How do media talk about the COVID-19 pandemic? Metaphorical thematic clustering in Italian online newspapers

Research output: Chapter in Book/Published conference outputChapter

Abstract

The contribution presents a study on figurative language from the first months of the COVID-19 crisis in Italian online newspapers. Particularly, we contrast topics and metaphorical language used by journalists in the first and second phases of the government response to the pandemic in Spring 2020. The analysis is conducted on a journalistic corpus collected between February 24th and June 3rd, 2020, and is performed using both quantitative and qualitative approaches: Structural Topic Modelling (Roberts et al., 2016); Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980); and qualitative-corpus based metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004). We find a significant shift in topics discussed across Phase 1 and Phase 2, and interesting overlaps in topic-specific metaphors. Using qualitative corpus analysis, we further discuss metaphorical collocations of the topics of Economy and Society.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCOVID-19: Metaphor and metonymy across languages and cultures
EditorsXu Wen, Wei-lun Lu, Joe Lennon , Zoltán Kövecses 
PublisherJohn Benjamins
Chapter1
Pages10-39
ISBN (Electronic)9789027244598
ISBN (Print)9789027228253 (hbk)
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2025

Publication series

NameMetaphor in Language, Cognition and Communication
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Number11
ISSN (Electronic)2210-4836

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