When life is no longer a journey: the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the metaphorical conceptualization of life among Hungarian adults – a representative survey

IF 1.8 1区 文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS Cognitive Linguistics Pub Date : 2024-01-10 DOI:10.1515/cog-2023-0050
Réka Benczes, István Benczes, Bence Ságvári, Lilla Petronella Szabó
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Abstract

There is ample research on how metaphors of life vary both cross-culturally and within culture, with age emerging as possibly the most significant variable with regard to the latter dimension. However, no representative research has yet been carried on whether variation can also occur across time. Our paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by exploring whether a major crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can induce variation in how life is metaphorically conceptualized throughout society. By drawing on the results of a nationwide, representative survey on the metaphorical preferences for life among Hungarian adults carried out during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we hypothesized that the pandemic would induce a revolutionary change (in the sense of the change being swift, as opposed to gradual) in how Hungarian adults metaphorically conceptualize life, as compared to the metaphorical preferences of the pre-COVID-19 era. We expected this variation to manifest itself in the emergence of novel metaphorical source domains and a realignment in metaphorical preferences. Our results, however, indicate that novel conceptualizations emerged only as one-off metaphors; Hungarians mostly rely on a stock collection of life metaphors even in times of crises, with changes happening mostly in the form of shifts in metaphorical preferences. Our study also found that the choice of preference of the source domains showed less alterations among older adults – implying that the older we get, the more resistant to change our metaphorical conceptualizations become, even under extreme conditions such as COVID-19.
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当生命不再是一段旅程:COVID-19 大流行病对匈牙利成年人生命隐喻概念的影响--代表性调查
关于生命隐喻在跨文化和文化内部如何变化的研究很多,其中年龄可能是后一个维度中最重要的变量。然而,对于不同时间段的生命隐喻是否也会发生变化,目前还没有代表性的研究。我们的论文试图填补这一文献空白,探讨重大危机(如 COVID-19 大流行病)是否会引起整个社会对生命的隐喻概念的变化。通过利用 COVID-19 大流行第二波期间对匈牙利成年人生活隐喻偏好进行的全国性代表性调查的结果,我们假设,与 COVID-19 流行前的隐喻偏好相比,大流行将在匈牙利成年人的生活隐喻概念化方式上引起革命性的变化(从变化迅速而非渐进的意义上来说)。我们预期这种变化将表现为新隐喻源域的出现和隐喻偏好的重新调整。然而,我们的研究结果表明,新概念化仅作为一次性隐喻出现;即使在危机时期,匈牙利人也大多依赖于生活隐喻的储备,其变化主要表现为隐喻偏好的转变。我们的研究还发现,老年人对源域的偏好选择变化较小--这意味着年龄越大,我们的隐喻概念化就越难改变,即使在 COVID-19 等极端条件下也是如此。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
3.30
自引率
17.60%
发文量
21
期刊介绍: Cognitive Linguistics presents a forum for linguistic research of all kinds on the interaction between language and cognition. The journal focuses on language as an instrument for organizing, processing and conveying information. Cognitive Linguistics is a peer-reviewed journal of international scope and seeks to publish only works that represent a significant advancement to the theory or methods of cognitive linguistics, or that present an unknown or understudied phenomenon. Topics the structural characteristics of natural language categorization (such as prototypicality, cognitive models, metaphor, and imagery); the functional principles of linguistic organization, as illustrated by iconicity; the conceptual interface between syntax and semantics; the experiential background of language-in-use, including the cultural background; the relationship between language and thought, including matters of universality and language specificity.
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