Abstract
COVID-19 has brought so many changes in the world. It is a test of faith and hope to everyone. Many scholars have used different lenses in fields of research in this topic. In language studies, many have zoomed in on this topic in corpus-based linguistics. In discourse analysis, few studies have dealt with this, especially narrative analysis. Using the frameworks of Bamberg (1997) and Barkhuizen (2009), three levels of positioning analysis were unpacked by a COVID-19 survivor’s life story. The first level of positioning answers how the characters positioned themselves concerning the events that happened. On the other hand, the second level of positioning seeks to answer how the characters positioned themselves to the audience. Lastly, the third level of positioning aims to position narrators to themselves. The participant was a student of the researcher who agreed to share his story in this paper. The main character almost lost his life due to COVID-19 and was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. The researcher discovered linguistic elements present during the interview, such as linguistic politeness, transitional devices, metaphors, and discourse particles, that helped the researcher analyze and unpack the three levels of positioning analysis. The actual occurrences that happened to the participant served as a turning point in his experience–from non-believer to believer of COVID-19. The paper further explored how COVID-19 became a test of faith, love, and hope to the participant.
References
Alkhawaldeh, A. A. (2021). Persuasive strategies of jordanian government in fighting COVID-19. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 274–293. https://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2021-2101-16
Asif, M., Zhiyong, D., Iram, A., & Nisar, M. (2021). Linguistic analysis of neologism related to coronavirus (COVID-19). Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 4(1), 100201. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2021.100201
Atkinson, R. (2007). The Life Story Interview as a Bridge in Narrative Inquiry. In Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology (pp. 224–246). SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452226552.n9
Bamberg, M. (1997). Positioning Between Structure and Performance. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 7(1–4), 335–342. https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.7.42pos
Bell, J. S. (2002). Narrative Inquiry: More Than Just Telling Stories. TESOL Quarterly, 36(2), 207. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588331
Benson, P. (2014). Narrative Inquiry in Applied Linguistics Research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 34, 154–170. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190514000099
Bolinger, D. (1978). Yes—No Questions Are Not Alternative Questions. In H. Hiż (Ed.), Questions (pp. 87–105). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9509-3_3
Chen, C.-M. (2020). Public health messages about COVID-19 prevention in multilingual Taiwan. Multilingua, 39(5), 597–606. https://doi.org/doi:10.1515/multi-2020-0092
Davies, M. (2021). The Coronavirus Corpus: Design, construction, and use. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 26(4), 583–598. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.21044.dav
Giaxoglou, K., & Spilioti, T. (2020). The shared story of #JeSuisAylan on Twitter: Story participation and stancetaking in visual small stories. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), 30(2), 277–302. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18057.gia
Gotinga, J. C. (n.d.). ‘We’ve cried ourselves dry’: COVID overwhelms Manila hospitals. Retrieved July 27, 2023, from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/19/for-kate-patients-die-as-covid-overwhelms-philippine-hospitals
Isbell, D., Rawal, H., Oh, R., & Loewen, S. (2017). Narrative Perspectives on Self-Directed Foreign Language Learning in a Computer- and Mobile-Assisted Language Learning Context. Languages, 2(2), 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages2020004
Jang, I. C., & Choi, L. J. (2020). Staying connected during COVID-19: The social and communicative role of an ethnic online community of Chinese international students in South Korea. Multilingua, 39(5), 541–552. https://doi.org/doi:10.1515/multi-2020-0097
Katila, J., Gan, Y., & Goodwin, M. H. (2020). Interaction rituals and ‘social distancing’: New haptic trajectories and touching from a distance in the time of COVID-19. Discourse Studies, 22(4), 418–440. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445620928213
Klobucista, C., & Ferragamo, M. (n.d.). When Will COVID-19 Become Endemic? In Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/when-will-covid-19-become-endemic
Korobov, N. (2001). Reconciling Theory with Method: From Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis to Positioning Analysis. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol 2, No 3 (2001): Qualitative Methods in Various Disciplines II: Cultural Sciences. https://doi.org/10.17169/FQS-2.3.906
Kozlova, T. (2021). Cognitive Metaphors of Covid-19 Pandemic in Business News. SHS Web of Conferences, 100, 02004. https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202110002004
Kuno, S., & Kaburaki, E. (1977). Empathy and Syntax. Linguistic Inquiry, 8(4), 627–672. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4178011
Li, J., Xie, P., Ai, B., & Li, L. (2020). Multilingual communication experiences of international students during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Multilingua, 39(5), 529–539. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0116
McAdams, D. P., Josselson, R., & Lieblich, A. (Eds.). (2001). Turns in the road: narrative studies of lives in transition (1st ed). American Psychological Association.
Mishler, E. G. (1995). Models of Narrative Analysis: A Typology. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 5(2), 87–123. https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.5.2.01mod
Mondada, L., Bänninger, J., Bouaouina, S. A., Gauthier, G., Hänggi, P., Koda, M., Svensson, H., & Tekin, B. S. (2020). Doing paying during the Covid-19 pandemic. Discourse Studies, 22(6), 720–752. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445620950860
Ng, Q. X., Chee, K. T., De Deyn, M. L. Z. Q., & Chua, Z. (2020). Staying connected during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 66(5), 519–520. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764020926562
Palicte, C. (2020). Renewed faith: Tale of a Covid-19 survivor - Philippine News Agency. In Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1121158
Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic Narratives as Data in Applied Linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 163–188. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amm008
Pavlenko, Aneta. (2002). Narrative Study: Whose Story Is It, Anyway? TESOL Quarterly, 36(2), 213. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588332
Piller, I., Zhang, J., & Li, J. (2020). Linguistic diversity in a time of crisis: Language challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multilingua, 39(5), 503–515. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0136
Renewed faith: Tale of a Covid-19 survivor - Philippine News Agency. (n.d.). In Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1121158
Riessman, C. K. (2002). The Qualitative Researcher's Companion. SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412986274

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of Education, Management and Development Studies