Terms and Discussion of COVID-19 in English Editorials from Newspapers in East Asia

One of the biggest news stories of this era has been COVID-19. While studies have looked at the discussion of COVID-19 in editorials, there have not been studies on the terms used to name COVID-19. The main purpose of this study was to find the terms used to name COVID-19 in English editorials from East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan). A second purpose was to look at the issues discussed. I built a corpus of 178 editorials published between March 1 and April 4, 2021 (n = 90) and October 1 and November 4, 2021 (n = 88). The editorials were taken from the websites of (a) The Asahi Shimbun (Japan); (b) The Korea Herald (South Korea); and (c) the Taipei Times (Taiwan). The editorials used seven terms to name COVID-19, with three terms: Pandemic (freq = 0.48 per 1,000 words), COVID-19 (freq = 0.36 per 1,000), and COVID-19 Pandemic (freq = 0.28 per 1,000 words) used by all three. While the Taipei Times did not use any additional terms, both The Asahi Shimbun and The Korea Herald used four additional terms (Coronavirus, Coronavirus Pandemic, Novel/New Coronavirus, Novel/New Coronavirus Pandemic). There were 68 editorials that used at least one term. However, the vast majority (n = 60) did not focus on COVID, only using the terms to identify the current era. Of the editorials whose focus was on COVID-19, Health Care (n = 4) was the main focus. The study found that there were a variety of terms used not only among the three newspapers but also inside of the editorials, to name COVID-19. The study gives insights as to the terms used when discussing COVID-19 in English newspapers from East Asia. It shows that Pandemic and COVID-19 Pandemic are the most preferred terms used when naming COVID-19, showing how the focus is on the pandemic aspects of COVID-19.

關鍵字

COVID-19 ； Editorials ； English Newspapers ； Japan ； South Korea ； Taiwan

並列摘要

這個時代最大的新聞之一是COVID-19。研究著眼於社論中對COVID-19的討論，然而尚未對用於命名COVID-19的術語進行研究。本研究的主要目的是找出東亞（日本、韓國、台灣）英文社論中用於命名COVID-19的術語。第二個目的是查看討論的問題。我建立了一個包含2021年3月1日至4月4日（n = 90）和2021年10月1日至11月4日（n = 88）之間發表的178篇社論的語料庫。社論來自以下網站的：（a）《朝日新聞》（日本），（b）《韓國先驅報》（韓國），（c）《台北時報》（台灣）。社論使用過的七個術語來命名COVID-19，其中三個術語：Pandemic（freq = 0.48每1,000字）、COVID-19（頻率= 0.36每1,000字）和COVID-19 Pandemic（頻率= 0.28每1,000字）三份報紙都用過。雖然《台北時報》沒有使用過的任何其他術語，但《朝日新聞》和《韓國先驅報》都使用過四個其他術語（Coronavirus、Coronavirus Pandemic、Novel/New Coronavirus、Novel/New Coronavirus Pandemic）。有68篇社論至少使用了一個術語。然而，絕大多數（n = 60）並沒有關注COVID，只是使用術語來表示當前時代。在關注COVID-19的社論中，醫療保健（n = 4）是主要關注點。研究發現，不僅在三份報紙中，而且在社論內部，都使用了多種術語來命名COVID-19。該研究提供了有關東亞英文報紙討論COVID-19時使用的術語的見解。它表明Pandemic和COVID-19 Pandemic是命名COVID-19時最常用的術語，顯示了人們如何關注COVID-19大流行。

並列關鍵字

COVID-19 ；社論；英文報紙；日本；韓國；台灣

參考文獻

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