The use of COVID-19 metaphors in British tabloids and broadsheet newspapers
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2021-06-06
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nl
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This study investigates the metaphor use of British tabloids and broadsheet newspapers regarding the COVID-19 virus. Investigating metaphors about COVID-19 provides an opportunity to gain new theoretical insights: as the virus is such a new phenomenon, not much is yet known about the ways in which it is talked about. A corpus of 200 newspaper articles was analysed by using the MIP procedure and by identifying eight different metaphor domains (war, sports, journey, weather events or natural disasters, fire, animal, healthcare and other/original). Findings indicate that overall, the most frequently used type of metaphor is the other/original type of metaphor. In this study, tabloids were statistically more inclined to using other/original metaphors, and a marginally significant difference was found for their use of war metaphors. However, more research using a more extensive corpus and a more specified codebook is necessary in order to be fully conclusive.
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