‘So many “virologists” in this thread!’

Marta Andersson

doi:10.1075/prag.21014.and

Abstract

AbstractThis paper embarks on a functional analysis of impolite language use in discussions about the response to the pandemic of Covid-19 on the official Facebook page of the Swedish national public television broadcaster in the spring of 2020. Having combined the existing models of impoliteness (Culpeper 2016) with the Appraisal theory (Martin and White 2005) in a both quantitative and qualitative investigation, the study finds remarkable differences between supporters and opponents of the Swedish tactic in terms of enactment of value orientations categorized as different attitudes within the Appraisal framework. More specifically, opponents tend to voice more subjective and affectual sentiments, whereas supporters generally derive their attitude from the Swedish institutional norms and cultural standards, resulting in more judgement. As the study concludes, these findings are related to the inherent dichotomy of the Swedish welfare state paradigm, which integrates the concepts of both state and individual citizen liability.

Highlights

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the outbreak of a global pandemic of a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), labeled as Covid-19
[2] Marta Andersson official statement that “there is no one-size-fits-all approach to managing cases and outbreaks of Covid-19”,1 in the spring of 2020, the Swedish government decided on a laissez-faire tactic based on public self-restraint and individual responsibility rather than formal lockdowns and legal sanctions
The marked presence of Judgement in the corpus, which is consistent with the studies that show that group affiliation and cohesiveness in ideological discussions online are frequently achieved through impoliteness targeting the out-group members’ positive face

Summary

Introduction

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the outbreak of a global pandemic of a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), labeled as Covid-19. While such a non-interventionist approach has a long tradition in Sweden and is certainly consistent with the valued concept of individual liability and self-regulation as intrinsic to social solidarity and trust (Nygren and Olofsson 2020), the strategy drew significant international attention, criticism, and even explicit condemnation (in May 2020, Standard Ethics lowered Sweden’s ethics rating for not having complied with WHO’s recommendations on Covid-19). All of them encode emotion; Affect pertains to the feelings of the individual speaker, whereas Judgment and Appreciation are said to express ‘institutional feelings’ in terms of shared community values (White 2011) For instance: Functional analysis of online impoliteness in Sweden [7]

Methods

Results

Conclusion