Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic declared in March 2020 has caused a global crisis not only in the health, economic and psychological spheres but also in the cognitive do-main. Due to the rapid exchange of information in the electronic media, the “new reality” has emerged in clear outlines in just a few weeks. The virus has been described in both international and Bulgarian media mostly figuratively, by means of known conceptual metaphors. The language material for this study was excerpted from items published on the news websites dir.bg, blitz.bg and novini.bg over the period March – July 2020 – the time of the most heated public de-bates, in which the metaphorical concept of COVID-19 took its basic shape. The rich illustrative material allows for a relatively complete reconstruction of the concept, one that highlights elements both universal and specific to the Bulgarian linguistic picture of the world. The figurative representation is interpreted within a particular stylistic frame-work defined by a specific speech strategy. Keywords: the concept of COVID-19, metaphorical representation, Bulgarian me-dia discourse

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