A Study Of Covid-19 Epidemic-related Conceptual Metaphors In CNN News

In 1980,Lakoff and Johson introduced Conceptual Metaphor Theory in Metaphors We Live By,which became a new milestone in the study of metaphor.So far,most metaphor studies have been based on critical metaphor and conceptual metaphor theories,and there is a lack of research on the discourse of disease.Therefore,based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory,this study takes the news on Covid-19 published on CNN US as the research material,and the corpus analysis software Ant Conc 4.0.4 and Metaphor Identification Procedure are used to identify and study the distribution of conceptual metaphors,and then investigate their functions.Research questions include:(1)What are the types and distribution of conceptual metaphors in the news related to Covid-19?(2)What are the functions of conceptual metaphors in the news related to Covid-19?Based on the analysis of Conceptual Metaphor Theory,70 news reports on Covid-19 are selected from the official website of CNN US from January 2,2021,to July 31,2021,as the research material.The corpus is annotated and identified by the Ant Conc 4.0.4software and the Metaphor Identification Procedure to calculate the distribution of different conceptual metaphors.The following conclusions can be drawn from the data analysis:First,there are a large number of metaphorical expressions in the collected Covid-19 corpus,mainly focused on ontological metaphors,followed by structural metaphors and orientational metaphors.Second,metaphorical types of expressions play cognitive,communicative and evaluative functions in news on Covid-19.Through metaphorical expressions,readers can more easily understand the pathogenic principles and hazards of Covid-19,which can effectively motivate and arouse readers’ struggling spirit and determination to fight against the epidemic.This study also enriches the scope of the application of conceptual metaphors.Conceptual metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also a way of cognition and thinking for human beings.This study helps people to better understand the news on Covid-19 and improve their analytical skills in such disease news.