THE POPULARISATION OF SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS IN THE PRESS: DEFINITIONS BY METAPHOR

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has represented a fundamental ‘discursive moment’ (Moirand) in recent decades;in particular, this event has put to the test the shared concepts of ‘scientific truth’ (Charaudeau) and ‘expertise’ (Vicari). This period has also been marked by unprecedented activity in the popularisation of specialised concepts, linked to the fields of medicine and biology, and also to the fields of economics and social life, notably through media channels (press, radio, television, the Internet and social networks). The explanation of highly technical notions, as well as of new terms resulting from the pandemic, has often taken various forms, among which defining strategies play a major role. Our contribution aims to highlight the framing function that metaphor can play when it is used as an instrument to define a scientific concept (Rossi). To this end, we analyse a corpus of the French and Italian press from 2020 and 2021, detecting the metaphors used to define the reformulations of concepts related to the pandemic. © 2022 Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL. All Rights Reserved.