Metaphors in Covid-19 Times

Question 1

What is a metaphor?

Answer 1

A metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else

Question 2

What does a metaphor represent?

Answer 2

It represents interaction of two cognitive structures or domains: the source domain and the targer demain.

Question 3

Why are metaphors effective in public communication?

Answer 3

Because they draw on the unconscious emotional associations of words and assumes values that are rooted in cultural and historical knowledge.

Question 4

Do metaphors arouse emotions?

Answer 4

Metaphors arouse emotions that can be used as the basis for evaluating political actoris and actions by offering persuasive representations of social groups and social issues.

Question 5

What’s the framing function of metaphors?

Answer 5

Metaphors provide frames for events and/or issues.
The purpose of metaphorical framing is to convey an abstract or complex idea in easier-to-comprehend terms by mapping characteristics of an abstract or complex source onto characteristics of a simpler or concrete target.

Question 6

Make an example to explain how metaphors work

Answer 6

Richard the Lion-Heart.
Target = Richard
Source= The lion’s heart
Basis of the resemblance = courage, strength, etc.
Evaluation = good

Question 7

What are similes? (4)

Answer 7

• They exploit the analogy of two deliberately very different things in the roles of target and source;
• They contain an explicit lexical signal of comparison;
• They are often accompanied by an “explaination” of why the source and target are supposedly similar;
• They are evaluative and so are often used to persuade.

Question 8

Make an example to explain how similes work

Answer 8

It fits like a glove.
We mean to say that something fits us perfectly. Similes, unlike metaphors, use words such as “like”, “as” or “than” in order to compare two unlike things.

Question 9

What is a metonymy?

Answer 9

It is a figure of speech in which the name of one object or entity or concept is used to refer to another to which it is somehow related. For example the Crown to indicate sovereignty, or the bottle to indicate alcoholic drink, to count heads meaning to count people.

Question 10

What is the aim of Critical Metaphor Analysis?

Answer 10

It aims to identify patterns in metaphor use. It identifies which metaphors are chosen in persuasive genres such as political speeches, party political manifestos or press reports and aims to ecplain why these metaphors are chosen.

Question 11

How does Critical Metaphor Analysis work in political discourses?

Answer 11

*In political discourse, this explanation involves demonstrating how metaphors are used systematically to create political myths and discourses of legitimization and delegitimization that give rise to ideologies and world views.

Question 12

What are the four recursive stages of critical analysis of metaphor?

Answer 12

1- contextual analysis
2- metaphor identification
3- metaphor intepretation
4- metaphor explaination

Question 13

What is contextual analysis?

Answer 13

A contextual analysis is an assessment of a genre to evaluate the historical and cultural settings. This type of analysis can be used to determine rhetorical situation to some degree.

Question 14

Why is contextual analysis important?

Answer 14

In order to formulate research questions about metaphor an awareness of its potential for rhetorical impact in social and political contexts is necessary.

Question 15

What is Metaphor Identification?

Answer 15

It entails deciding what to count as a metaphor in the context of the speech.
“At the identification stage, metaphors can be grouped into preliminary categories such as ‘novel’ and ‘conventional’”.

Question 16

What is metaphor interpretation?

Answer 16

It entails deciding how to classify, organize and arrange metaphors.
Classification of metaphors on the basis of the literal meaning of their words: organizing by source domain.
Classification on the basis of what metaphors refer to in context: organising by target domain

Question 17

What are the approaches to the Classification of Metaphors? (3)

Answer 17

-local systematicity: identify patterns in a single speech
-discourse systematicity: identify patterns within the same discourse (e.g. in the same genre)
-global systematicity: identify patterns in large general corpora such as the British National Corpus (BNC)

Question 18

What are the types of metaphors? (3)

Answer 18

-Novel metaphors
-Conventional metaphors
-Entrenched metaphors

This categorization should be viewed as a continuum, metaphors are novel, then conventional and finally become entrenched

Question 19

What metaphors can we find in political speeches?

Answer 19

In political speeches, most metaphors are either conventional or entrenched. Novel metaphors prevail in literary or artistic genres.

Question 20

How do metaphors occur in POlitical / Ideological discourse?

Answer 20

They typically occur in phrases or collocations rather than as separate words.
Ideologically interesting metaphors are those who have become conventional collocations through recurrent use

Question 21

What is the most conspicuous aspect of Covid-19 communication?

