The Study On China’s National Image Of Anti-epidemic In COVID-19 Reports From The Perspective Of Cognitive Metaphor

The global spread of the COVID-19 in early 2020 is undoubtedly a major challenge for countries worldwide.China plays a significant role in fighting against COVID-19.To eliminate the bias on China’s behavior,several English reports are successively published by Shanghai Institutes for International Studies(SIIS)and the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China(SCIOPRC)for sharing the experience in anti-epidemic.With the fusion of cultural vigour into China’s national development procedure,the national image study has gradually entered a multidisciplinary research and become a frontier topic for theoretical and practical explorations.However,the perspectives of previous studies pays more attention to the China national image built by others and overlooked the national image self-built.The methods selected in the prior studies focus on the qualitative analysis and neglect the quantitative account.To enrich the study of self-built national image,this study aims to explore the metaphorical system in English anti-epidemic reports delivered by SIIS and SCIOPRC to reveal Chinese intrinsic values,attitudes,and emotions.This study utilizes Wmatrix4 as a corpus tool to quantitatively describe the metaphor distributions.The qualitative analysis is carried out with the theories of Conceptual Metaphor,Metaphor Variation,and Metaphor Scenario.The combination of quantitative and qualitative methods is for reflecting the national image of China in anti-epidemic objectively and authentically,willing to pave a path for westerners in understanding China and trusting China’s victory in the combat against COVID-19.The entire anti-epidemic process is roughly divided into five stages by the State Council of China.Integrating the quantitative and qualitative analysis of metaphor scenarios in these stages,some findings in this research are portrayed:(1)Systematic metaphors are WAR,CONTAINER,TEST,JOURNEY,MONEY,and BODY,which spread in the entire process.BUILDING,MACHINE,PLANT,RELIGION,and RIVER only show in some specific stages and are called emergent metaphors;(2)Metaphor scenarios are distributed at different stages and the frequency of them depends on the stage they are.Except for WAR,TEST is the most scenario at stage Ⅰ.CONTAINER is the most scenarios at stage Ⅱ and Ⅲ.JOURNEY is the most at stage Ⅳand Ⅴ;(3)Systematic metaphors and emergent metaphors work together to keep a balance system of metaphor in this discourse of the crisis event and depict a fearless and selfless national image of China in anti-epidemic.Not only does China take the liability for the security and health of the Chinese people,it also contributes to the world’s public health.The analysis of metaphor scenarios in anti-epidemic text provides the cognitive evidence for the formation of China’s national image and contributes to building an objective and authentic national image.This research is looking forward to providing a way for studying the national image from cognitive linguistics and enriching the empirical evidence of complex dynamic systems in metaphor.