Lexical Innovation and Semantic Change in COVID-19 Reportage: A Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis of Nigerian Newspapers

Abstract

Language variation in COVID-19 reportage is a source of concern among linguistic scholars as nascent registers and N-grams stimulate negative cognition among the citizenry due to the choice of lexicons employed in reportage processes. While Osisanwo (2022) investigated representational strategy, discourse structure and discourse strategies in COVID-19 media discourse using The New York Times, The Guardian, China Daily and The Punch to represent the global media genre, this study examines lexical innovation and semantic change in COVID-19 reportage in Nigerian newspapers through a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis. The study identifies evolving COVID-19 registers, N-gram words relevant to computational linguistics, semantic extension, meaning reallocation and expansion, and negative semantic prosody resulting from lexical choices and their consequences for meaning interpretation among users of English as a second language. Corpora were purposively selected from the e-versions of The Guardian and The Punch newspapers from April 2020 to December 2021, representing the outbreak of COVID-19 in Nigeria and the peak of its reportage. Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis provided the theoretical frameworks, while qualitative and quantitative analyses were employed. Findings showed that new lexemes and lexical clusters enhanced intelligibility and the development of COVID-19-word registers. Semantic extension accommodated new concepts and popularised palliative as a noun meaning material goods given to citizens to cushion COVID-19 hardship. Language variation was evident through new concepts and lexical items, while meaning reallocation and expansion were depicted in Delta, Alpha and Omicron. Overall, COVID-19 reportage was communicated with negative semantic prosody, demonstrating the relationship between lexical innovation, semantic change and critical media discourse.