Lexikalische Dynamik im Covid-19-Impfdiskurs: eine kontrastive empirische Studie Deutsch/Französisch
Lexical dynamics in covid-19 vaccination discourse: a contrastive empirical study German/French

Summary/Abstract: This paper explores the productivity of German (-)impf- (e.g., Impfautarkie, Impfgrüße, verimpfen, zwangsimpfen, impfwillig) and its French equivalent (-) vaccin- (e.g., antivaccin, vaccinodrome, candidat-vaccin, le [N] vaccinal) in newspapers surrounding Covid-19 vaccination, as a sign of specific lexical dynamics between “traditionˮ and “innovationˮ. It is widely acknowledged that German and French exhibit fundamentally different preferences in word formation processes. This study examines how these preferences manifest themselves in the journalistic discourse surrounding Covid-19 vaccination on both sides of the Rhine. The investigation focuses on the linguistic representation of “vaccination events” following the development of the first Covid-19 vaccine in November 2020. The analysis is based on an inductive data-driven corpus study, with an emphasis on nouns, adjectives and verbs. Special attention is given to the resulting (-) impf- and (-)vaccin- formations which may emerge to name new everyday phenomena resulting from the so-called coronavirus crisis.

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