of the rise of ‘hate speech’. In Denton, R. E., Jr (ed.), Political communication ethics: An oxymoron? (pp. 75–90). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar
Wodak, R. (2015). Critical discourse analysis, Discourse‐historical approach. In Tracy, K., Sandel, T. & Ilie, C. (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction. (pp. 1–14). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Wooller, S., & Mullin, G. (2020, June 19). COVID alert drops to Level 3 paving way for 2 m rule relaxation. The Sun. Accessed 11 May 2020, www.thesun.co.uk/news/11902656/COVID-alert-level-3-uk/Google Scholar
Wu, L. (1959). Plague fighter: The autobiography of a modern Chinese physician. Cambridge: W. Heffer.Google Scholar
Yus, F. (2019). Multimodality in memes: A cyberpragmatic approach. In Bou-Franch, P. & Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, P. (eds.), Analyzing digital discourse (pp. 105–131). Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Yus, F. (2020). Incongruity-resolution humorous strategies in image macro memes. Internet Pragmatics, 1–19.Google Scholar
Zhu, H., Li, W., & Lyons, A. (2017). ‘Polish shop(ping) as translanguaging space. Social Semiotics, 27 (4), 411–434.Google Scholar
- 20
- Cited by