Interpretative Repertoires” as Predicators for Social Action: A Discursive Analysis of Uncertainty in Covid-19 Medical Research

The current research seeks to examine the possibility of using "interpretative repertoires" to predict the social actions taken by the decision makers and the public. To achieve this purpose, a discursive discourse analysis is used to identify the uncertainty in the discourse of the scientific research that investigates the use of chloroquine and hydroxy-chloroquine in the treatment of Covid-19. Then, the effects of the uncertainty employed in the chloroquine research on the decision makers are investigated. Similarly, the influence of the declarations of the decision makers on the public is explored. The results reveal that uncertainty markers are identified in the discourse of chloroquine research with a relatively high percentage. Also, the different types of uncertainty are signaled in the discourse. Moreover, the results reveal that the decision makers adopt an ignoring strategy when dealing with uncertainty in the chloroquine research. The declarations of the decision makers are not based on the "interpretative repertoire" elicited from the chloroquine research. On the other hand, the public's social actions are initiated by the interpretative repertoire identified in the declarations of the decision makers. However, the public adopt an overreaction behavior which leads to problems in the Egyptian drugs market.