International Conference on Linguistic Research and Applications

Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic produced a range of viral cultural practices that circulated rapidly through digital
platforms. One of the most visible examples was Dalgona coffee, a whipped coffee drink that became
widely shared on social media during early lockdown periods. While initially emerging as a simple recipe,
the beverage quickly evolved into a recognizable symbol of lockdown culture. This study examines how
Dalgona coffee became enregistered as a socially meaningful sign through discourse on X during the first
phase of the COVID-19 lockdown (March–May 2020). Drawing on linguistic anthropological theories of
Indexicality and Enregisterment, alongside Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of distinction and perspectives from
mediatization theory, the study analyzes a corpus of 126 English-language posts referencing Dalgona coffee.
Using a qualitative discourse-analytic approach with a two-level coding framework, the analysis identifies
both recurring linguistic patterns and the indexical meanings performed through them. The findings
demonstrate that Dalgona coffee functioned as a condensed cultural sign indexing several dimensions of
pandemic life. Posts frequently positioned the beverage as a temporal marker of early lockdown, a symbol
of participatory belonging within digital communities, and a performative practice linked to productivity
expectations during quarantine. At the same time, users engaged in reflexive commentary about the trend’s
virality, saturation, and eventual decline. These discursive patterns illustrate how repeated references and
metapragmatic commentary contributed to the rapid enregisterment of Dalgona coffee as an emblem of
pandemic domestic culture. The study contributes to sociolinguistic research on digital discourse by
demonstrating how crisis conditions and platform infrastructures can accelerate the formation of culturally
recognizable signs in online communication.