Online Covid 19 Discourse vs. The Hardcopy: A syntactic anaylsis

Abstract

The onset of COVID-19 has opened new avenues of communication via the internet. The distance enforced by the virus forced people to rely more on the use of electronic and written messages, especially via the internet. This change can have ripple effects because the structure and content of messages exchanged have varied significantly. Thus, we need to understand the mode of this change and its possible implications on society especially those that have become prevalent concerning the COVID-19 virus. For this purpose, a qualitative descriptive approach was adopted where certain phrases, sentences, and otherwise are extracted from the internet and analyzed for content. Analysis of these data was done as collocation and co-occurrence. The results show that there are three patterns observed: declarative, inevitability, and questioning. It is beneficial to depend on facts instead of projections. The presentation of information should be concise and clear. It is wise to keep updating the understanding of the patterns of speech as the crisis is ongoing and affecting many.