A Critical Analysis Of War Framing Metaphor In News Reports On The COVID-19 Epidemic By People’s Daily

In 2020,novel coronavirus pneumonia outbroke over the world which has caused a constellation of political conflicts,economic depressions and social disorders.The COVID-19epidemic has been metaphorically defined as a war in news reports on this public health emergency.Why is WAR METAPHOR selected by reporters to describe the epidemic?Extant research on WAR METAPHOR focuses on the cognitive mechanism of production and comprehension of pragmatic functions from a single perspective.However,metaphor is a complex linguistic phenomenon,which is influenced by cognition,communication and culture.Thus,this study aims to explore reasons for WAR METAPHOR in news reports on COVID-19 epidemic in terms of Critical Framing Metaphor Analysis which integrates Critical Metaphor Analysis and Framing Theory from comprehensive perspectives through quantitative and qualitative analysis of metaphorical military words.To realize this purpose,this thesis proposes two specific questions as follows.1)What are features of WAR METAPHOR’s surface frames in news reports on the COVID-19 epidemic in the People’s Daily in terms of frequency and category as well as cooccurring frames?2)Why is WAR METAPHOR applied in news reports on the COVID-19 epidemic in the People’s Daily?This thesis collected 610 issues of epidemic news reports in People’s Daily from January21^st to May 31^st,2020,and adopted NVivo12 to encode metaphorical military words into Agent,Action,Patient,Result,Place,Capacity,Type and Situation categories.Moreover,Excel was used to graph the tendency of the frequency of metaphorical military words diachronically,and cooccurring frames of“zujizhan”（the blocking action）are identified as an example for further analysis of reasons for using WAR METAPHOR.The results are divided into two dimensions including features of WAR METAPHOR and reasons for using WAR METAPHOR.There are three features of WAR METAPHOR.Firstly,the frequency of metaphorical military words was consistent with the severity of the epidemic situation.Secondly,metaphorical military words expressing Type,Result,Action were frequently used.Thirdly,“zujizhan”（the blocking action）cooccurs with Result frame,Confidence frame and People frame frequently.In terms of features of WAR METAPHOR,there are three main kinds of motivations for using it including cognitive motivation,communicative motivation and ideological motivation.Firstly,cognitive motivation refers to the fact that metaphor is a way of thinking for the human being.Secondly,communicative intentions include the expression of attitudes and the realization of communicative intentions.Attitudes conveyed by WAR METAPHOR include the concern about the epidemic situation,the praise for the spirit possessed by medical staff and the epidemic prevention personnel,the affirmative attitude towards the leadership of the Communist Party,and the determination in controlling the epidemic situation.Communicative intentions include reconstructing the social reality of the epidemic to make the public have the sense of crisis,alleviating the anxiety among the public,and appealing for the solidarity in fighting with the epidemic.Thirdly,ideological motivations include enhancing collectivism,patriotism and humanitarianism.To some extent,ideologies influence people’s attitudes towards events,things,persons.Attitudes can trigger the emotional resonance with others to realize communicative intentions.Moreover,communicative intentions determine the selection of WAR METAPHOR,because metaphors are used to do something rather than to say something.