ArticleFrontiers in artificial intelligence2022
"Snake flu," "killer bug," and "Chinese virus": A corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of lexical choices in early UK press coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in Frontiers in artificial intelligence, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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4 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Unveiling the narrative: Italian media's role in shaping public health messaging during COVID-19 - A corpus-assisted discourse analysis.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Does the name of a disease matter? Chinese people's public perception of the renaming of COVID-19.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Commentary: How to have agency in a pandemic.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2023Article
- Introducing the keyconcept approach to the analysis of language: the case of regulation in COVID-19 diaries.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2023Article
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Abstract
Now mostly known as "COVID-19" (or simply "Covid"), early discourse around the pandemic was characterized by a particularly large variation in naming choices (ranging from "new coronavirus" and "new respiratory disease" to "killer bug" and the racist term "Chinese virus"). The current study is situated within corpus-assisted discourse studies and analyses these naming choices in UK newspaper coverage (January-March 2020), focusing on terminology deemed "inappropriate" as per WHO guidelines on naming infectious diseases. The results show that 9% of all terms referring to COVID-19 or the virus causing it are "inappropriate" overall, with "inappropriate" naming being more prevalent (1) in tabloids than broadsheets and (2) in the period before compared to the period after the virus was officially named on 11th February, 2020. Selected examples within each of the categories of "inappropriate" names are explored in more detail [terms (1) inciting undue fear, (2) containing geographic locations, and (3) containing species of animals], and the findings are discussed with regard to the contribution of lexical choices to the reproduction of (racist and otherwise problematic) ideologies in mainstream media.
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