Cover not available

Article published In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 21:2 (2023) ► pp.444–468

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

From a war of defense to conventional wars

Military metaphors for COVID-19 containment in Chinese documentaries

 | Guilin University of Technology
 | Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Published online: 2 March 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00141.tan
Abstract
The present longitudinal study investigates how the entailments of war metaphors evolve in different stages of COVID-19 containment in China using data from three documentaries made by Xinhua News Agency. A social semiotic model of multimodal metaphor analysis is adopted to analyze the military metaphors systematically in terms of semantic choice, multimodal realization, and context. The war framing is found as the pivotal rhetoric to conceptualize China’s response toward COVID-19 but distinctive features are attributed over time with a focus shifting from the “inevitability” in the initial stage to societal reactions in the later stage. In addition, socio-cultural factors embodied in multimodality not only efficiently guide the public to reason about the situation but also socialize the population to self-disciplining for the sake of everyone’s interest.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1China’s fight against COVID-19
    • 2.2COVID-19 and military metaphors
  • 3.Theoretical basis
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Materials for the study
    • 4.2Data collection
  • 5.Analysis
    • 5.1Analysis of discourse semantics
      • 5.1.1Participants
      • 5.1.2Parts
      • 5.1.3Stages
    • 5.2Analysis of semiotic elements
      • 5.2.1Semiotic resources
      • 5.2.2Conceptual interaction
    • 5.3Analysis of context
      • 5.3.1Social situation
      • 5.3.2Collective historical memory
      • 5.3.3Culture of family-nation sentiment
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (55)
References
Boon, K. A. (2005). Heroes, metanarratives, and the paradox of masculinity in contemporary western culture. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 13(3), 301–312. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bounegru, L., & Forceville, C. (2011). Metaphors in editorial cartoons representing the global financial crisis. Visual Communication, 10(2), 209–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Catalano, T., & Musolff, A. (2019). “Taking the shackles off”: Metaphor and metonymy of migrant children and border officials in the US. metaphorik.de, 291, 11–46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). Analyzing political speeches: Rhetoric, discourse and metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
China Youth Daily. (2014). 那些浸润在家国情怀中的爱国观 [Patriotism as shown in the family-nation sentiment]. Available at: [URL]. (accessed 20 October 2021).
Cipolletta, S., & Ortu, M. C. (2021). COVID-19: common constructions of the pandemic and their implications. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 34(3), 278–294. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cox, C. L. (2020). ‘Healthcare Heroes’: Problems with media focus on heroism from healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Medical Ethics, 46(8), 510–513. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erlanger, S. (2020). Macron declares France ‘at war’ with virus, as E.U. proposes 30-day travel ban. The New York Times. Available at: [URL]. (Accessed 20 October 2021).
Feng, D. (2019). Analyzing multimodal Chinese discourse integrating social semiotic and conceptual metaphor theories. In S. Chris (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of Chines discourse analysis (pp. 65–81). London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forceville, C. (2009). Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cognitivist framework: Agendas for research. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp.19–42). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gedi, N., & Elam, Y. (1996). Collective memory – what is it?. History and Memory, 8(1), 30–50.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gillis, M. (2020). Ventilators, missiles, doctors, troops…the justification of legislative responses to COVID-19 through military metaphors. Law and Humanities, 14(2), 135–159. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Godioli, A., & Pedrazzini, A. (2019). Falling stars and sinking ships: Framing and metaphor in cartoons about Brexit. Journal of European Studies, 49(3–4), 302–323. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guo, J. (2020). Inter-Artistic plague narratives and the cultural differences between China and the west. Cultura International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology, 17(2), 117–127. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haiwainet. (2018). 习近平:把实现家庭梦融入民族复兴梦之中 [Xi Jinping: Integrating realization of family dream into national rejuvenation]. Haiwainet, 13 December. Available at: [URL]. (Accessed 5 December 2021).
Hart, C. (2010). Critical discourse and cognitive science: New perspectives on immigration discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). Metaphor and the (1984–85) miners’ strike: A multimodal analysis. Discourses of disorder: Riots, strikes and protests in the Media, 133–153.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jia, Z., Xu, L., & Meng, N. (2020). Xi vows to win people’s war against novel coronavirus. Xinhuanet. Available from: [URL]. (Accessed 20 October 2021).
