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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
PENG Jia-hui, ZHOU Hong
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2026.06.005
Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China
Against the backdrop of China’s pursuit of high-quality economic development, involution has become a prominent social and economic concern and is widely discussed in economic news from Chinese mainstream media. In such news reports, metaphor is widely adopted by journalists to interpret abstract economic phenomena, and medical metaphors are particularly prevalent in narratives of involution. Media practitioners commonly conceptualize involution as an ailment, equating its negative manifestations with disease symptoms and relevant governance measures with medical treatments. This approach clarifies abstract economic concepts through medical cognitive logic. This paper adopts Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA) as its core research method to explore the use of medical metaphors in involution-related economic news from Chinese mainstream media. The findings reveal that the appropriate use of medical metaphors can effectively refine news discourse and boost textual expressiveness. On this basis, these linguistic devices help the public fully grasp the requirements of economic transformation, further facilitate the formation of positive social consensus to advance sound economic development, and provide practical implications for rhetorical expression in economic news, thus enabling such discourse to better fulfill its functions in positive communication and public opinion guidance.
medical metaphor, economic news, involution, Critical Metaphor Analysis
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