Siamo in Cura, non in Guerra: WAR metaphors, political discourse, and evaluation during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The present paper analyses political tweets regarding the Covid-19 crisis. It focuses on four leaders-Trump, Johnson, Sánchez, and Conte-and in a particular time frame March 2020. The goal of this paper is twofold on the one hand, it endeavours to confirm whether war metaphors are pervasive in the discourse of the pandemic, on the other, it seeks to transcend the conceptual approach to metaphor and situate it within the context of evaluation in discourse. In order to do so, once war metaphors are individuated, we identify the evaluative processes implied in their use. Our claim is that war metaphors played an essential role not only by framing a novel situation as a conflict, but also by allowing the situation to be evaluated in a way that would provoke the audience to act. © Peter Lang Group AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2023. All rights reserved.