“Guided by the science”: a keyword analysis of government ministers’ and scientists’ stance in the UK government’s COVID-19 press briefings
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Ying Wang
Ying Wang received her PhD in English linguistics from Uppsala University, Sweden, and is currently Associate Professor at Karlstad University, Sweden. Her research interests include Corpus Linguistics and English for Academic Purposes. Her most recent book-length publication is
The Idiom Principle and L1 Influence: A Contrastive Learner-corpus Study of Delexical Verb + Noun Collocations , volume 77 (2016) in the John Benjamins Studies in Corpus Linguistics series.
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK government used TV press briefings, involving government ministers as well as scientific and medical experts to update the public on the spread of the virus, advances in understanding the disease, and preventive measures. These briefings provide a valuable linguistic resource to study how science is disseminated and used by scientists and politicians in emergency risk communication. To this end, a corpus has been compiled, consisting of transcripts of 150 briefings of approximately 100 h, with a total of 996,040 words. This study uses text dispersion keyness to derive keywords that characterize the discourse of scientists and politicians, respectively. Focusing on stance markers, the study reveals different rhetorical strategies for persuasion used by the two parties in public health emergency communication. Specifically, the scientists employ cautious reasoning and restrained confidence, while the ministers use a war-on-coronavirus narrative with unrestrained confidence, in the framing of the disease and scientific development.
About the author
Ying Wang received her PhD in English linguistics from Uppsala University, Sweden, and is currently Associate Professor at Karlstad University, Sweden. Her research interests include Corpus Linguistics and English for Academic Purposes. Her most recent book-length publication is The Idiom Principle and L1 Influence: A Contrastive Learner-corpus Study of Delexical Verb + Noun Collocations, volume 77 (2016) in the John Benjamins Studies in Corpus Linguistics series.
Appendix 1: Keywords of stance in the minister sub-corpus (in descending order of keyness)
| Boosters | Hedges | Emotion | Evaluation | Ability/willingness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| must throughout huge especially constantly stress confirm thousands extra ever whole |
possible | hope resolve grateful sorry doubt glad pleased alert believe proud love afraid urge delighted confidence respect hesitate |
vital tough progress best fight crisis lost challenge freedom forward sacrifice collective ahead amazing incredible brilliant crucial challenges great ready faster leading fantastic better sacrifices enemy |
save protect plan support defeat goal beat help working ensure action proceed saving campaign saved objective efforts protecting powers commitment power tackle able supporting priority mission |
Appendix 2: Keywords of stance in the scientist sub-corpus (in descending order of keyness)
| Boosters | Hedges | Emotion | Evaluation | Ability/willingness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| definitely quite indication reiterate actual most definite showing completely actually indicates certainly indications highlight absolutely |
probably signal likely expect relative looks anticipate predict potentially slightly unlikely interpret probability relatively roughly slight usually expectation suggest imply interpreting predominantly signals could typical suspect estimated normally |
sadly unfortunate keen fortunately surprising confident |
good steady severe slowly ideally dramatic importantly professional jump milder prolonged remarkable severity vulnerable marked nice worse caveat disappear rarely steep improve stable extraordinary steadily fast optimal problematic reliably risky sensibly stablize sufficiently mild widely |
manage managing |
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- How do AI and human users interact? Positioning of AI and human users in customer service
- Turning talk into text: the representation of contemporary urban vernaculars in Swedish fiction
- Children’s invoking of school rules in directive sequences with adults at home and school: mobilizing the teacher and school artefacts as authoritative sources
- “The results might not fully represent…”: Negation in the limitations sections of doctoral theses by Chinese and American students
- “We usually use paragraph one to introduce the topic”: trust building via appraisals by practicum EFL teachers in classroom interactions
- “Guided by the science”: a keyword analysis of government ministers’ and scientists’ stance in the UK government’s COVID-19 press briefings
