Keyword – conceptual metaphor

Szabó, Lilla Petronella – Béni, Alexandra:

Virus wars

The Covid-19 pandemic posed a new challenge to the media, which needed to inform citizens about novel concepts such as the spread of the coronavirus, staying at home, or social distancing. Our research focused on how leading Hungarian news sites (24.hu, index.hu, origo.hu) communicated the Covid-19 pandemic and the measures against it during the first and the second waves of the infections in Hungary. We identified the metaphors applied in the news articles by means of the discourse dynamics approach. Metaphors are important because they show the way speakers think about concepts through the analysis of language use. Therefore, metaphors reveal the conceptual frames applied by the online media to coronavirus and the measures against the virus. Our results showed that, in line with the international trend, war metaphors (which depicted the virus as an enemy, against whom one must fight) were dominant in the observed news articles. In addition to the war rhetoric, the spread of coronavirus appeared as a ‘flood,’ and Hungary was depicted as a ‘machine.’

Keywords: coronavirus, conceptual metaphor, discourse-based metaphor identification, Covid-19, flood metaphor, machine metaphor, news portal, war rhetoric

Benczes, Réka – Szabó, Lilla Petronella – Virág, Ágnes:

It’s showtime: the politics is a show metaphor in the 2022 election campaign of Fidesz

According to the conceptual metaphor theory of the cognitive linguistic enterprise, we often interpret more abstract concepts in terms of more concrete concepts. Politics is such an abstract concept, which appeared via the concept of show in American culture in the second half of the 20th century. The politics is a show metaphor depicts politicians as the characters of a show, while voters appear as the viewers of the show. This metaphorical interpretation does not carry negative judgement. The politics is a show metaphor appeared in the Hungarian political discourse during the 2022 legislative election campaign in a video entitled Gyurcsány Show. The video interprets politics as a failed show; hence, a negative value judgement can be attributed to the advertisement. Our study explores how the metaphor conceptualising politics as a show (which does not necessarily carry a negative meaning in the American context) has been adapted to contemporary Hungarian politics and how it has acquired an evidently negative meaning in the Hungarian context.

Keywords: conceptual blending, conceptual metaphor, Fidesz, Hungary, negative campaign, political discourse