From Battling to Bridge Building: Metaphors around Covid-19 in German Politics

Abstract: The present study examines metaphor activity in German politics. It focuses on the question how metaphors contribute to a conceptualisation of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research question is answered with the help of a corpus-based analysis that qualitatively investigates debates in the German parliament between March and June 2020. The study combines frameworks from cognitive-linguistics and discourse studies with practice-oriented reflections. The results show that metaphors are used to either make the emerging, new situation more accessible or the reactions to it. Metaphors describing the situation furnish Covid-19 with physical features such as speed, weight or force. Metaphors referring to political action highlight the feature of policies to follow a certain strategy and be performed collaboratively. In general, there are several metaphors that treat Covid-19 as an opponent or at least as a distinct entity. The fact that a virus needs a host to survive and spread is clashing with such a rhetorical emphasis on the dichotomy of “us vs. the other”. This paper contributes to the critical reflection on metaphor use in connection with the decade-defining Covid-19 pandemic. How certain metaphors influence political decision making and public action is hereby open for further research.