Open AccessFigurative language in the time of Covid: English (Anglo-American) proverbs in the Coronavirus Corpus)
Author(s) -
Pavel Dronov
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
lingvistika i metodika prepodavaniâ inostrannyh âzykov
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2218-1393
DOI - 10.37892/2218-1393-2021-14-1-16-26
Subject(s) - literal and figurative language , covid-19 , coronavirus , linguistics , pandemic , politics , history , sociology , political science , philosophy , virology , medicine , law , disease , pathology , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty)
The paper deals with the influence of the COVID pandemic on the English (not specifically Anglo-American) paremiology. Based on the novel Coronavirus Corpus compiled by Mark Davies’ team, the paper analyses metalinguistic use of proverbs (usually preceded by the parenthetic formula there is a proverb that says), as well as their variability exemplified by that of two proverbs, Handsome is as handsome does and Adversity/politics makes strange bedfellows. The primary conclusion is that the epidemiological crisis is reflected in lexicogrammatical changes of proverbs and in variants of phraseoschemata.