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UID:pretalx-athens-2026-LHECV3@conference-hub.linguistic-society.com
DTSTART:20260424T130000Z
DTEND:20260424T131500Z
DESCRIPTION:Abstract:\nThe COVID-19 pandemic produced a range of viral cult
 ural practices that circulated rapidly through digital\nplatforms. One of 
 the most visible examples was Dalgona coffee\, a whipped coffee drink that
  became\nwidely shared on social media during early lockdown periods. Whil
 e initially emerging as a simple recipe\,\nthe beverage quickly evolved in
 to a recognizable symbol of lockdown culture. This study examines how\nDal
 gona coffee became enregistered as a socially meaningful sign through disc
 ourse on X during the first\nphase of the COVID-19 lockdown (March–May 2
 020). Drawing on linguistic anthropological theories of\nIndexicality and 
 Enregisterment\, alongside Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of distinction and 
 perspectives from\nmediatization theory\, the study analyzes a corpus of 1
 26 English-language posts referencing Dalgona coffee.\nUsing a qualitative
  discourse-analytic approach with a two-level coding framework\, the analy
 sis identifies\nboth recurring linguistic patterns and the indexical meani
 ngs performed through them. The findings\ndemonstrate that Dalgona coffee 
 functioned as a condensed cultural sign indexing several dimensions of\npa
 ndemic life. Posts frequently positioned the beverage as a temporal marker
  of early lockdown\, a symbol\nof participatory belonging within digital c
 ommunities\, and a performative practice linked to productivity\nexpectati
 ons during quarantine. At the same time\, users engaged in reflexive comme
 ntary about the trend’s\nvirality\, saturation\, and eventual decline. T
 hese discursive patterns illustrate how repeated references and\nmetapragm
 atic commentary contributed to the rapid enregisterment of Dalgona coffee 
 as an emblem of\npandemic domestic culture. The study contributes to socio
 linguistic research on digital discourse by\ndemonstrating how crisis cond
 itions and platform infrastructures can accelerate the formation of cultur
 ally\nrecognizable signs in online communication.
DTSTAMP:20260419T080818Z
LOCATION:Online Session
SUMMARY:Indexicality and Enregisterment in X Discourse on Dalgona Coffee - 
 Bageshree Bageshwar
URL:https://conference-hub.linguistic-society.com/athens-2026/talk/LHECV3/
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