Description
With the availability of effective vaccines against COVID-19 came the hope of a return to pre-pandemic life and therefore the way this was announced carries great importance. This paper compares the announcement of the vaccines in the UK media from 2 December 2020 by politicians, scientists and journalists. The comparisons examine the language different authors use to persuade their envisaged audiences and therefore focus specifically on the Appraisal resources of Attitude and Attribution.By comparing different announcement texts, we are able to see what is constant in political discourse, scientific discourse and journalism, and where variations occur. Specifically, the analysis shows that the vaccine is seldom announced but is rather introduced as news; that vaccine collocates strongly with Pfizer and first; that different actors are credited with its introduction (people, countries, companies); and different contexts (scientific reports, press releases, political briefings, news reports, tweets) liberate their authors to express opinions and emotions in different ways.
Our findings exemplify through situational and appraisal analysis how announcements of such scientific breakthroughs are conveyed to different audiences. They also indicate how the political leanings of UK politicians and the media cut across text types. The attribution analysis reveals not only which groups and individuals are credited with the development of the vaccine, but also that the main scientific report that authorises the vaccine is not available. This helps to explain why different authors pick up on different aspects of the report and suggests that such communication can only succeed if the respective audience trusts what they are told.
| Period | 12 Nov 2025 → 13 Nov 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | International Online Systemic Functional Linguistics Interest Group Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 3 |
| Location | AustraliaShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |