Conceptual Metaphor in COVID-19 Speeches of the American President Joe Biden

Abstract

This qualitative and quantitative study aims at shedding the light on the use of metaphor in COVID-19 speeches of the American President Joe Biden. Metaphor is considered to be one of the common linguistic strategies that are pervasively used in different types of discourse including speech. This study focuses on analyzing metaphor according to their source domains and to investigate their functions using Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) as a semantic cognitive approach. As opposed to the decorative approach, CMT states that metaphor “plays a central role in thought, and is indispensable to both thought and language” (Degani, 2005). This approach was first elaborated by Lakoff and Johnson and is the most accepted theory that relates metaphor to cognition. The study aims at answering the following questions: (1) What are the most frequent source-domain categories of conceptual metaphors used in COVID-19 speeches of Joe Biden?; (2) What is the density of metaphor in various speeches delivered by Joe Biden? and finally (3) What are the main functions of metaphors found in Biden’s speeches? The findings revealed that the most common used source domains are Unity, Object, person, spatial and War metaphors, respectively. Moreover, the study has found that Urges America to Wear Masks is denser in metaphor than COVID-19 Response& Vaccine and Biden's Speech on Corona Virus. Finally, metaphor is used for several functions such as simplifying, convincing people and for emotive functions.