Metaphors of Coronavirus Invisible Enemy or Zombie Apocalypse?

This 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.

1. The Moral Frames and Coronavirus.- 2. Metaphors of the Pandemic: War.- 3. Metaphors of the Pandemic: Fire and Force of Nature.- 4. The Pandemic as Zombie Apocalypse.- 5. Epidemiology: Science, and Metaphor.- 6. Disease, Confinement & Language.- 7. ‘Bubbles’, ‘Cocoons’. The ‘Protective Ring’ and the ‘Petri Dish’: The Containment Frame and the Pandemic.- 8. Metonyms of the Pandemic.- 9. Magic, Miracle Cures and Metaphoric Thought in the Anti-Vaccine Movement.- 10. Honesty and Dishonesty in Pandemic Language.

Jonathan Charteris-Black is Professor of Linguistics at the University of the West of England, UK. His research interests include metaphor, rhetoric and political discourse.