Coronavirus–inspired Metaphors in Political Discourse
Journal Title: Thesis - Year 2020, Vol 9, Issue 2
Abstract
In the face of the great danger posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, political leaders worldwide, speaking from a position of authority, delivered carefully crafted televised speeches and press conferences, intended to inform the public about the pandemic, its implications and the preventive restrictions they were imposing. The main objective of this paper is to investigate how politicians used language, particularly metaphors, when talking about and interpreting the newly created situation with the Covid-19 pandemic. For the purposes of this study a corpus was compiled of coronavirus-related speeches delivered by several key world political figures – Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Angela Merkel, and Emanuel Macron. The speeches were delivered on a timeline from March to May 2020, i.e. the period that saw the inception, the peak and the gradual withdrawal of the first ‘wave’ of the coronavirus in Europe and the United States. A contrastive analysis of the speeches was carried out in order to detect similarities and differences in the use of metaphors on the part of the politicians, at the three specific time points of the pandemic’s trajectory. The final aim was to ascertain whether any correlation existed between the use of metaphoric language and the outcome of the pandemic, i.e. how people reacted and whether they followed the politicians’ instructions and recommendations. The analysis showed that a range of different metaphors permeated the analysed political speeches; however, the war metaphor presenting the pandemic as a fight against a deadly and invisible enemy was the most persistent one. The usage of war metaphor was particularly frequent during the peak of the pandemic but the results suggests that it had no real bearing on the outcome of the pandemic, i.e. people’s response to politicians’ calls for caution and obedience to the preventative measures.
Authors and Affiliations
Silvana Neshkovska & Zorica Trajkova
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP694935
- DOI -
- Views 178
- Downloads 0
Integrating culture in ELT using an indigenous folktale, Poireiton Khunthok
Language, literature and culture are interdependent and their contributions to the teaching and learning of a second language are immense. The study aims at examining the purviews of the Content and Language Integrated L...
Nurses Role in the Covid-19 Pandemic, Knowledge and Attitudes of Nursing Staff – Implications for the Future
Covid-19 created the biggest worldwide public health emergency. Nurses as the largest component of the health care workforce, play an important role both locally and globally in managing. The web-based survey lasted abou...
Online learning challenges and opportunities in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries
The rapid development of information technology has influenced the change of concepts of the learning environment. Today, educational institutions are increasingly focused on teaching through technology. Many universitie...
Measuring academic engagement among university students in Romania during COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many aspects of personal and professional development, outlining different unprecedented behavioural changes among diverse age population, worldwide. In the context of the lockdown rest...
Book Review on Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Illustrated 200th Anniversary Edition
This short essay reviewed Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Illustrated 200th Anniversary Edition, which was just published in April of this year by SeaWolf Press. After clarifying the context in which it o...