Leadership style by metaphor in crisis political discourse

Abstract

This study aims to show how different political leaders ideologically position themselves in the discourse of ‘problem frame’ in their first national response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. To analyse the ideological nature of the ‘problem frame’, 17 leaders’ national lockdown speeches from different countries were collected and analysed within the theoretical framework of critical metaphor studies and frame semantics. Procedurally, metaphors in the collected speeches were identified by applying Pragglejaz Group’s MIP (2007) and MIPVU (2010), and coded into thematic categories via NVivo 12.0. Overall, 19 thematic codes (1,045 metaphorical expressions) were established, and their content analysis demonstrated specific differences in gender performance of a national health policy during the pandemic. It has been clarified that crisis political discourse is not that much affected by gender double bind, and female speakers openly display their femininity by focusing a lot on sensitivity and nurturance. By contrast, male speakers overwhelmingly follow a standardised competitive frame with emotional moments aimed at a more aggressive response to the pandemic and focusing on populist sentiment.

Keywords

• crisis political discourse
• political leaders
• metaphor
• problem-frame
• gender