Penetration of COVID-19 Related Terminology into Legal, Medical, and Journalistic Discourses

Abstract

March 2020 has become a moment of change in communication mode and quality. Previously, the media paid attention to the current affairs, however, never earlier the journalistic discourse has been so influentially affected by the ongoing phenomenon as in the case of COVID-19. Almost overnight the new terminological phenomena with specific legal or medical reference were introduced into everyday language mainly via mass media and become an important part of a pandemic related narration. The strong influence on the shape of the mentioned linguistic changes has mainly the adoption of new legal regulations due to the unexpected outbreak of the pandemic. The aim of the following paper is to investigate how COVID-19 pandemic affected the specialisation of the journalistic discourse and how different domains (law, medicine) are being influenced by new terminology and in other way round, how for example law and medicine influence new “COVID language”. In order to take the interdisciplinary nature of the issue into account, the degree of hybridity of the selected texts will be examined by means of selected material analysis. The methodology applied in the paper uses an empirical approach and comparative analysis. The material used for the analysis comes from the selected Polish quality and boulevard press. The paper concerns the linguistic influence of the “invisible enemy” on the language presented in press. The main findings reveal the intense use of neologisms, borrowings, and it shows that the discourse was changed linguistically thanks to Student’s t-test.

COVID-19 Scientific Literacy in Medical and Nursing Students

“…In recent years, it has been increasingly noted that epidemics and pandemics are accompanied by an infodemic, which requires new skill sets applied to public health to understand and address the overwhelming amount of information, including mis- and disinformation ( 4 , 13 ), and the COVID-19 pandemic was not an exception ( 1 , 5 , 10 , 14 ). Multiple science-based disciplines require a technology-driven background to develop a broader approach, with problem-solving, critical thinking, oral and written communication, and the ability to interpret data as four core components of scientific literacy ( 15 ).…”

“…This result was influenced by a deficient answer to the question exploring concepts related to COVID-19 as a viral disease. In this context, it is worth mentioning the drastic and unprecedented change in the education system from traditional face-to-face education to digital remote learning acting as a catalyst for communication development ( 14 , 17 , 18 ) during the “quarantine time.” Consequently, the students probably were more exposed to digital content from diverse sources, which may have been used as a learning tool. In our study, we also conducted searches in PubMed, a digital media with more than 35 million citations and abstracts of biomedical literature ( 19 ) and one of the most widely accessible biomedical resources globally ( 20 ), and we found phrases that used interchangeably the disease name and the virus name.…”

“…Based on the literature search done in PubMed, the problem seems to have been present before the COVID-19 pandemic. Specialized languages should influence the lexis and syntax of the common language, leading to the “scientification of literature” of the other languages ( 14 ). The problem with lack of an appropriate pneumonia classification system ( 22 ) may also influence the knowledge deficiencies found in Q5 ( Fig.…”