The Role of Language during the Pandemic: A Mixed-method Exploration of Discourse of Fear and Sinophobia

Among the media outlets, the newspapers were an important source of information about the COVTD-19 lockdown; however, the language chosen to see the pandemic world cascaded surreal psychological feelings. Fewer scholarly studies are available which have investigated the role of language during the p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pakistan journal of psychological research : PJPR 2024-06, Vol.39 (2), p.305-328
Main Authors: Rafi, Muhammad Shaban, Moghees, Amnah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
China
Epidemics
Fear
Health aspects
Language and languages
Methods
Pakistan
Phobias
Psychological aspects
Psychological research
Social aspects
Surveys
United Kingdom
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Summary:Among the media outlets, the newspapers were an important source of information about the COVTD-19 lockdown; however, the language chosen to see the pandemic world cascaded surreal psychological feelings. Fewer scholarly studies are available which have investigated the role of language during the pandemic. This study explores the pandemic language and its contribution to the discourse of fear and anti-Chinese sentiments. Data was collected from English newspaper articles and university students' responses to questionnaires. The discursive themes were assessed, evaluated, and described by codifying the qualitative data. These themes were further analyzed and correlated through quantitative data to seek the goodness-of-fit. Findings revealed that the language used to report the infection perpetuated fear, Sinophobia, and certain psychological eipples. The study posits that linguists must come forward and work with journalists to introduce the language to control fear and promote pluralism during the crisis. Keywords. COVTD-19 language, discourse of fear, racism, sinophobia
ISSN:1016-0604
DOI:10.33824/PJPR.2024.39.2.18