Covid and Language

Language has changed under covid. In Britain, the Oxford English Dictionary in July 2020 added a special update to its customary quarterly updates of new words to document the impact of the pandemic on on the English language. (It is worth noting, however, that although the OED noted many coronavirus related linguistic shifts, it claims only one new word, Covid-19 has been created). In Germany, the language’s affinity for compound words may have generated as many as 1,200 new words (including Kuschelkontakt (cuddle contact) for the specific person you meet for cuddles and Abstandsbier (distance beer) for when you drink with friends at a safe distance). How many of these words will persist once the pandemic is over? What can they tell us about changes in society and culture? What has been the language of communication by the state? Has it created a greater familiarity and understanding of the language of science? Has it acknowledged the diversity of languages spoken in the UK? Has it embraced non-verbal languages such as signing? How has it utilised text and images in communication? What are the implications of the language used? How will isolation and mask-wearing have affected language development in children? How significant has the pandemic been in changing the language compared to other cultural and technological developments.

On March 4th 2021 the Pandemic Perspectives group debated these issues, guided by Stephen Harris’ piece in The Conversation, ‘How Covid-19 is changing the English Language‘; Abby Young-Powell in The Guardian, ‘Coronaangst? Over-zoomed? Covid inspires 1,200 new German Words‘; King’s College’s report on linguist Tony Thorne’s work, ‘#CORONASPEAK – the language of Covid-19 goes viral’ and A Scientific American article on the impact of face-masks on language development in children. As a counter-weight to the influence of covid on language, an Economist article on the way that ‘Grime and UK Drill are exporting multicultural London English‘ and Richard Godwin in The Guardian on ‘How the Internet is changing language as we know it (ikr lol)‘. In the course of the debate attention was drawn to the increase in learning a new language in the UK under Covid from Duolingo; that Welsh has been the fastest growing language in the UK from the BBC, the way Ceredigion Council has produced a mini-dictionary in Welsh to help Welsh speakers to talk and write about the pandemic in their own language. Reference was also made to Van Parijis book, ‘Linguistic Justice for Europe and the world’, that covers monolingualism and impact of the global spread of English and Peled and Bonnoti’s Journal of Politics article, ‘Sound Reasoning: Why Accent Bias Matters for Democratic Theory‘.

Liam Knight opened by wondering how many of the new words and neologisms apparently created under Covid were actually in common use, and questioned how long they would persist. David Christie felt that other than the new use of the term ‘social distancing’ and the use of zoom as a verb, he could only recall using ‘zoom-fatigue’ in conversation. Knight acknowledge that ‘Maskne’ had been an issue for him. Will Gildea noted he now often denoted a meeting as ‘face-to face’, which would have been superfluous to say pre-lockdown, and confessed a liking for the resurrection of the term ‘furlough’ which appeared to have a rural, romanticised air despite its origins in paid military leave. He also drew attention to the term ‘lockdown’ noting both its ubiquity and the strangely imprecise nature of the word, describing it as a ‘threshold’ term, where full-lockdown did not mean complete confinement, and there were tiers of considerable restrictions which were not categorised as ‘lockdowns’. Sadegh Attari noted that the German word for ‘lockdown’ was ‘Ausgangsspere’, which translates more closely as ‘not going out’ , thereby possessing none of the associations of incarceration embedded in the English equivalent. Gah-Kai Leung noted the new use of the world ‘shielding’. On the longevity of the new vocabulary of covid, Christopher Griffin pointed out that there were no obvious words in current use that had been generated by the Spanish Flu epidemic (1918-20) which infected 500 million and may have led to as many as 100 million deaths. He speculated that either the new language would be short-lived and soon forgotten, or that the extraordinary development of vocabulary was a phenomenon of an accelerated 21st century. Liam Knight noted that the term ‘Black Death’ was not used to describe the plague until the mid-18th Century and wondered whether an entirely different vocabulary world emerge at a later date. Attari (from his research) noted that the term ‘miasma’ now associated with Medieval explanations for Bubonic Plague, was only found in technical contemporary sources not common parlance. He also noted that like covid, the plague emerged within an existing discourse on disease, and its impact on language was to conflate the conception of ‘corruption’ from ‘corrupted air’ with the moral corruption or sinfulness of its victims. Griffin speculated on the impact of the pandemic on literature, noting he existence of a ‘literature of malady’ such as Virginia Woolf’s, and an associated ‘language of malady’ that might emerge from the pandemic.

