What’s in a name? Crisis communication during the COVID-19 pandemic in multilingual Indonesia

Abstract

This paper explores crisis communication during the pandemic in multilingual Indonesia. Crisis communication during the pandemic is a discursive act of sense-making in responding to the pandemic. As Asia’s pandemic epicentre, Indonesia provides a fascinating setting to enhance the discussion between crisis communication and multilingualism because of its pandemic response and indigenous linguistic diversity and its tension with the national and international language. We employ critical discourse analysis in identifying the linguistic and discursive practices of crisis communication found in speeches and public statements made by relevant political leaders and policy documents. By using Fairclough’s concepts of ‘word meaning’, ‘wording’, ‘re-wording’, ‘over-wording’, and ‘metaphor’, we examine the changing mobility constraint terms and keywords in pandemic policies and speeches. Our findings on the inconsistent mobility constraint terms, confusing pandemic keywords and unempathetic metaphors used in public speeches have provided linguistic evidence of the ineffective pandemic response and crisis communication. The analysis draws attention to the importance of consistent and empathetic communication in crisis management.

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