A Contrastive Schematic Analysis of COVID-19 Crisis Response Strategies in American, British and Egyptian Speeches from 11-14 March 2020

Document Type : Original Article

Author

English Department, Faculty of Linguistics and Translation, Badr University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Crisis response strategies have been subject to a plethora of research in the field of business and management to examine how stakeholders perceive crisis and respond to it. Moreover, Van Dijk’s (1985) schematic analysis has been deployed to investigate the news whether printed or broadcasted. Some articles have examined Van Dijk’s news schemata framework in the context of crisis, but no article, to date, has incorporated schematic analysis with Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). The purpose of this article is to integrate Van Dijk’s schematic analysis encompassing the three levels of structure: macrostructure, superstructure and microstructure with different crisis response strategies to analyze the language of the speeches of Donald Trump, the former American President, Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister and Mostafa Mabouly, the Egyptian Prime Minister, in response to coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic during the period form 11 March 2020 to 14 March 2020. Findings reveal that there are common semantic macrostuctures and a common superstructure among the three speeches, but a different microstructure. The Egyptian Prime Minster was the speaker who took full responsibility of dealing with the crisis through using lexical structures that denote the “concern” and “internalizing information” response strategies. The lexicon of Trump is characterized by “self-enhancing communication” strategies that boast his Administration, and Johnson’s speech is unique in using the “adjusting information” strategy that unveils his psychological disturbance in dealing with the crisis. The article is an attempt to delve into the characteristics of the language of different politicians during crisis time.

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References

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