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Abstract

Abstract

This paper conducts a comparative analysis of the meanings of the phrase before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from two corpora, the iWeb Corpus and the Coronavirus Corpus, it focuses on semantic frames ( ) and frame metonymy ( ). The investigation reveals that the construal of the phrase after the outbreak of COVID-19 requires the invocation of both and frames; that is, without the frame, the phrase would remain in the domain of statistics and refer to a change in a graph. The data are sorted into four semantic categories based on the context in which they appear (epidemiological/non-epidemiological) and on the effect they pursue regarding the flattening-the-curve scenario (rigorous/non-rigorous). The phrase’s polysemy is explained by the metonymy. The flatter curve, as a salient part of a scenario, serves to refer to one of the scenario’s effects. The analysis also observes a correlation between the real-world experience of the pandemic and the actual frequency of in that the ratio of each semantic category reflects the contemporaneous real-world significance of reducing the rate of increase of new infections.

© 2023 John Benjamins Publishing Company
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/content/journals/10.1075/rcl.00158.kan
2023-09-22
2024-10-14

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/content/journals/10.1075/rcl.00158.kan
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The COVID-19 pandemic and changing meanings of flatten the curve
John Benjamins ; https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00158.kan
/content/journals/10.1075/rcl.00158.kan
/content/journals/10.1075/rcl.00158.kan
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: polysemy ; semantic extension ; frame metonymy ; COVID-19 ; semantic frames ; flatten the curve

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