A Comparative Analysis of the Coronavirus Discourse by Exploring the Themes and Dominant Conceptual Metaphors in American Newspapers in 2020 and 2022

This research compares the coronavirus discourse in the American newspapers between March and May 2020, when the case fatality rate was at its highest in the United States, and between January and March 2022, when it was at its lowest, by exploring the themes and dominant conceptual metaphors used to describe the coronavirus from the discursive expressions. The research also analyzes how they are framing the coronavirus to shape discourses in society using framing theory. Regarding methodologies, I used Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics. The tools used to find the themes were by using concordances and doing manual readings of the discourses. The results showed that the most dominant themes in Corpus (2020) were that the Trump’s Administration lacked response to the coronavirus, there was no knowledge of the coronavirus, the pandemic was a battleground, and the pandemic was on a rise. On the other hand, in Corpus (2022), the dominant themes were that the Biden Administration efficiently responded to the coronavirus, the vaccine for the coronavirus became available, the pandemic was still like a battleground, and the pandemic was on a drop. In sum, the discourse has revealed different dominant themes in both corpora and was reflecting reality.