‘Every one of you is now a soldier’: war metaphors in Jordanian official discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

In this article, we examine the use of war metaphors in Jordanian official discourse on the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21, through an analysis of videos of public statements and media releases made by Jordanian government officials at press conferences and interviews with local media outlets which were disseminated through social media. Against both the linguistic essentialism and the Western-centrism of conventional analyses of (war) metaphors, we demonstrate that Jordanian officials’ framing of Covid-19 as a security threat is not just a function of the rhetorical appeal of militarised discursive responses to the pandemic, but also aligns closely with existing ideologies of the militarisation and securitisation of public life. The mobilisation of metaphor in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic should thus be understood in relation to the specific discourses that pervade the communicative channels through which it is distributed.

KEYWORDS:

• War metaphor
• COVID-19
• Jordan
• securitisation
• public discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In Arabic, the word karāma also means “dignity”.

2 Though not picked up by one of the three main news channels under study, this intervention was still picked up and shared in the same social media context and other war metaphors; we thus believe it warrants inclusion here.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yousef Barahmeh

Yousef Barahmeh is Assistant Professor of English language and linguistics at the Department of English Language and Translation, Isra University, Amman, Jordan. He received his PhD from the University of Portsmouth, UK, on the politics of Jordanian humour after the Arab Spring. Correspondence E-mails: [email protected]; [email protected]

Jona Fras

Jona Fras is Teaching Fellow in Arabic at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh, UK. He received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh on contemporary Jordanian media and linguistic practices. E-mail: [email protected]