From an invisible enemy to a football match with the virus: Adjusting the Covid-19 pandemic metaphors to political agendas in Serbian public discourse

Moć I Funkcije Metafora U Pandemijskom Diskursu

“…Metaphor has been a powerful cognitive and strategic communication instrument of dominant participants in the pandemic discourse, which has already been attested by multiple studies conducted so far (e.g. Musolff et al, 2022;Nerlich, 2020;Olza et al, 2021;Semino, 2021;Silaški & Đurović, 2022aSilaški & Đurović, , 2022bWicke & Bolognesi, 2020). This paper deals with metaphors in the pandemic discourse in Serbia, which I define here as a public discourse of political elites and health experts used during 2020 and 2021 including both the primary pandemic discourse (public addresses of politicians and those of medical experts during the regular sessions of the national Crisis response team) as well as the secondary pandemic discourse (that of the media reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic).…”

“…Interesantan je i iznenadni konceptualni prelazak na metafore sporta u pandemijskom diskursu u Srbiji u trenutku kad je to odgovaralo političkim elitama. Naime, premda su od samog početka pandemije rado pribegavale metafori rata i bogatom instrumentariju pojmovnih preslikavanja između rata i pandemije, što je njeno najizrazitije svojstvo, došlo je do iznenadnog i neočekivanog zaokreta ka drugoj, premda bliskoj, metafori -agresivni aspekti metafore rata zamenjeni su mekšim, suptilnijim i manje konfrontacionim aspektima metafore sporta (Silaški & Đurović, 2022a). Ovakav neočekivan i vrlo verovatno svesno izabran konceptualni zaokret posledica je izmenjenog društveno-političkog konteksta, te hitne potrebe da se ublaži ozbiljnost epidemiološke situacije i stanovništvo ubedi kako je potpuno bezbedno izaći na izbore koji je najpre trebalo da se održe 20. aprila 2020, ali koji su zbog pandemije odloženi i konačno održani dva meseca kasnije, 21. juna 2020, i to uprkos očigledno prisutnim rizicima po javno zdravlje i jasnih upozorenja pojedinih medicinskih stručnjaka o opasnostima kojima se glasači izlažu.…”

It’s Like Being Hit by a Tsunami: The use of the natural force Metaphor for Conceptualising the COVID-19 Pandemic in English and Serbian

“…This paper explores the conceptualisation of yet another crisis, a public health crisis -the COVID-19 pandemic. The papers produced so far on the same topic (Musolff et al, 2022;Nerlich, 2020;Olza et al, 2021;Semino, 2021;Wicke & Bolognesi, 2020) reveal that (a) the pandemic also tends to be heavily talked about and conceived of through metaphors, and that (b) the discourse around the COVID-19 pandemic excessively draws on the WAR metaphor 1 which, as it has been demonstrated (Musolff et al, 2022;Olza et al, 2021;Silaški & Đurović, 2022;Wicke & Bolognesi, 2020), cannot successfully draw on all the aspects of the pandemic particularly under different conditions of this, inter alia, social process. This has emphasised the need for detecting other metaphors and for investigating their potential in framing "complex, destabilising and long-term phenomena such as a global pandemic" (Olza et al, 2021: 117).…”

Metaphors across languages, cultures and discourses: A research agenda

“…Moreover, metaphors can possess explanatory power in scenarios related to complex topics. They provide a bridge between scientific or technical information and the general public by making abstract concepts more relatable through familiar concepts and language (Abdel-Raheem & Alkhammash 2022, Augé 2021, Charteris-Black 2021, Silaški & Đurović 2022. This explanatory function of metaphor aids in simplifying complex ideas, making them more accessible and persuasive to a wider audience, and can influence public perception and decision-making in areas such as politics, immigration, vaccine discourse and others (e.g., Flusberg et al 2017, Nisbet 2009, Schnell & Ervas 2022, van der Hel et al 2018).…”

“…В дискурсе, тематикой которого являются сложные или специфичные понятия и явления, на первое место выходит объяснительная функция метафоры. Она является ключом к пониманию научной и технической терминологии, репрезентируя сложные и абстрактные концепты с помощью известных и конкретных образов (Abdel-Raheem & Alkhammash 2022, Augé 2021, Charteris-Black 2021, Silaški & Đurović 2022. Объяснительный потенциал метафоры позволяет адаптировать текст, ориентировать его на определенного адресата, передавать «сложное» и «абстрактное» в доступной и понятной форме, что оказывает непосредственное влияние как на формирование общественного мнения, так и на принятие решений в таких типах дискурса, как политический дискурс, иммиграционный дискурс, дискурс вакцинации в условиях пандемии и других (Flusberg et al 2017, Nisbet 2009, Schnell & Ervas 2022, van der Hel et al 2018.…”