none 10.1075/dapsac.102.06hol John Benjamins Publishing Company John Benjamins Publishing Company 1757 151650249 4578944 1419778 202507022101000034 10.1075 2025-07-02T19:01:00Z 2023-07-25T06:40:33Z 0 1569-9463 10.1075/dapsac https://benjamins.com/ catalog/dapsac Nadine Thielemann Vienna University of Economics and Business https://ror.org/03yn8s215 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4898-3993 Daniel Weiss University of Zurich https://ror.org/02crff812 How politicians communicate crisis management The present volume offers a fresh perspective on political top-down crisis communication across several countries during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes how leaders address the growing awareness of the dangerous impact of social restrictions, along with the controversies surrounding the first vaccination campaigns. Not limited to the Western world, it also offers insights from six East European countries, Uganda, India, and Palestine. Topics discussed range from inconsistent communication patterns to populist xenophobic accents, propagandistic campaigns on vaccines, the impact of authoritarian systems on crisis communication, the contrast between scientific and African folk medicine, and the use of war metaphors. By adopting a comparative perspective, this volume contributes to the growing body of literature on crisis communication during the pandemic, while highlighting important issues and perspectives that have yet to be extensively explored. Moreover, it aims to bridge the gap between linguistic and communication research on leadership communication during times of crisis, stimulating an interdisciplinary dialogue. 102 7 24 2023 7 4 2023 9789027213990 9789027249579 John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam 10.1075/dapsac.102 http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027249579 https://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/9789027249579.pdf https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1075/dapsac.102/html Regina Holze University of Passau https://ror.org/05ydjnb78 Boris Johnson’s communication of failure during the Covid-19 pandemic Abstract During the Covid-19 pandemic, Great Britain’s Prime Minister Johnson had to admit the failure of his measures on several occasions and subsequently change policies. This paper analyses Johnson’s strategies of communicating failure, relying on a corpus of official statements and interviews dating from March 2020 to January 2021. Drawing on methods from corpus-assisted discourse analysis, his main strategies of communicating failure are analysed by identifying typical speech acts and classifying them according to Boin et al.’s accountability model ( 2017 ). Additionally, frequent frames are examined with relation to the narrative to which they contribute. Results show a tendency to avoid admitting policy failure and shirk responsibility, complemented by a common reference to the success of previous policies and the need for unity in crisis. 7 24 2023 7 4 2023 169 195 10.1075/dapsac.102.06hol https://benjamins.com/catalog/dapsac.102.06hol https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1075/dapsac.102.06hol/html AntConc Anthony 2020 YouTube AP Archive 2020 UK PM on unsafe mask claims, UK support for Beirut 10.5040/9781350933996 BBC News BBC 2020 PMQs: Sir Keir Starmer presses Boris Johnson on test and trace BBC News BBC 2020 Boris Johnson on pupils wearing face masks in classrooms 10.1016/j.pragma.2004.09.007 Accounts, excuses, and apologies: Image repair theory and research Benoit 2 2015 The British National Corpus BNC Consortium X 2007 10.1080/13501760802453221 10.1017/9781316339756.002 Evening Standard Braddick 2020 Boris Johnson insists exam results are ‘robust’ and ‘dependable’ amid anger over A Level downgrading 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31513-7 The Guardian Busby I 2020 Government ‘bobbing all over the place’ in Covid response, says Starmer: Labour leader accused Boris Johnson of making ‘13 or 14’ major U-turns The Guardian Butler I 2020 Boris Johnson’s ‘Covid marshals’ plan criticised as shambolic Forbes Carden 2021 Got A Problem To Solve? Throw Money At It 10.3389/fsoc.2020.583680 10.1007/978-3-030-85106-4_3 10.1057/palgrave.crr.1550049 Gov.uk Website Covid-19 Essential Travel Guidance 2020 The Guardian Elgot I 2020 Boris Johnson: UK must not return to status quo after Covid-19 pandemic 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x 10.1057/9780230355569_4 The ethics and politics of speech: Communication and rhetoric in the twentieth century Gehrke 2009 A Guide to Technical Communications: Strategies & Applications Hall 2021 UCREL Technical Paper Hardt-Mautner 1995 ‘Only connect’: Critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics 10.1515/gcla-2020-0010 10.1057/978-1-137-52386-0_8 PM Commons statement on coronavirus: 2 November 2020 Johnson 2020 PM’s statement on Coronavirus, 30 September 2020 Johnson 2020 PM Commons statement on coronavirus: 12 October 2020 Johnson 2020 Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (Covid-19): 31 October 2020 Johnson 2020 Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (Covid-19): 24 May 2020 Johnson 2020 Prime Minister’s New Year’s message: 31 December 2020 Johnson 2020 Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus (Covid-19): 19 December 2020 Johnson 2020 PM Economy Speech: 30 June 2020 Johnson 2020 Prime Minister’s address to the nation: 4 January 2021 Johnson 2021 Prime Minister’s statement to the House of Commons on Covid-19 regulations: 6 January 2021 Johnson 2021 Metaphors we live by. With a new afterword Lakoff 6 2011 The Telegraph Malnick 2020 Boris Johnson exclusive interview: We will not need another national lockdown BBC News Marr 2021 Boris Johnson on The Andrew Marr Show 10.1177/2329488416648951 Introducing qualitative methods. Methods of critical discourse analysis Mautner 2 122 2009 Checks and Balances: How Corpus Linguistics Can Contribute to CDA 10.1177/0952076714565416 10.1017/S0143814X21000039 10.5040/9781350232730.ch-017 10.4467/20842627OZ.20.004.12658 10.1075/msw.00013.olz Corpora and Discourse Partington 11 2004 Corpora and discourse, a most congruous beast Modern Diachronic Corpus-Assisted Language Studies: Methodologies for Tracking Language Change over Recent Time Partington 2020 10.1075/scl.55 10.1515/cllt-2015-0030 Reuters Reuters 2020 UK’s test and trace system not had wanted impact, PM Johnson says 10.7575/aiac.alls.v.10n.3p.1 10.1007/s10992-015-9361-y 10.1080/10410236.2020.1844989 The Guardian Siddique I 2020 UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson defends ‘world beating’ test-and-trace system despite fall in contacts reached – as it happened 10.1075/fol.2.1.03stu The Times Swinford 2020 Boris Johnson pins the blame on ‘mutant’ exam algorithm 10.1075/ijcl.19.3.03tay The Telegraph The Telegraph 2020 Second lockdown would be ‘disastrous’ for UK, says Boris Johnson YouTube The Telegraph 2020 In full: Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer at PMQs in Parliament 10.1007/978-90-481-9473-5_8 Glossary UK Parliament 2022 Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQ’s) MaxQDA 2020 VERBI 2020 10.1080/00335637309383176 The Guardian Weaver 2020 UK coronavirus live 10.5822/978-1-61091-615-8_7 The Independent Woodcock 2020 Keir Starmer accuses Boris Johnson of ‘serial incompetence’ in his response to coronavirus pandemic: Government lurching ‘from crisis to crisis, U-turn to U-turn’, says Labour leader Belfast Telegraph Wylie 2020 Failure to record thousands of confirmed Covid-19 cases branded ‘shambolic’: The blunder came as the total number of lab-confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK passed 500,000 The rhetoric of failure: Deconstruction of skepticism, reinvention of modernism Ziarek 1996