Under the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the global extent, COVID-19 has become one of the most prevalent topics in news discourses through the use of conceptual metaphors. The current study attempted to explore how COVID-19 was conceptualized in the metaphors in English and Vietnamese online newspapers. In order to obtain research objectives, the Conceptual Metaphorical Theory (CMT) was employed by the researchers. Two online English (The New York Times and The Guardian) and two Vietnamese newspapers (Dan Tri and VnExpress) were the sources of data with 80 articles (20 articles for each). Accordingly, a manual corpus of COVID-19 conceptual framework and the Master Metaphor List of WAR were used for close analysis. Analysis of data revealed that the WAR frame was used to conceptualize COVID-19 in news discourses through the metaphors: “The pandemic is an enemy”, “The body is a battleground”, “Infection is an attack by the pandemic”, “Medicine is a weapon”, “Medical procedures are attacks by the patient”, “Winning the war is being cured of the pandemic”, and “Losing the war is dying”. Based on research findings, the implications for the appropriate use of COVID-19 conceptual metaphors in news discourses for the communication purposes were generated.
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Under the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the global extent, COVID-19 has become one of the most prevalent topics in news discourses through the use of conceptual metaphors. The current study attempted to explore how COVID-19 was conceptualized in the metaphors in English and Vietnamese online newspapers. In order to obtain research objectives, the Conceptual Metaphorical Theory (CMT) was employed by the researchers. Two online English (The New York Times and The Guardian) and two Vietnamese newspapers (Dan Tri and VnExpress) were the sources of data with 80 articles (20 articles for each). Accordingly, a manual corpus of COVID-19 conceptual framework and the Master Metaphor List of WAR were used for close analysis. Analysis of data revealed that the WAR frame was used to conceptualize COVID-19 in news discourses through the metaphors: “The pandemic is an enemy”, “The body is a battleground”, “Infection is an attack by the pandemic”, “Medicine is a weapon”, “Medical procedures are attacks by the patient”, “Winning the war is being cured of the pandemic”, and “Losing the war is dying”. Based on research findings, the implications for the appropriate use of COVID-19 conceptual metaphors in news discourses for the communication purposes were generated.