Hanan Fara took the debate in another, more essential direction. She noted the complete neglect of minority languages in government communications during the pandemic. She pointed out that this appalling lapse had direct consequence in terms of public health for members of BAME communities, the very groups that were proving hardest to persuade on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines. She noted that those most at risk, the elderly, were the most likely to find instruction in English hard to follow, and that the government appeared to have made no effort to provide translated materials or include instructions in any of the diverse languages spoken in the UK in their public broadcasts. She noted that this gap had been partly filled by younger family members and informal active citizenship by local community groups. She added that many elderly people tend to access their news from sources in their own languages broadcast from ‘back home’ which may not have the same rigour in the delivery of factual information, perhaps aiding the spread of misinformation in the very groups most in need of vaccination. The lack of interest in engaging the ample source of bilingual Britons struck her as deeply symptomatic of the government’s failure to embrace or even acknowledge the diversity of the country’s citizens. Fara’s argument was revelatory (at least to Christie – who acknowledged he hadn’t thought about it all despite spending many years living in bilingual Wales) and was strongly supported by the rest of the group. Richard Kendall pointed out that it was the same issue with the neglect of sign language, adopted in Scotland, but not in Westminster.

Sticking with the question of the language of government pronouncements during the pandemic, the issue of clarity was raised by Kendall. He noted that the switch from, ‘Stay Home. Protect the NHS. Save Lives’, to ‘Stay Alert’, had been rejected by the Scottish government as so imprecise as to be meaningless, a view with which he concurred. Leung also noted the lack of clarity in the system of ‘tiers’ and the confusion that had engendered. Christie asked whether the complex language and terminology associated with biotechnology had been communicated with clarity, and wondered if scientific understanding would be enhanced post-covid as a consequence of greater familiarity with key terms and concepts. Leung noted, however, the limited use of infographics, symbols and pictures in government communications and suggested that this was another missed opportunity to ensure clarity in communication. The widespread use of the masked-face symbol and the social distancing arrows were noted, but were the only instances that the group could recall. Knight noted that clear communication of scientific concepts had occurred, and cited their presentation by the Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty. Leung noted the similar clarity of Jonathan Van-Tam.

An interesting debate about the British attitude to multilingualism emerged, with Kendall noting the increase in people learning a language via Duolingo under lockdown, and Knight noting the rise in numbers attempting to learn Welsh. Others were more sceptical that this represented any long-term change in British attitudes, and Knight noted that at GCSE level, the only subject where teachers were pressing for easier exams had been in modern languages. The benefits of bilingualism were raised by Leung, and Prijis’ work on the injustice of the adoption of English as a ‘lingua franca’ (‘free-ride’ for native speakers, advantages granted by familiarity, privileging of one language and therefore downgrading others) were discussed. Fara noted that even the limited respect given to European languages in British society and education was not afforded to ‘oriental’ languages, and this neglect was clearly linked to the country’s colonial history. A debate around the use and perception of regional accents also ensued. Leung noted their the predominance of southern British accents on the BBC, and referred to widely-held accent bias as ‘epistemological injustice’. That scientific credibility and authority were considered to derive only from certain accent groups was noted, and that this had only been reinforced under covid. Fara noted that identifiable regional accents had made it easier for the police to spot people breaking lockdown travel rules – a footnote in the story of coronavirus, but a curious one nonetheless.

There was scarcely enough time to debate the impact of masks and lockdown on children’s language development, which seemed an important topic in its own right, but for which the group had little expertise. Knight noted the problems of muffled communication behind masks, and Griffin the way in which children needed to watch the lips of speakers to achieve language acquisition. He also noted a mask he had recently seen where a transparent patch revealed the movement of the lips while keeping the face covered. He commented that he found the appearance odd, but wondered if children might have benefited from its widespread adoption.

There was so much more… to have your say contact DCC841@student.bham.ac.uk to join Pandemic Perspectives or set up your own group…