Neologism And Covid 19 Why Do We Use Different Terms For The Same Novel Disease

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1.0, University of Freiburg, course: Introduction to Linguistic, language: English, abstract: Even though the words "Coronavirus, Covid-19, Rona and Sars-CoV-2" refer to the same disease, they are used in slightly different context throughout the media. This paper will focus on why we use different terms synchronously to refer to one novel disease. Moreover, this paper will have a look at the differences between the words, in which context and how often they are used. After scanning previous literature concerning this topic, I was able to formulate two hypothesis. One: The different terms fit different academic levels and are used in distinctive situations. (e.g. "Sars-CoV-2" main use in scientific fields, "Rona" more informal in everyday expressions) Two: The shorter a word is, the more it is used to refer to the virus.