This book explores the metaphors used in public and media communication to ask how language shapes our moral reasoning about the global coronavirus crisis. The author offers insights into the metaphors, metonyms, allegories and symbols of the global crisis and examines how they have contributed to policy formation and communication. Combining metaphor theory with moral foundations theory, he places metaphors in their historical contexts, and then critically questions why certain tropes might be used in particular situations to persuade and convince an audience. The book takes an integrated approach, involving ideas from cognitive linguistics, history, social psychology and literature to produce a multi-layered and thematically rich interpretation of the language of the pandemic and its social and political consequences. It will be relevant to readers with a background in these areas, as well as anyone with a general interest in the language used to make sense of this global event.

This book explores the metaphors used in public and media communication to ask how language shapes our moral reasoning about the global coronavirus crisis. The author offers insights into the metaphors, metonyms, allegories and symbols of the global crisis and examines how they have contributed to policy formation and communication. Combining metaphor theory with moral foundations theory, he places metaphors in their historical contexts, and then critically questions why certain tropes might be used in particular situations to persuade and convince an audience. The book takes an integrated approach, involving ideas from cognitive linguistics, history, social psychology and literature to produce a multi-layered and thematically rich interpretation of the language of the pandemic and its social and political consequences. It will be relevant to readers with a background in these areas, as well as anyone with a general interest in the language used to make sense of this global event.

"In this timely, wide-ranging and inspiring book, Jonathan Charteris-Black provides detailed and critical insights into the key roles played by metaphor and metonymy in framing the debate around the Covid-19 pandemic. He shows how, through their strong appeal to emotion, metaphors and metonyms form part of an 'overt moral coercion' which reduces the agency of those living through the pandemic. This book deepens our understanding of the ways in which the use of metaphor and metonymy can be used to shape behaviour, providing important insights into the collective experience of the pandemic. The chapter on metonymy is particularly illuminating as it highlights the different ways in which thought and behaviour during the Pandemic have been influenced by this highly subtle and nuanced form of communication which has been employed both in verbal format and through the use of images." -Jeannette Littlemore, Professor of English Language and Applied Linguistics, University of Birmingham, UK "This is a highly engaging, personal and lucid analysis of the figurative language used in the COVID-19 pandemic to 'make sense' of its threat to society and of the chances to counter it. Using both corpus-based and experimental survey methods, Charteris-Black expertly analyses key metaphors, metonymies and allegories about the virus, its worldwide spread and its medical management and relates them to fundamental parameters of moral judgement, leading to fascinating new insights." -Andreas Musolff, Professor of Intercultural Communication, University of East Anglia, UK This book explores the metaphors used in public and media communication to ask how language shapes our moral reasoning about the global coronavirus crisis. The author offers insights into the metaphors, metonyms, allegories and symbols of the global crisis and examines how they have contributed to policy formation and communication. Combining metaphor theory with moral foundations theory, he places metaphors in their historical contexts, and then critically questions why certain tropes might be used in particular situations to persuade and convince an audience. The book takes an integrated approach, involving ideas from cognitive linguistics, history, social psychology and literature to produce a multi-layered and thematically rich interpretation of the language of the pandemic and its social and political consequences. It will be relevant to readers with a background in these areas, as well as anyone with a general interest in the language used to make sense of this global event. Jonathan Charteris-Black is Professor of Linguistics at the University of the West of England, UK. His research interests include metaphor, rhetoric and political discourse. .

Metaphor pervades discourse and may govern how we think and act. But most studies only discuss its verbal varieties. This book examines metaphors drawing on combinations of visuals, language, gestures, sound, and music. Investigated texts include ad

The current health situation has been described as chaotic and devastating. Humanity’s trust in the future and in its human capacity to overcome a disaster of such magnitude is even starting to wither away. If science still lacks a response to the pandemic, can the humanities offer something to cope with this situation? The world can adopt a historical perspective and realize that this is not the first time a global pandemic has struck. Issues including illness, suffering, endurance, resilience, human survival, etc. have been dealt with by literature, philosophy, psychology, and sociology throughout the ages and should be explored once again in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Handbook of Research on Historical Pandemic Analysis and the Social Implications of COVID-19 explores the issue of disease from a variety of philosophical, legal, historical, and social perspectives to offer both comprehension and consolation to the human psyche. This group of scholars within the fields of education, psychology, linguistics, history, and philosophy provides a comprehensive view of the humanities as it relates to the pandemic within the frame of human reaction to pain and calamity. This book also looks at the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on society in a multidisciplinary capacity that examines its effects in education, government, business, and more. Covering topics such as public health legislation, sociology, impacts on women, and population genetics, this book is essential for sociologists, psychologists, communications experts, historians, researchers, students, and academicians.

Virginia Woolf’s daring essay on how illness transforms our perception, plus an essay by Woolf’s mother from the caregiver’s perspective: “Revelatory.” —Booklist This new publication of “On Being Ill” with “Notes from Sick Rooms” presents Virginia Woolf and her mother, Julia Stephen, in textual conversation for the first time in literary history. In the poignant and humorous essay “On Being Ill,” Woolf observes that though illness is part of every human being’s experience, it is not celebrated as a subject of great literature in the way that love and war are embraced by writers and readers. We must, Woolf says, invent a new language to describe pain. Illness, she observes, enhances our perceptions and reduces self-consciousness; it is “the great confessional.” Woolf discusses the taboos associated with illness, and she explores how it changes our relationship to the world around us. “Notes from Sick Rooms,” meanwhile, addresses illness from the caregiver’s perspective. With clarity, humor, and pathos, Julia Stephen offers concrete information that remains useful to nurses and caregivers today. This edition also includes an introduction to “Notes from Sick Rooms” by Mark Hussey, founding editor of Woolf Studies Annual, and a poignant afterword by Rita Charon, MD, founder of the field of Narrative Medicine. In addition, Hermione Lee’s brilliant introduction to “On Being Ill” offers a superb overview of Woolf’s life and writing. “Woolf’s inquiry into illness and its impact on the mind is paired with her mother’s observations about caring for the body. Julia Stephen . . . had no professional training but took to heart Florence Nightingale’s precept that every woman is a nurse and emulated Nightingale’s best-selling Notes on Nursing with her own “Notes from Sick Rooms.” In this long-overlooked, precise, and piquant little manual, Stephen is compassionate and ironic, observing that everyone deserves to be tenderly nursed while addressing the small evil of crumbs in bed. This unprecedented literary reunion of mother and daughter is stunning on many fronts, but physician and literary scholar Rita Charon focuses on the essentials in her astute afterword, writing that Woolf’s perspective as a patient and Stephen’s as a nurse together illuminate the goal of care—to listen, to recognize, to imagine, to honor.” —Booklist “Woolf and Stephen will certainly change the way readers think of illness.” —Publishers Weekly

"In this penetrating analysis of the social attitudes toward various major illnesses - chiefly tuberculosis, the scourge of the 19th century, and cancer, the terror of our own - Susan Sontag demonstrates that "illness is not a metaphor" and shows why "the healthiest way of being ill is one purified of metaphoric thinking." Once tuberculosis was identified as a bacterial infection, it ceased to be a symbol of a romantic fading away or of a sensitive or artistic temperament, and it could be treated and cured. Similarly, we must today cease to think of cancer as a mark of doom, a punishment or a sign of a repressed personality, and recognize it for what it is: one disease among many and often receptive to treatment." -- from back cover.