Multimodal metaphor (re)framing: a critical analysis of the promotional image of China’s Hubei Province in the post-pandemic era on new media

This study presents multimodal metaphors as (re)framing tools in the analysis of a 10-minute promotional video of Hubei Province produced by the Chinese government and circulated on new media platforms like YouTube, Douyin (Chinese Tik Tok) and WeChat Channels. The video introduces Hubei Province to the world in the pre-pandemic, pandemic and post-pandemic stage to erase the prejudiced “Wuhan virus” and “China virus” painted by Western media. Drawing upon MIPVU (the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universitei), multimodality of metaphors, and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study analyzes how the Chinese government attempts to reframe Hubei as a place of courage, prosperity and humanity via metaphors like WAR, BRIDGE, HAND and BACK. The benefits and drawbacks of such metaphor usage are also discussed with appropriate contextual and socio-cultural relevancies. The study provides a hands-on practice of the CDA-based analysis of multimodal metaphors and justifies the feasibility of integrating translation, metaphor and semiotic studies through the sociological theory of framing. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Social Semiotics is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

The US-China battle over Coronavirus in the news media: Metaphor transfer as a representation of stance mediation

Drawing upon a corpus approach to metaphor analysis, stance analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis, the study analyzes different stances taken by the Chinese news outlet Global Times (GT) and the American The New York Times (NYT) in 2020 Coronavirus narratives to Chinese and English readers. The database includes all Coronavirus-related GT and NYT bilingual opinion articles in 2020, that is, 97 pairs from GT and 73 pairs from NYT which are comparable in Chinese and English tokens. Results show that the differences between GT and NYT in narrating the pandemic and the involved parties, that is, China and the US, are statistically significant with a moderate to strong effect size. The Lambda test of association demonstrates that the knowledge of metaphor transfer methods can significantly increase the correctness of attitudinal intensity prediction, which bears out metaphor transfer as a representation of stance mediation.