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

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.