This collaborative essay addresses COVID-19 communication, focussing on the linguistic strategies and discursive constructions that were adopted, first to cope with the unprecedented crisis scenarios of the pandemic and later to hail the post-pandemic times. It recapitulates the unfolding of COVID-19 communication from 2020 to 2022, espousing a linguistic and discursive perspective. To that purpose, it elaborates on a few keywords and key phrases that consistently identify the different pandemic and post-pandemic phases in the public domain. i.e. ‘recovery and resilience’, ‘smart’ and ‘virtual’, and the ‘new normal’, to finish with a few reflections on the challenges of legal communication faced with mounting social intolerance and the exacerbation of hate speech and xenophobia. The overview privileges the European Union and the UK, the latter launching the first mass vaccination campaign in December 2020, although with the awareness of the global nature of the phenomenon and its present repercussions. The aim of the essay is to frame the nine research articles in this issue as attempts to interpret an exceptionally difficult time span and as a form of intellectual resilience.

Akinsanmi, Titi, and Aishat Salami. 2021. "Evaluating the Trade-off between Privacy, Public Health Safety, and Digital Security in a Pandemic". Data & Policy 3 (e27).

https://doi.org/10.1017/dap.2021.24

Chateau, Lucie. 2020. "Memeing under Covid-19: On the Phatic Internet and Collectivity". Diggit Magazine, May 7. [03/12/2022].

https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/memeing-under-covid-19-phatic-internet-and-collectivity

Cinelli, Matteo, Walter Quattrociocchi, Alessandro Galeazzi, Carlo Michele Valensise, Emanuele Brugnoli, Ana Lucia Schmidt, Paola Zola, Fabiana Zollo, and Antonio Scala. 2020. "The COVID-19 Social Media Infodemic". Scientific Reports 10 (1): 16598.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5

Cullen-Shute, Dan. 2020. "In Defence of the 'Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives' Messaging". The Drum, May 11. [03/12/2022].

https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2020/05/11/defence-the-stay-alert-control-the-virus-save-lives-messaging

Ervas, Francesca, Pietro Salis, Cristina Sechi, and Rachele Fanari. 2022. "Exploring Metaphor's Communicative Effects in Reasoning on Vaccination". Frontiers in Psychology 13: 1027733.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1027733

European Commission. n.d. "Recovery Plan for Europe". [03/12/2022].

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/recovery-plan-europe_en

Floridi, Luciano, ed. 2015. The Onlife Manifesto: Being Human in a Hyperconnected Era. Cham: Springer.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04093-6

Garzone, Giuliana. 2021. "Re-thinking Metaphors in Covid-19 Communication". Lingue e Linguaggi 44: 159-181. doi: 10.1285/i22390359v44p159.

Jucks, Regina, and Friederike Hendriks, eds. 2021. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 40 (5-6, Special Issue: Stay Safe and Stay at Home! Research on Language and Communication Related to COVID-19): 540-699. [03/12/2022].

https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X211045728

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/jlsa/40/5-6

Karakoulaki, Marianna, and Giulia Dessì. 2021. Antisemitism and Anti-Vax Discourse in Europe: A Report on Conspiracy Ideologies and Anti-Jewish hatred on Facebook and Twitter. London: Media Diversity Institute. [03/12/2022].

https://www.media-diversity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Antisemitism-and-anti-vax-discourse-in-Europe_MDI_GTTO.pdf

Kirk, Colleen P., and Laura S. Rifkin. 2020. "I'll Trade You Diamonds for Toilet Paper: Consumer Reacting, Coping and Adapting Behaviors in the COVID-19 Pandemic". Journal of Business Research 117: 124-131.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.028

Kompani, Kamyar, Michael J. Deml, Farnaz Mahdavian, Olena Koval, Sanjana Arora, and Hilda Broqvist 2022. "Who Said What: A Multi-Country Content Analysis of European Health Organisations' COVID-19 Social Media Communication". International Journal of Public Health 67 (1604973): 1-12.

https://doi.org/10.3389/ijph.2022.1604973

Mangiò, Federico, Giuseppe Pedeliento, and Daniela Andreini. 2021. "Branding Rhetoric in Times of a Global Pandemic: A Text-Mining Analysis". Journal of Advertising 50 (3): 240-252.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2021.1927912

Musolff, Andreas. 2022. "'World-beating' Pandemic Responses: Ironical, Sarcastic, and Satirical Use of War and Competition Metaphors in the Context of COVID-19 Pandemic". Metaphor and Symbol 37 (2): 76-87.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2021.1932505

OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 2020. "Combatting COVID-19 Disinformation on Online Platforms". Policy Responses to Coronavirus, July 3: 1-7. Paris: OECD Publishing. [03/12/2022].

https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/combatting-covid-19-disinformation-on-online-platforms-d854ec48

Olah, Andrew R., and Christian F. Hempelmann. 2021. "Humor in the Age of Coronavirus: A Recapitulation and a Call to Action". Humor: International Journal of Humour Research 34 (2): 329-338.

https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0032

Osiejewicz, Joanna. 2020. "Transnational Legal Communication: Towards Comprehensible and Consistent Law". Foundations of Science 25 (2): 441-475.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-020-09655-3

Osiejewicz, Joanna. 2021. "Metaphor in Legal Communication". Journal of International Legal Communication 2 (2): 97-108.

https://doi.org/10.32612/uw.27201643.2021.2.pp.97-108

Paganoni, Maria Cristina. 2021. "Cross-Border Health Data from Legislation to Implementation: A Critical Discursive Approach to COVID-19 Responses". Journal of International Legal Communication 3 (3): 8-16.

https://doi.org/10.32612/uw.27201643.2021.3.pp.8-16

Paganoni, Maria Cristina. 2022. "Framing the New Normal in Tourism Discourse: A Focus on Air Travel". Lingue e Linguaggi 52 (Special Issue: The Place of Language: Discourse, Translation, Culture. Essays in Honor of Giuliana Garzone): 249-264. https://doi.org/10.1285/i22390359v52p249.

Pankowski, Rafał, and Jacek Dzięgielewski. 2020. COVID-19 Crisis and Hate Speech: Transnational Report. Estonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. Op:Code - Open Code for Hate-free Communication. [03/12/2022].

https://www.nigdywiecej.org/docstation/com_docstation/20/covid_19_crisis_and_hate_speech.pdf

Roig-Marín, Amanda. 2021. "English-Based Coroneologisms: A Short Survey of Our Covid-19-Related Vocabulary". English Today 37 (4): 193-195.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078420000255

Semino, Elena. 2021. "Not Soldiers but Fire-fighters - Metaphors and Covid-19". Health Communication 36 (1): 50-58.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1844989

Smith, Simon, and Jiří Kabele. 2021. "The Spring 'Stay at Home' Coronavirus Campaign Communicated by Pending Accounts". Journal of Pragmatics 177: 170-182.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.02.025

Sobande, Francesca, and Bethany Klein. 2022. "'Come and Get a Taste of Normal': Advertising, Consumerism and the Coronavirus Pandemic". European Journal of Cultural Studies (online first).

https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494221108219

Tagliacozzo, Serena, Fredrerike Albrecht, and N. Emel Ganapati. 2021. "International Perspectives on COVID-19 Communication Ecologies: Public Health Agencies' Online Communication in Italy, Sweden, and the United States". American Behavioral Scientist 65 (7): 934-955.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764221992832

Torres-Salinas, Daniel, Nicolas Robinson-Garcia, and Pedro A. Castillo-Valdivies. 2020. "Open Access and Altmetrics in the Pandemic Age: Forecast Analysis on COVID-19 Literature". BioRxiv, April 26: 1-13.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.23.057307

Turismo de Portugal. 2020. "Can't Skip Hope: Destination Promotion". March 20. [03/12/2022].

http://www.turismodeportugal.pt/en/O%20que%20fazemos/PromoverDestinoPortugal/campanhas-promocao-turistica/Pages/cant-skip-hope.aspx

UN News. 2020a. "UN Chief Appeals for Global Action against Coronavirus-fueled Hate Speech". May 8. [03/12/2022].

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1063542

UN News. 2020b. "Secretary-General Calls Gender Violence 'Shadow Pandemic', Spotlights COVID-19 Lockdowns, in Message to College Campus Event". July 3. [03/12/2022].

https://press.un.org/en/2020/sgsm20160.doc.htm

Williams, Matthews. 2022. The Science of Hate: How Prejudice Becomes Hate and What We Can Do to Stop It. London: Faber & Faber.

Williamson, Emma, Nancy Lombard, and Oona Brooks-Hay. 2020. "'Coronavirus Murders': Media Narrative about Domestic Abuse during Lockdown Is Wrong and Harmful". The Conversation, March 15. [03/12/2022].

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-murders-media-narrative-about-domestic-abuse-during-lockdown-is-wrong-and-harmful-137011

Wodak, Ruth. 2021. "Crisis Communication and Crisis Management during COVID-19". Global Discourse 11 (3): 329-353.

https://doi.org/10.1332/204378921X16100431230102