Inconsistent Metaphors and Social Conflicts: Incompatibility between Two Conceptual Metaphors of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japanese

Abstract

This paper investigates metaphors of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japanese from the view of cognitive linguistics. The data were extracted from direct quotations in newspaper articles reporting voices of ordinary people and their social backgrounds. We found that the most productive metaphors used in the conceptualization of the pandemic were two war metaphors, “DISEASE TREATMENT IS WAR” and “BUSINESS IS WAR” These are often summarized as slogans in public discourse, such as “the war on COVID.” The meaning focus analysis using conceptual metaphor theory revealed that although these two war metaphors were not compatible in terms of conceptual structure, the incompatibility rarely surfaces because of the difference in semantic focus. In the pandemic situation, people such as restaurant owners and retailers were in a state of social conflict between stopping their business to “fight against” COVID-19 and continuing to economically “survive” the pandemic. This paper suggested that this conflict reflects the incompatibility between the two war metaphors.