What makes the Wuhan virus American?

The discursive strategies of legitimising and delegitimising a coronavirus conspiracy theory

Abstract

From the sociolinguistic perspective, conspiracy theories (CT), which convey heterodox forms of knowledge that diverge from accepted narratives, are worth examining since their discourses abound in persuasive language. Still, the discourse of CTs is under-researched (Demata/Zorzi/ Zottola 2022). The present empirical, discourse-analytical case study seeks to address this lacuna by exploring the discursive (de)legitimation strategies of conspiracy discourse in competing narrative frames. The research adopted the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective, and the comparative analysis was carried out within the methodological framework developed by van Leeuwen (2008) and Tankard (2001). The findings complement van Leeuwen’s “grammar of legitimation”, and also contribute to existing knowledge on framing theories. The results of the explorative case study indicate that the persuasiveness of the discursive strategies of (de)legitimisation depends on several features, such as synergy, projection, the sense of belonging, silencing with blockers, implying the generality of specific cases, and the partial investigation of causality.