Par dažām vakcīnas pret Covid-19 apzīmēšanai lietotajām metaforām

Abstract

The article deals with metaphors that have positive emotional connotations and those that are connotationally negative, as were used during the COVID-19 pandemic to label the vaccine against this disease and helped officials, journalists, social media users and commentators of articles on internet portals to create a positive or a negative attitude of the society towards the vaccine. The study contrasts metaphors that characterize the vaccine as something desirable, expected (saved lives, a ray of hope, etc.) or a means (tool) to achieve something desired (magic wand, magic ticket) vs. dysphemistic metaphors that describe the vaccine as a low-quality, unnecessary, dangerous thing, including gastronomic ones (instant soup, kefir, porridge, foul drink, etc.) and names of deadly things (poison, death, cancer dose, euthanasia load; poisoner, killer, etc.). The article does not discuss vaccine designations, in which the author of the article does not see any figurative, metaphorical meaning (for example, a chip, a trigger for a lurking disease) or where the meaning is not readily understood (for example, the biblical mark of the beast), although such designations with negative connotations have been used to form a negative attitude towards the vaccine. Connotationally positive metaphors describing the vaccine as something desirable that were used in an official communication to generate positive opinions have been found to have hallmarks of the solemn emotional expressive style, but metaphors that define the vaccine as a means for achieving something desirable and used in informal communication have been used with ironic emotional expression, thereby contributing to a negative treatment of the vaccine. Dysphemistic metaphors show only a negative attitude towards the vaccine, a delicately hidden or incisive jab, a typical attribute of the ironic or satirical emotionally expressive style. Such metaphors also contain informal vocabulary (colloquialisms, slang and jargon words, vulgarisms) and dialectal words with a negative connotation. This is also a feature of both the ironic and the satirical emotionally expressive styles. The Lithuanian and German examples for the groups of metaphors discussed in the article show that such metaphors are not exclusive to the Latvian language alone.