#covid is war and #vaccine is weapon? COVID-19 metaphors in India
Metaphors are creative cognitive constructs that are employed in everyday conversation to describe abstract concepts and feelings. Prevalent conceptual metaphors such as WAR, MONSTER, and DARKNESS in COVID-19 online discourse sparked a multi-faceted debate over their efficacy in communication, resultant psychological impact on listeners, and their appropriateness in social discourse. In this work, we investigate metaphors used in discussions around COVID-19 on Indian Twitter. We observe subtle transitions in metaphorical mappings as the pandemic progressed. Our experiments, however, didn’t indicate any affective impact of WAR metaphors on the COVID-19 discourse.
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