Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the metaphors used in public and media communication to ask how language shapes our moral reasoning about the global coronavirus crisis. The author offers insights into the metaphors, metonyms, allegories and symbols of the global crisis and examines how they have contributed to policy formation and communication. Combining metaphor theory with moral foundations theory, he places metaphors in their historical contexts, and then critically questions why certain tropes might be used in particular situations to persuade and convince an audience. The book takes an integrated approach, involving ideas from cognitive linguistics, history, social psychology and literature to produce a multi-layered and thematically rich interpretation of the language of the pandemic and its social and political consequences. It will be relevant to readers with a background in these areas, as well as anyone with a general interest in the language used to make sense of this global event.
Trade Review“This book has many strengths and is an important and valuable contribution to cognitive linguistics and political communication fields, which obviously benefits from contemporary relevance to the ongoing crisis. Metaphors of Coronavirus is well worth reading by anyone – academic or lay person – with an interest in understanding the linguistic and communicative dynamics of the Coronavirus pandemic. … The takeaway message of this book is, for me, that metaphor is simply a linguistic tool and is not inherently dishonest.” (Emily Faux, Journal of Language and Politics, Vol. 21 (6), 2022)
Table of Contents1. The Moral Frames and Coronavirus2. Metaphors of the Pandemic: War3. Metaphors of the Pandemic: Fire and Force of Nature4. The Pandemic as Zombie Apocalypse5. Epidemiology: Science, and Metaphor6. Disease, Confinement & Language7. ‘Bubbles’, ‘Cocoons’. The ‘Protective Ring’ and the ‘Petri Dish’: The Containment Frame and the Pandemic8. Metonyms of the Pandemic9. Magic, Miracle Cures and Metaphoric Thought in the Anti-Vaccine Movement10. Honesty and Dishonesty in Pandemic Language
