Examining Malaysian Public Letters to Editor on COVID-19 Pandemic: A Corpus-assisted Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Around the world, people are now facing an unprecedented situation with the COVID-19 virus pandemic. With numerous countries announcing various modes of self-quarantine and social distancing, the Malaysian government has initially called for a 3-week Movement Control Order (MCO) beginning mid-March 2020. In this paper, we explore how citizens in Malaysia respond to such crises by examining letters that were submitted during the MCO period to The Star Onlinethe nation's leading English online news portal. Using corpus linguistics techniques, 227 letters were firstly investigated for recurrent words/phrases used on how people talk about issues during this time. A critical discourse analysis on these recurring patterns of language was then employed to further examine their occurrences in this corpus, following Carvalho's (2008) analysis of media discourse. This, we contend as being the synergy between corpus methods and classic CDA that contribute to the corpus-assisted discourse analysis (CADS) approach. Results yield Malaysians' view on the matter that could describe in so far as how the country is coping with the pandemic at the time. More specifically, letters that have mostly referred to COVID-19 pandemic as being a challenge and associating it with negative expressions are in fact emotionally charged, revealing how public letters written by citizen journalists provide a much more comprehensive view of public stance on COVID-19 in Malaysia.

Positive Discourse Analysis of the Indonesian Government Spokesperson's Discursive Strategies during the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…The research finding highlights the existence of a specific form of communication for citizens who are affected by the pandemic situation. The Covid-19 study using the discourse approach carried out by Joharry and Turiman (2020) shows the views of Malaysians in their letters to editors, mostly calling the pandemic a challenge. The existence of psychological distress among the citizens concerning this outbreak based on these studies calls for further research about how the government communicate or deliver information about the pandemic to the public.…”

Investigating the possible mechanisms of pirfenidone to be targeted as a promising anti-inflammatory, anti-fibrotic, anti-oxidant, anti-apoptotic, anti-tumor, and/or anti-SARS-CoV-2

“…In patients with COVID-19, cytokine storms, multiorgan failure, and especially acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are the major causes of mortality and morbidity [136] , [137] , [138] . The majority of COVID-19 sufferers die from a fulminant ARDS [139] , [140] , [141] . So far, >30 million individuals have been infected, with about a million dead [142] .…”

Maklumat COVID-19 Dan Persepsi Pengguna

“…Ini bererti maklumat daripada pelbagai sumber seperti Twitter, Facebook dan Youtube yang kerapkali berbeza boleh mengarah kepada ketidakpastian dan maklumat yang salah mengenai Covid-19 (Brennen et al 2020). Selain itu, maklumat berkaitan Covid-19 yang telah dianalisis perlulah diterjemahkan dalam bentuk dan bahasa yang mudah difahami agar keberkesanan penyampaian maklumat tersebut kepada orang ramai tercapai (Joharry et al 2020). Hal ini penting kerana penyelidik dari pelbagai bidang akan menyumbang ilmu dan dapatan kajian mereka berkaitan situasi pandemik yang berlaku dari pelbagai perspektif untuk kefahaman orang ramai (Fariza et al 2020).…”