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Part of
The Cultural Pragmatics of Danger: Cross-linguistic perspectives
Edited by Carsten Levisen and Zhengdao Ye
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 346] 2024
► pp. 135–157

Chapter 7
Language learning in times of danger

Narratives of confinamiento/confinement in Spanish – English bilingual online conversations during lockdown

ORCID logo | University of Aarhus
| Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

In this paper, we contribute to the study of intercultural pragmatics and, more specifically, the “pragmatics of danger” by exploring how adult participants in an online exchange program with focus on Spanish and English learning talk about the corona virus and the impact the pandemic has in their lives. We focus on the Covid-19 related topics that emerge in their exchanges and we search for keywords and eventual new words and concepts that shed light on people’s situation at the time. Our material, consisting of video recordings of participant conversations, is from the month of April 2020, a month into the global lockdown. It therefore provides us with a valuable snapshot of a time characterized by insecurity on how things would evolve and on to what degree the pandemic would disrupt life as we knew it.

Keywords: cultural pragmatics, language learning, Spanish, English, online virtual exchange, lockdown, natural semantic metalanguage
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Online virtual exchange during lockdown
  • 3.Theoretical framework for semantic analysis: nsm theory
  • 4.Empirical study
    • 4.1Setting
    • 4.2Task description
    • 4.3Methodology of data collection and analysis
      • 4.3.1Sampling criteria
      • 4.3.2Analysis procedure
  • 5.Narratives and discourses in the online learning environment
    • 5.1Pandemic related topics
      • 5.1.1Topics related to fear
        • Shopping for essentials
        • Government measures
        • The police
        • Work
        • Health
      • 5.1.2Topics related to a need for contact/connection
    • 5.2Explicating emerging concepts
      • 5.2.1Confinement – isolation
      • 5.2.2Balcony and balcony police
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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