Introduction published In:
Chronotopes and the COVID-19 PandemicEdited by Anna De Fina and Sabina M. Perrino
[Language, Culture and Society 4:2] 2022
► pp. 98–109
Edited by Anna De Fina and Sabina M. Perrino
[Language, Culture and Society 4:2] 2022
► pp. 98–109
Introduction
Chronotopes and the COVID-19 pandemic
In this introduction we discuss the centrality of the management and perception of space-time coordinates during the Covid-19 crisis and highlight some of the main themes that contributors develop in their articles. In particular, we analyze how contributors’ elaborations of the notion of chronotope involve a discussion of fundamental issues such as the conceptualization of context, the relationships of chronotopes with ideologies, the configuration and interpretation of meanings at different levels, and their social circulation.
In the second part of the introduction we discuss in what ways, by taking up a chronotopic lens, the contributors provide new insights into some of the social processes of meaning making and changes in social relations that have been emerging during the pandemic.
Article outline
- Chronotope and the rethinking of context
- Chronotopes and ideologies
- Chronotopes, scales, and stance
- Chronotopes and processes of meaning making and circulation
- Concluding remarks
-
References cited
This article is available free of charge.
References
Agha, A.
(2007a) Recombinant selves in mass mediated spacetime. Language and Communication, 27(3), 320–335. 
(2007b) Language and social relations. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Adami, E., & Djonov, E.
(2022) Everyday acts of social-semiotic inquiry. In S. Tan & M. K. L. E. (Eds.), Discourses, Modes, Media and Meaning in an Era of Pandemic: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Approach (pp. 245–268). New York, NY: Routledge.
Bakhtin, M. M.
(1981) The dialogic imagination: four essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Blanton, R.
(2011) Chronotopic landscapes of environmental racism. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology,
21
(SUPPL. 1), 76–93.
Blommaert, J.
(2015) Chronotopes, Scales, and Complexity in the Study of Language in Society. Annual Review of Anthropology,
44
(1), 105–116.
Blommaert, J., & De Fina, A.
(2017) Chronotopic Identities: On the Timespace Organization of Who We Are. In A. De Fina, J. Wegner, & D. Ikizoglu (Eds.), Diversity and Super-diversity. Sociocultural Linguistic Perspectives (pp. 1–15). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Blommaert, J.
(with Smits and Yacoubi) (2020) Contexts and its complications. In A. De Fina & A. Georgakopoulou (Eds.), Handbook of Discourse Studies (pp.32–51). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bringel, B. & Players, G.
(2022) Introduction: A global dialogue on the Pandemic. In. B. Bringel & G. Players (eds.) Social Movements and Politics during COVID-19: Crisis, Solidarity and Change in a Global Pandemic (pp. 1–14). Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Carr, E. S., & Lempert, M.
(2016) Introduction: Pragmatics of Scale. In E. S. Carr & M. Lempert (Eds.), Scale: Discourse and Dimensions of Social Life (pp. 1–24). Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
De Fina, A.
Forthcoming). The Chronotope. In F. Brisard, P. Gras, S. D’hondt & M. Vandenbroucke eds. Handbook of Pragmatics Amsterdam John Benjamins
De Fina, A., & Perrino, S.
(2020) Introduction: Chronotopes and chronotopic relations. Language and Communication,
31
(1), 67–70.
Divita, D.
(2014) From Paris to and Back: (Re-)Emigration and the Modernist Chronotope in Cultural Performance. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology,
24
(1), 1–18.
Fassin, D. & Fourcade, M.
(Eds.) (2021) Pandemic Exposures. Economy and Society in The time of the Coronavirus. Chicago: Hau Books.
Jones, R. H.
(2021) Viral discourse. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Gal, S.
(2016) Scale-making: Comparison and Perspective as Ideological Projects. In E. S. Carr & M. Lempert (Eds.), Scale: Discourse and Dimensions of Social Life (pp. 90–111). Oakland: University of California Press.
Irvine, J. T.
(2016) Going Upscale: Scales and Scale-Climbing as Ideological Projects. In E. S. Carr & M. Lempert (Eds.), Scale: Discourse and Dimensions of Social Life (pp. 213–231). Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Katila, J., Gan, Y., & Goodwin, M. H.
(2020) Interaction rituals and ‘social distancing’: New haptic trajectories and touching from a distance in the time of COVID-19. Discourse Studies,
22
(4), 418–440.
Karimzad, F., & Catedral, L.
(2017) “ ‘No, we don’t mix languages’: Ideological power and the chronotopic organization of ethnolinguistic identities”. Language in Society,
47
(1), 89–113.
(2018) Mobile (Dis)connection: New Technology and Rechronotopized Images of the Homeland. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology,
28
(3), 293–312.
Koven, M.
(2013) Antiracist, modern selves and racist, unmodern others: Chronotopes of modernity in Luso-descendants’ race talk. Language and Communication,
33
(4), 544–558.
Manderson, L., Burke, N. J., & Wahlberg, A.
(Eds.) (2021) Viral Loads: Anthropologies of urgency in the time of COVID-19. London, UK: UCL Press.
Perrino, S., & Kohler, G.
(2020) Chronotopic Identities: Narrating Made in Italy across Spatiotemporal Scales. Language & Communication,
70
1, 94–106.
Tan, S., & K. L. E., M.
(Eds.) (2022) Discourses, Modes, Media and Meaning in an Era of Pandemic: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Approach. New York, NY: Routledge.
Weatherall, A., Tennent, E., & Grattan, F.
(2022) ‘Sorry everything’s in bags’: The accountability of selling bread at a market during the COVID-19 pandemic. Discourse & Society, 33(1), 89–106.
Wirtz, K.
(2016) The living, the dead, and the immanent: Dialogue across chronotopes. HAU, 6(1), 343–369.
Woolard, K.
(2012) Is the personal political? Chronotopes and changing stances toward Catalan language and identity. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism,
16
1, 210–224.