Johnson, M. (1983). Metaphorical Reasoning. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 21(3), 371–389. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1993). Moral imagination: Implications of cognitive science for ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khan, Z., Iwai, Y., & DasGupta, S. (2021). Military metaphors and pandemic propaganda: unmasking the betrayal of ‘Healthcare Heroes’. Journal of Medical Ethics, 47(9), 643–644. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koller, V. (2004). Metaphor and gender in business media discourse: A critical cognitive study. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Book.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (2002). Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCullough, M. E., Kilpatrick, S. D., Emmons, R. A., & Larson, D. B. (2001). Is gratitude a moral affect?. Psychological bulletin, 127(2), 249–266. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Musolff, A. (2004). Metaphor and political discourse: Analogical reasoning in debates about Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Metaphor scenarios in public discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 21(1), 23–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Political metaphor analysis: Discourse and scenarios. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nichols, B. (2010). Introduction to documentary. Indiana: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oprysko, C., & Luthi, S. (2020). Trump labels himself ‘a wartime president’ combating coronavirus. Politico. Available from: [URL]. (Accessed 20 October 2021).
Oswick, C., Grant, D., & Oswick, R. (2020). Categories, crossroads, control, connectedness, continuity, and change: A metaphorical exploration of COVID-19. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 56(3), 284–288. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rajandran, K. (2020). ‘A Long Battle Ahead’: Malaysian and Singaporean prime ministers employ war metaphors for COVID-19. Journal of Language Studies, 20(3), 261–267. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rawlinson, K. (2020). “This enemy can be deadly”: Boris Johnson invokes wartime language. The Guardian. Available from: [URL]. (Accessed 20 October 2021).
Rohela, P., Bhan, A., & Ravindranath, D., Leena Bose, D., & Pathare, S. (2020). Must there be a “war” against coronavirus. Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, 5(3) 222–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz de Mendoza, F. & Galera-Masegosa, A. (2011). Going beyond metaphtonymy: Metaphoric and metonymic complexes in phrasal verb interpretation. Language Value, 3(1),1–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sabucedo, J. M., Alzate, M., & Hur, D. (2020). COVID-19 and the metaphor of war. International Journal of Social Psychology, 35(3), 618–624. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Salgado, F. (2020). Parálisis económica y zumbido politico [Economic paralysis and political buzz]. Available from [URL]. (Accessed 26 March 2022)
Semino, E. (2008). Metaphor in discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sobrino, P. P. (2017). Multimodal metaphor and metonymy in advertising. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stibbe, A. (2013). The corporation as person and psychopath: Multimodal metaphor, rhetoric and resistance. CADADD Journal, 6(2), 114–136.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stockwell, P. (1999). Towards a critical cognitive linguistics. In A. Combrink & I. Bierman (Eds.), Discourses of war and conflict (pp. 510–528). Potchefstroom: Potchefstroom University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China (2020). Fighting Covid-19 China in Action. Available at: [URL] (accessed 15 December 2021).
Van Dooren, W., & Noordegraaf, M. (2020). Staging science: Authoritativeness and fragility of models and measurement in the COVID-19 crisis. Public Administration Review, 80(4), 610–615. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, I. F. (2020). Beyond the military metaphor: Comparing antimicrobial resistance and the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 7(2), 261–272. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wen, J., Aston, J., Liu, X., & Ying, T. (2020). Effects of misleading media coverage on public health crisis: A case of the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in China. Anatolia, 31(2), 331–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
WHO. (2020). Report of the WHO-China joint mission on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Available at: [URL]. (accessed 24, March 2022).
Wu, Y. (2007 [1642]). 瘟疫论 [Treatise on plague]. Tianjin: Tianjin Science and Technology Publisher.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yu, N. (2011). Beijing Olympics and Beijing opera: A multimodal metaphor in a CCTV Olympics commercial. Cognitive Linguistics, 22(3), 595–628. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yu, Yating. (2022). Legitimizing a global fight for a shared future: A critical metaphor analysis of the reportage of Covid-19 in China Daily. In A. Musolff, R. Breeze, K. Kondo & S. Vilar-Lluch (Eds.), Pandemic and crisis discourse: Communicating COVID-19 and public health strategy (pp. 241–254). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Yang, Kaiwen & Ya Sun
2025. To change or not to change: Transformations of ecological metaphors in Chinese government microblogs. Discourse & Society 36:2 ► pp. 310 ff. DOI logo
Li, Ke, Yanyu Wang & Shukang Li
2024. The construction of anti-pandemic image: a semiotic study of the role metaphors play in pandemic discourse in China. Language and Semiotic Studies 10:4 ► pp. 480 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue