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Article published In: The Linguistic Landscape of Covid-19:
Edited by Jackie Jia Lou, David Malinowski and Amiena Peck
[Linguistic Landscape 8:2/3] 2022
► pp. 168–183

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Covid-19 and public responsibility

A multimodal critical discourse analysis of blaming the public during the UK’s third wave

ORCiD logo with link | Queen Mary University of London
Published online: 1 September 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.21034.str
Abstract
This paper offers an analysis of a British government publicity campaign during the third national lockdown, which began in England in January 2021. When it came to enforcing lockdown rules, the government’s messaging in the Linguistic Landscape (LL) and elsewhere focused on individualising responsibility for the pandemic. This framing favoured the political interests of the government by apportioning blame for the highest death toll in Europe to the British public’s reckless behaviour, which conveniently elides the government’s own role in the crisis. Drawing on data from social media and the LL, I analyse the publicity campaign according to a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis approach, taking into account the multiple semiotic systems employed to communicate the campaign’s underlying neoliberal ideology.
Résumé
Cet article offre une analyse d’une campagne d’information du gouvernement britannique pendant le troisième période de confinement nationale, qui a commencé en janvier 2021. En ce qui concerne l’application du règlement de confinement, la rhétorique du gouvernement au paysage linguistique et ailleurs se concentrait sur la responsabilité individuelle de la pandémie. Cette manière de présenter la pandémie favorisait les intérêts politiques du gouvernement en attribuant la responsabilité du bilan des morts le plus haut en Europe au comportement imprudent du public Britannique, ce qui omet le rôle du gouvernement dans la crise. En utilisant des données des réseaux sociaux et du paysage linguistique, j’analyse la campagne d’information selon la perspective de l’analyse critique et multimodale du discours, tenant en compte les multiples systèmes sémiotiques employés afin de communiquer l’idéologie néolibérale sous-jacente de la campagne.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data
  • 3.Theoretical approach
  • 4.Analysis
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
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