Startseite (De-)Monstering COVID-19: a diachronic study of COVID-19 virus multimodal metaphors in Philippine editorial cartoons, 2019–2022
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(De-)Monstering COVID-19: a diachronic study of COVID-19 virus multimodal metaphors in Philippine editorial cartoons, 2019–2022

  • Nicko Enrique Lanuzo Manalastas ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 11. September 2023

Abstract

In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has been studied extensively through the lens of conceptual metaphor theory. However, only one study has focused on the metaphorization of the COVID-19 pandemic in a strictly Philippine milieu. None so far has published on pandemic- related multimodal metaphors in Philippine media, let alone shed light on these through a diachronic perspective. Using conceptual metaphor theory and visual metaphor identification procedure, this study analysed 203 pandemic-related editorial cartoons published by a Philippine national publication from December 2019 to February 2022. It investigated the diachronic conceptualizations of the conceptual domain COVID-19 VIRUS in the Philippines as captured by the neutralizing or ‘de-monstering’ of the virus from the COVID-19 IS A MONSTER to the COVID-19 IS A LIVING ENTITY multimodal metaphor. It argued that the trends of metaphorization correlate with the shifting sociocultural and political attitudes towards the COVID-19 pandemic as a global and local healthcare crisis. Essentially, this study not only explored the dynamics between media and cognition, but it also analysed how the multimodal metaphorizations of COVID-19 reflect Filipino socio-political realities and cultural underpinnings during turbulent times.


Corresponding author: Nicko Enrique Lanuzo Manalastas, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Diliman, Diliman, 1101, Quezon City, Philippines, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Aileen O. Salonga for her invaluable feedback on an earlier draft of this paper and the Philippine Daily Inquirer—particularly Bianca Kasilag-Macahilig from the Corporate Affairs Department, the cartoonists Steph Bravo and Albert Rodriguez, and the entire Syndication Office—for allowing me to reproduce the PDI editorial cartoons used in this study.

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Received: 2023-05-25
Accepted: 2023-07-10
Published Online: 2023-09-11

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 26.11.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/mc-2023-0015/pdf?lang=de
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