A Comparative Study of COVID-19 Metaphors in Chinese and Foreign Media Discourse

Abstract

Traditional metaphor studies only analyze metaphor as a common linguistic phenomenon, thinking that metaphor is only a rhetorical phenomenon that modifies discourse. In fact, as Lakoff said, metaphor is a universal phenomenon, it is everywhere, Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Lakoff’s conceptual metaphor theory is a new breakthrough for the linguistics community. Metaphor has since got rid of the shackles of traditional rhetoric, and has officially embarked on the road of investigation and research in cognitive linguistics and cognitive science. Lakoff said, “The essence of metaphor is under-standing and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” There are many things in our real life that need to be expressed urgently, but due to the limitations of our thinking, the narrowness of our understanding or the accomplishments, the lack of expression makes us have to use metaphors to understand one thing from another. In 2020, COVID-19 broke out globally, and the major media of China and Western housing rushed to report the outbreak of COVID-19. It is impacting on economic and cultural life from all-round levels. The article studies COVID-19 from the perspective of conceptual metaphors, and aims to explore the kinds of conceptual metaphors. This article selects the two books of China Economic Weekly and The Economist as the research objects with some reports on COVID-19 in 2020, explores the conceptual metaphors related to COVID-19. The study has the following three findings: 1. In China Economic Weekly’s report on COVID-19, conceptual metaphors contain war metaphors and human metaphor. 2. In The Economist’s report on COVID-19, the mainstream reports mainly coverage war metaphor. 3. Understanding the similarities and differences in Chinese and foreign media of the conceptual metaphors on COVID-19 in the discourse. The purpose of this research is to provide readers with better ideas for understanding discourse reports, and to understand ideological concepts from a deeper perspective.