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 COVID-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 2024-01, Vol.39 (2), p.305-328
Main Authors: Rafi, Muhammad Shahan, Moghees, Amnah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Graduate students
Hypotheses
Information sources
Journalists
Language
Linguistics
Pandemics
Questionnaires
University students
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Summary:Among the media outlets, the newspapers were an important source of information about the COVID-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 and its implications. This study explores primarily 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 the 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 ripples. The study posits that linguists must come forward and work with journalists to introduce the language to control fear and encourage empathy and pluralism during the crisis.
ISSN:1016-0604
2663-208X
DOI:10.33824/PJPR.2024.39-2.18