What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse
Political leaders’ discourse plays a significant role in directing the public opinion during crises. Hence, this study analyzed 71 speeches delivered by Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran (2013- 2021), during the first and the second waves of COVID-19 pandemic (February 20 till August 30, 2020) as...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2021
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18536/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18536/1/51550-172431-1-PB.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848814600709996544 |
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| author | Aliakbar Imani, |
| author_facet | Aliakbar Imani, |
| author_sort | Aliakbar Imani, |
| building | UKM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Political leaders’ discourse plays a significant role in directing the public opinion during crises.
Hence, this study analyzed 71 speeches delivered by Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran (2013-
2021), during the first and the second waves of COVID-19 pandemic (February 20 till August
30, 2020) as the most critical period of the pandemic attack. This study drew upon Lakoff &
Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory as its theoretical background, and the analysis
of the speeches was comprised of metaphor identification using the Metaphor Identification
Procedure (MIP) and metaphor interpretation. The findings of the study reveal employment of
metaphorical representations of coronavirus as a discursive strategy to deal with the situation.
The main metaphorical representation of coronavirus was framing public cooperation and
national solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic as participating in a war. As argued in this
paper, the employed metaphors not only remained loyal to general war features, but they also
entailed a specific sociocultural image of war for the Iranian people based on their experience
and memories of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. Finally, this study recommends for future studies
to include the specific sociocultural context and historical background of the addressed
audience. This provides further insight into what metaphors specifically mean to the addressed
audience, which is beyond general metaphor use. This study is hoped to be a small step towards
bringing into spotlight the significance of sociocultural aspects and historical background as
necessary information to provide in-depth insights into what makes metaphors effective
communicative tools to specific audience. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T00:36:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | oai:generic.eprints.org:18536 |
| institution | Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T00:36:40Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | oai:generic.eprints.org:185362022-04-27T00:21:12Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18536/ What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse Aliakbar Imani, Political leaders’ discourse plays a significant role in directing the public opinion during crises. Hence, this study analyzed 71 speeches delivered by Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran (2013- 2021), during the first and the second waves of COVID-19 pandemic (February 20 till August 30, 2020) as the most critical period of the pandemic attack. This study drew upon Lakoff & Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory as its theoretical background, and the analysis of the speeches was comprised of metaphor identification using the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) and metaphor interpretation. The findings of the study reveal employment of metaphorical representations of coronavirus as a discursive strategy to deal with the situation. The main metaphorical representation of coronavirus was framing public cooperation and national solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic as participating in a war. As argued in this paper, the employed metaphors not only remained loyal to general war features, but they also entailed a specific sociocultural image of war for the Iranian people based on their experience and memories of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. Finally, this study recommends for future studies to include the specific sociocultural context and historical background of the addressed audience. This provides further insight into what metaphors specifically mean to the addressed audience, which is beyond general metaphor use. This study is hoped to be a small step towards bringing into spotlight the significance of sociocultural aspects and historical background as necessary information to provide in-depth insights into what makes metaphors effective communicative tools to specific audience. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2021-11 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18536/1/51550-172431-1-PB.pdf Aliakbar Imani, (2021) What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse. GEMA ; Online Journal of Language Studies, 21 (4). pp. 329-341. ISSN 1675-8021 https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1440 |
| spellingShingle | Aliakbar Imani, What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse |
| title | What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse |
| title_full | What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse |
| title_fullStr | What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse |
| title_full_unstemmed | What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse |
| title_short | What ‘Corona War’ metaphor means in Iranian political discourse |
| title_sort | what ‘corona war’ metaphor means in iranian political discourse |
| url | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18536/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18536/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/18536/1/51550-172431-1-PB.pdf |