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Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective

This paper examines the discourse of COVID-19 (also known as coronavirus) in social media posts and argues that the mediated COVID-19 discourse in Saudi Arabia enacted a variety of voices and thematic discourses that cannot be fully evaluated without reference to the locality of the sociolingu...

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Main Authors: Al-Ghamdi, Naimah Ahmad, Albawardi, Areej Hammad
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2020
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16824/1/40904-143263-2-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16824/
https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1356
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spelling my-ukm.journal.168242021-06-16T03:18:12Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16824/ Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective Al-Ghamdi, Naimah Ahmad Albawardi, Areej Hammad This paper examines the discourse of COVID-19 (also known as coronavirus) in social media posts and argues that the mediated COVID-19 discourse in Saudi Arabia enacted a variety of voices and thematic discourses that cannot be fully evaluated without reference to the locality of the sociolinguistic semiotics of the speech community. It attempts to construct the various non-verbal multivocalities in written and visual COVID-19 discourse present in 24 texts obtained from Saudi social media platforms, namely WhatsApp and Twitter, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the months of February, March and April, 2020. WhatsApp and Twitter are chosen because they are considered the platforms most used by Saudis in Saudi Arabia (GlobalWebIndex, 2020a, 2020b). The study employs a socio-semiotic approach to the analysis of collected data following Kress & Van Leeuwen (1996), mediated discourse analysis (Norris & Jones, 2005; Scollon, 2001) and systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA). The analysis aims at integrating the social semiotics and multimodal approaches to better understand the dynamic Saudi discourse on COVID-19. The discourse on COVID-19 has revealed the dynamic multi-layered nature of governmental, individual and public voices pertaining to COVID-19 multi-discoursal themes, novel multimodal resources and the specific cultural semiotics of Saudi Arabia. The findings of the study revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic mediated discourse is relevant to the local speech community diglossic situation, cultural semiotics, social norms and integrated national identity. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2020-11 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16824/1/40904-143263-2-PB.pdf Al-Ghamdi, Naimah Ahmad and Albawardi, Areej Hammad (2020) Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective. GEMA ; Online Journal of Language Studies, 20 (4). pp. 228-250. ISSN 1675-8021 https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1356
institution Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
building Tun Sri Lanang Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
content_source UKM Journal Article Repository
url_provider http://journalarticle.ukm.my/
language English
description This paper examines the discourse of COVID-19 (also known as coronavirus) in social media posts and argues that the mediated COVID-19 discourse in Saudi Arabia enacted a variety of voices and thematic discourses that cannot be fully evaluated without reference to the locality of the sociolinguistic semiotics of the speech community. It attempts to construct the various non-verbal multivocalities in written and visual COVID-19 discourse present in 24 texts obtained from Saudi social media platforms, namely WhatsApp and Twitter, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the months of February, March and April, 2020. WhatsApp and Twitter are chosen because they are considered the platforms most used by Saudis in Saudi Arabia (GlobalWebIndex, 2020a, 2020b). The study employs a socio-semiotic approach to the analysis of collected data following Kress & Van Leeuwen (1996), mediated discourse analysis (Norris & Jones, 2005; Scollon, 2001) and systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA). The analysis aims at integrating the social semiotics and multimodal approaches to better understand the dynamic Saudi discourse on COVID-19. The discourse on COVID-19 has revealed the dynamic multi-layered nature of governmental, individual and public voices pertaining to COVID-19 multi-discoursal themes, novel multimodal resources and the specific cultural semiotics of Saudi Arabia. The findings of the study revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic mediated discourse is relevant to the local speech community diglossic situation, cultural semiotics, social norms and integrated national identity.
format Article
author Al-Ghamdi, Naimah Ahmad
Albawardi, Areej Hammad
spellingShingle Al-Ghamdi, Naimah Ahmad
Albawardi, Areej Hammad
Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective
author_facet Al-Ghamdi, Naimah Ahmad
Albawardi, Areej Hammad
author_sort Al-Ghamdi, Naimah Ahmad
title Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective
title_short Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective
title_full Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective
title_fullStr Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective
title_full_unstemmed Multivocality of Saudi COVID-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective
title_sort multivocality of saudi covid-19 discourse in social media posts: a socio-semiotic multimodal perspective
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate 2020
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16824/1/40904-143263-2-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/16824/
https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1356
_version_ 1703961595115208704
score 13.211869

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