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In:Crises We Live By: A transdisciplinary study of crisis and its metaphors in their cultural context
Edited by Irene Leonardis
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 20] 2026
► pp. 40–67

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Are different ‘crises we live by’ metaphorically conceptualised in different ways?

A convergent approach to crisis metaphors in media discourse

 | University of Bologna
Published online: 5 February 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.20.02lup
Abstract
‘Crisis’ is among the most pervasive concepts of our time: we are living through a ‘permacrisis’. In times of crisis, metaphors flourish, with their capacity to frame events in different ways. A growing body of research investigates the metaphors used to communicate, and conceptualise, individual contemporary crises. This chapter argues the need to overcome fragmentation in crisis metaphor research and move towards a convergent approach, making sense of the common and diverging patterns in the metaphorical representations of the global societal challenges we are facing. Building especially on previous corpus work on crisis metaphors in media discourse, the chapter focuses on the metaphors used in relation to the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 health crisis in English, through a comparative perspective.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: On crisis and metaphor
  • 2.Permacrisis in a corpus perspective
  • 3.The global financial crisis: A ‘deep impact’
  • 4.The Covid-19 health crisis: ‘Fighting an invisible enemy’
  • 5.Discussion: A comparative outlook on the financial and the health crisis
  • 6.Conclusion: Towards a convergent approach: Current challenges and future perspectives
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
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