Apocalyptic representation of COVID-19: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the World Health Organization's discourse practices

Abstract

This study examines the interdiscursive representation of the coronavirus disease by the World Health Organization from the outbreak of the virus in January 2020 to the announcement of a successful vaccine in November 2020. The aim is to find out whether the agency has delivered apocalyptic language that increased anxiety and stress among the public leading to a weak human immune system, or contributed to creating global cooperation and placing emergency measures to fight the virus. I have adopted a discourse analysis approach, with the aid of NVivo qualitative software and corpus linguistic tools, for the analysis of a purpose-built corpus of the WHO Director-General’s speeches, focusing on referential, predication, perspectivation, intensifying, mitigation and argumentation strategies. The result of the analysis revealed that the WHO discourse referred to COVID-19 as an eccentric virus, qualified and intensified by the agency as a threat to humanity. The WHO adopted a subjective point of view, showing active involvement in the discursive representation of the virus and argumentatively asking people to unite until a vaccine is invented.