Critical Metaphor Analysis Of COVID-19 News Reports

The global outbreak of the coronavirus had a profound influence on many countries’ politics,economy and social development.As a result,many scholars have conducted research toward news reports on COVID-19,applying methods such as metaphor analysis and Critical Metaphor Analysis.Among those metaphor-based research,the majority either focused on the analysis of one type of metaphors or chose to analyze different metaphors based on the news reports from one media.To bridge this gap and further explore more comprehensively the image construction of the coronavirus,the current study seeks to conduct a critical analysis of frequently-occurred metaphors in the news reports of COVID-19 and compare the metaphorical usage in China Daily with that in New York Times.More specifically,the current study compiled two corpora of news reports on COVID-19 between February 1st 2020 and February 28th 2021 from respectively China Daily and New York Times.It employed Critical Metaphor Analysis by Charteris-Black to examine the type and frequency of metaphors used in the two media,the reflected textual functions of these metaphors from the two media,and the image of the coronavirus and the anti-pandemic image of China and the US.This study followed the three-step procedure of Critical Metaphor Analysis,i.e.,metaphor identification,metaphor interpretation and metaphor explanation.In the first step,this study also referred to "the extraction method of metaphors in corpus"by Stefanowitsch and the "Metaphor Identification Procedure" by the Pragglejaz Group to facilitate the identification of metaphors in the two corpora.The results could be illustrated from three aspects:type and frequency of metaphors,textual functions realized by metaphors,and the image construction.First,the two media appeared to use a similar list of metaphors,for example WAR METAPHOR,BARRIER METAPHOR,CRIME METAPHOR,RELIGION METAPHOR,DISASTER METAPHOR and PLANT METAPHOR.Those metaphors were used far more frequently by China Daily than New York Times,but New York Times tended to utilize a wider variety of metaphorical expressions than China Daily.Second,regarding textual functions,the metaphorical use in China Daily was associated more with warning the citizens about the danger of the virus and urging them to take protective measures and take part in the antipandemic war actively.In contrast,the metaphorical use in New York Times mainly concerned introducing the bad effect of COVID-19 and displaying the citizens’ reactions toward the virus and anti-pandemic measures of the US.It also appeared to emphasize more frequently the role of the US as the sufferer in the pandemic.Third,regarding image construction,both media portrayed the coronavirus as a powerful enemy,a dangerous criminal and a destructible disaster.In China Daily,the image of China was described as "leader" and "helper" by reporting the active anti-pandemic measures and successes in China.In New York Times,the image of the US was depicted as "victim" and "weaker man in the antipandemic practice" by reporting infection rate,death rate and the violence in opposing anti-pandemic measures in the US.These research findings further verify the positivity to apply the use of Critical Metaphor Analysis in the investigations of news reports of illness.