Agency Attributions under a Normative Crisis: Corpus Analysis of Emerging Frameworks of Meaning during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland

Abstract

This article applies interpretative repertoire (IR) analysis to data collected in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic to unravel the dynamics of collective meaning-making under the strain of a critical situation. We claim that the pandemic should be viewed as a normative crisis, that is, an event that reorganizes the symbolic resources of a society. IR analysis allows for the identification and reconstruction of symbolic frameworks activated under critical circumstances and explains agency (re)distribution induced by the pandemic. The analysis encompassed two data sets: twelve focus group interviews (FGIs) conducted before the pandemic and nine FGIs carried out in April and May 2021. Applying corpus linguistics methods and tools, we identified key lexical resources and dominant IRs that framed life in Poland before and during the pandemic. We demonstrated that our interviewees employed these IRs to construct distance between the individual and society, as well as between society and the authorities. We show that meaning is not constructed from scratch even during a critical situation. In Poland, existing symbolic frameworks derived from socialist and individualization discourses served to make sense of the novel circumstances.