Answer 21

The most conspicuous aspect of COVID-19 communication is the systematic recourse to metaphors, which has been so pervasive and intensive that it has attracted most scholarly attention by anthropologists, sociologists, communication experts, researchers in cultural studies, linguists and discourse analysts, and has also been an object of public debate

Question 22

Why were metaphors so widely used during Covid-19?

Answer 22

Metaphor “use[s] the better known to elucidate the less known” (Black 1962: 240).
As a consequence, metaphors are widely used for popular exposition: scientists and journalists often rely on this figure of speech as a device for science communication, especially when it deals with novel entities or phenomena.

Question 23

What are the tools used in the Pandemic COntext?

Answer 23

Cognitive tool and Framing tool

Question 24

What is the cognitive tool used for?

Answer 24

It is used to conceptualize unfamiliar notions.
Feb-May 2020: the press featured 30% more metaphorical uses than in Oct-Dec 2020. “[I]n the initial stages of the pandemic it was necessary to come to terms with the disease”

Question 25

What is the Framing tool?

Answer 25

It is the choice of the source domain highlights some aspects of the target domain and tends to obfuscate others (i.e. it activates different ways of understanding and reasoning about things)

Question 26

What can we talk about Conventionalised metaphors?

Answer 26

“ ..when particular uses of metaphor become the dominant way of talking about a particular aspect of reality within a particular discourse, they may be extremely difficult to perceive and challenge, since they come to represent the ’common sense’, ‘normal’ view of things.

Question 27

Make an example of visual metaphors

Answer 27

Traffic lights. Using the same colors of the semaphor to indicate on a map different types or areas, a metaphor widely used during Covid-19

Question 28

What is important to know about PM Boris Johnson and Covid-19? (5)

Answer 28

*Boris Johnson initially kept Britain open, opting for more targeted measures.
*“His government has said that mass closures will not halt the outbreak, and that exposing a large segment of the population will help build immunity and limit future infections” (herd immunity) (NYT, March 13 2020).
*On April 5th he was hospitalized with virus (tested positive on March 27th)
*He delivered 32 speeches between March and November 2020
*He addressed the nation on Covid plans, lockdown instructions

Question 29

What metaphors did Boris Johnson use during the Covid-19? (2)

Answer 29

War: action against the virus is war (social care staff is working rielessly on the frontline)
Sport: action against the virus is a game (these kits have the potential to be a total gamechanger)

Question 30

What difference can we see in Boris Johnson’s speech during the firts and then the second covid wave?

Answer 30

During the first wave Johnson employs more metaphors (metaphor as a cognition tool). During the first wave Italy was the sick man of Europe while during the second wave the UK took that role.
First wave: covid is an invisible enemy.
Second wave: covid is a force of nature.

Question 31

Does Boris Johnson use many metaphors?

Answer 31

“As a journalist, Boris Johnson is an inveterate metaphor addict, and, while even fellow politicians find him untrustworthy and duplicitous, some of those who read his articles are addicted to their mixture of humour, moral reasoning and linguistic originality, as well as to moral intuitions that correspond with their own values”

Question 32

When did Boris Johnson go on tv to talk about covid-19?

Answer 32

September 22nd, 2020.

Question 33

When did Donald Trump talk about covid-19 during a Daily conference?

Answer 33

March 23rd, 2020.

Question 34

Why do politicians say that action against covid is war?

Answer 34

By choosing to frame the pandemic in military terms, governments are clearly trying to communicate the gravity of this public-health crisis—one that requires the type of state intervention and personal sacrifice most nations haven’t experienced in peacetime.
War metaphors call for mobilization, for action, for doing something. […] In this pandemic, governments are asking people to do the opposite: to forgo normal routines and avoid going outside. Put simply, to do nothing.

Question 35

Is the metaphor of war used in other contexts?

Answer 35

War metaphors are systematically used in public communications to talk about sets of policies or concerted efforts to contrast certain problems (war on drugs, war on obesity,…) and to bring certain phenomena under control.

Question 36

What is the #ReframeCovis?

Answer 36

The Lancaster group launched an appeal to find non-war related metaphors “which encourage people to stick to the rules while enabling them to have hope”