Inter-Texting Cultures during Pandemic(s): A Pragmatic Approach and Beyond

Abstract

Pandemics are characteristic of both The Roaring 20s, with 1920 being the aftermath of the
Spanish flu, and 2020s being the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In such a case,
pragmatics (along socio- and psycho-linguistics, discourse analysis, behavioural and mass
psychology, and NLP only in the latter ‘20s) is changing as we speak (literally!), forcing us
to either adapt or no longer be an active participant in a speech event. We are granted a
rare, even if unfortunate, opportunity to witness change in the very fabric of speech acts.
Both the linguistic (or the verbal) and the extra-linguistic (or the nonverbal) are now facing
tremendous pressure from people living in isolation and from restrictions imposed by
authorities, which have resulted in extensive changes in context and in the entire process of
communication. Yet, the pandemic has proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that people
crave human interaction and need to inter-text their cultures, their beliefs, their realities,
and ultimately themselves to (the) others, in a struggle to avoid alienation and anxiety, to
avoid becoming ‘the other.’ Hence, both in the 1920s and in the 2020s, we notice a shift
from cultural intertexts to everybody inter-texting their cultures as their only means of
communicating themselves.