ABSTRACT

Although Covid-19 has been framed using all manner of metaphors, an as-yet under-examined question is how the spreading virus might itself serve as a metaphor and what purpose this might serve. The article redresses this deficit by identifying shared experiences of the mobile virus as the basis for a metaphorical framework for evaluating and judging human behavior, including alleged rule-breaking, during the pandemic. The article traces the appearance of the metaphor spreading across a broad spectrum of sources that includes political speech, the reporting of crime in prosecutorial and local media sources, judicial opinion and poetry. We observe in some limited contexts a straightforward metaphoric transfer or substitution between mobile people and the mobile virus. In a greater number and variety contexts, we find instead more subtle signs of the metaphor: the censuring of bad behavior and the justifying of coercive treatment using the metonymic elements of viral spread: its characteristic unpredictability, speed, agility, irrepressibility, and relentlessness.

摘要

尽管 Covid-19 已经使用各种隐喻进行了构架，但一个尚未得到充分研究的问题是，传播病毒本身如何充当隐喻，以及这可能起到什么作用。这篇文章通过将移动病毒的共同经历确定为在大流行期间评估和判断人类行为（包括涉嫌违反规则）的隐喻框架的基础来弥补这一缺陷。这篇文章追溯了这个隐喻在广泛的来源中传播的现象，包括政治言论、检察和地方媒体来源中的犯罪报道、司法意见和诗歌。我们在一些有限的情况下观察到移动人员和移动病毒之间的直接隐喻转移或替代。在数量更多、种类更多的情况下，