The Sixth ASSE International Conference on British and American Studies

For the past two years, owing to the spread of the coronavirus, societies have learnt to live and cope with new realities, social, political and technological — from a collective scare caused by the horror of death that all experienced at its outbreak to a discreet acceptance of its presence through our adaptation to the new modes of living, working, behaving, communicating, interacting and thinking that it has dictated. Caught in a Derridean sort of suspension or postponement (‘not yet’) to the end of the pandemic, societies have come to learn to arrange human activities following the order and course of action that the pandemic takes.

In this regard, language has had a very important role to play. It presents, shapes and conveys the reality for us. It is through language that one makes sense of our experience and the world, communicate with others, and respond to them. During unprecedented times of uncertainty, one especially conveys one’s anxieties and fears through metaphors. One quite often, unwittingly, invests in them, through striking analogies, worries, attitudes, responses, and also knowledge.