A Critical Metaphor Analysis In COVID-19 Discourse In Chinese And American Media

In recent years,cognitive linguistics has begun to pay more attention to cultural variations and social interaction factors in language use,and has a tendency of “social turn”.Critical Metaphor Analysis,a cross study that integrates critical discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics,aims to reveal emotions,beliefs,and attitudes of discourse groups.Disease discourse is one linguistic resource that scholars pay attention to.COVID-19 was a worldwide common topic in 2020,and the metaphor study about it may be conducive to a better understanding of the virus and current epidemic situation.With conceptual metaphor theory as a basis and critical metaphor analysis a guidance,this study analyzed the metaphor usages in two corpora,CHD(China Daily,160 reports),and NYT(New York Times,160 reports).Using corpus analysis software Wmatrix and the manual metaphor identification program MIPVU,this study specifically aimed to answer the following questions:(1)What types of metaphors are used for COVID-19 in CHD and NYT? How are they distributed?(2)What similarities and differences are there in the metaphors used in the two corpora? What policies,attitudes and images can be revealed about China and America?(3)How do conceptual metaphors used in the corpora achieve their persuasiveness?What could be the reasons that have influenced the choice of the metaphors?The major findings of the research are as follows:First,CHD and NYT share the same six main conceptual metaphors for COVID-19,which are the war metaphor,the animate metaphor,the obstacle metaphor,the catastrophe metaphor,the challenge metaphor,and the competition metaphor,which corresponds to the university of metaphor.Second,although the two corpora share the same six types of metaphors,there are still differences existing in the detailed comparison between metaphors.In terms of metaphor frequency,in CHD,the metaphor order is: the war metaphor,the obstacle metaphor,the animate metaphor,the catastrophe metaphor,the challenge metaphor,and the competition metaphor.In NYT,the order is: the war metaphor,the animate metaphor,the obstacle metaphor,the challenge metaphor,the catastrophe metaphor,and the competition metaphor.In terms of the frequency of metaphor keywords,the numbers of tokens and resonance in CHD is higher than in NYT,which shows that Chinese media is more likely to use metaphors.In terms of the types of metaphor keywords,the number of keywords type are larger in NYT than in CHD,which infers that in American media,metaphors about COVID-19 are more diverse and metaphor choice is more flexible.Third,based on the six main types of metaphors co-existing in the two corpora,it can be seen that the media in both countries regard the novel coronavirus pneumonia as a global problem and are actively facing the epidemic.However,in the detailed analysis of types of metaphors,it can be found that since the outbreak of the epidemic,China has actively responded to it and immediately adopted protective measures,which has established the confidence of the people in combating the epidemic and embodied China’s strong image.The United States,in the initial stage of the epidemic,ignored the severity of it,which resulted in the rapid spread of the epidemic.Later,it focuses more on reminding the people of the seriousness of the epidemic,so as to encourage the people to take protective measures.Fourth,in both corpora,the persuasive functions of metaphor is achieved by 1)strengthening further understanding of the nature of COVID-19;2)announcing the continued development of the situation;3)supervising the relative organizations;4)paying attention to public emotions and building up confidence.Moreover,cognition,history and culture influence the choice of metaphor usage in the two corpora.The present study supports and enriches the previous studies of Critical Metaphor Analysis.Apart from the research method,the employment of Wmatrix is also conducive to metaphor identification,which can enhance the preciseness of the metaphor data.Moreover,the metaphor study about the concerned topic,COVID-19,can help the public understand the virus better and take protective measures more actively.