Introduction

Discourse analysis has become a powerful approach for understanding better how people use language to express and share their points of view, and how it allows them to build their social realities. Through discourse analysis we can detangle some of the entrenched relations of form and meanings, recognising how the form becomes an automated device to convey complex social meanings (Johnstone & Andrus, 2024). But this is a complex task, as it requires identifying the discursive places where significant forms and meanings get together. Metaphors have been considered as one of the most frequents cognitive and linguistic devices that allows speakers to do this by inserting new concepts through a projection process (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2020). Because of that, speakers can conceptualise emerging realities and new concepts.

Some studies observe that adolescents are the age social group that create new meanings more frequently (Zimmermann, 1996). Studying how adolescents use metaphors in everyday contexts can help to improve not only theoretical inquiries —such as the relation between language and thought (Gibbs, 2008; Steen, 2023), but some linguistic practices —such as education activities (Cameron, 2003). However, it is a challenging task because it requires assuming theoretical guidelines with a methodological framework that allow gathering the contexts in which metaphors appear (Rubbo et al., 2025a).

Metaphors are a fundamental part of human language and cognition skills. There is a lot of evidence about its powerful relevance for learning processes (Martínez et al., 2001; Noyes, 2006; Petrie & Oshlag, 2012; Wegner et al., 2020). They are a device for expressing concepts, mainly those abstract or complex ones (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2010, 2020). In that sense, the use of metaphors both enhance a concept with more information and makes it more accessible to interlocutors.

Although this description usually characterises the use of metaphors concerning abstract concepts, such as emotions (Kövecses, 2004). It is also observed that they convey expressiveness and feasibility to translate complex concepts into simpler ones, making the metaphor a bridge to explain and to narrate novel experiences. When they are assembled, it can increase the current state of knowledge (Ciapuscio, 2013). Also, by using them, speakers can express abstract and complex thoughts and the subtleties of their subjectivity (Kövecses, 2004). Because of these features, metaphors are a common device in language (Kövecses, 2004, 2010, 2020; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Steen, 2023).

The most widely method to study metaphor usage has been corpus studies (Sanford, 2010; Deignan, 2008) and experimental or quasi-experimental designs, with standardised tests that assess comprehension (Ferreres et al., 2007) and production (Kogan et al., 1980). Since 2020 quasi-experimental studies with remote test administration have increased, mainly due to the public policies of social isolation implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. They tend to use a comparative and causal structure, which is “X is like... because…” (Aydoğdu & Gürsoy, 2021; Colak, 2022; Gök & Kara, 2022).

Nevertheless, there is evidence that the kind of task and the subjects’ expertise determine the linguistic outcomes (Nippold et al., 2005; Wallis & Westerveld, 2024), in the case of metaphors assessments, the tests tend not to consider them.

Regarding metaphor development, different stages have been described. Some studies agree that around 10-12 years old several changes can be observed (Vernarská & Zelenayová, 2018). The explanations posit differ causes: some studies consider they could be a correlate of the onset of productive use, and others sustain them as evidence of its mastery. The highest creativity peaks are identified at the end of adolescence (Cacciari & Padovani, 2012). In relation to gender differences, Fattahi and Nushi (2021) and Rocha et al. (2021) found no significant differences and no age effect (Willinger et al., 2019). On the other hand, Hussey and Katz (2010) and Vernarská & Zelenayová (2018) found differences. While the former attribute these to pragmatic cues, the latter adduce these to cognitive factors.

Summarising, although the amount of evidence reported, the characteristics of adolescent’s discursive metaphors usages have not been clarified precisely yet. And some of the characteristics recognised become from decontextualised studies which do not consider natural contexts. This study aims to describe adolescents’ spontaneous written discourse about the pandemic, analysing health metaphors elicited by a novel ecological test. It assesses adolescents in a writing task, very similar to a classroom activity. This task allows us to analyse and describe metaphors usages, considering differences in pragmatic requests and gender.

Method

Subjects

Eighty-one adolescents (46 female, 33 male, and 2 non-binary) enrolled at a Secondary school in Ramos Mejía city, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina (Mage= 14;1, Range= 13;2-15;2, SD=0.57) participated. All of them belong to the Middle Socioeconomic Class (Sautú, 2011).

The data was taken through a test designed as a classroom activity within the Literature class. The consents were obtained through a two steps procedure, in the first, the school authorities authorized doing the research and they informed the families and students. In the second step the teacher/administrator explained to students the research and said that they could decide their participation. Also, they were informed that the participation would be voluntary and confidential, and that the data obtained would be used only for research purposes. The school authorities signed an authorisation to carry on the activity.

We followed the principles established by Law No. 26,061 which establishes the comprehensive protection of the rights of children and adolescents in Argentina. Also, the guidelines for ethical conduct in the Social Sciences and Humanities that establishes the Ethical Committee of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (2006).

The study we present here belongs to a research project approved by the Ethical Committee of the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad de Buenos Aires (No. 034).

Materials

A novel ecological test similar to a school written production activity was designed. It consists of a brief questionnaire about COVID-19 and the pandemic; this arrangement is one of the most frequent classroom activities in Argentine Secondary schools.

Specialists designed the test to collect cognitive and linguistic data (Silva et al., 2016, 2023; Iacobuzio et al., 2022). They took in mind some methodological criteria: the time duration, its feasibility to elicit explanations and narratives about COVID-19, the lock down, and the post-pandemic experiences, and the aim that the metaphors would emerge spontaneously.

The test is organised in two sections. In the first, adolescents fill in their date of birth, gender, and grade and section. In the second, they answer a six-question questionnaire (available at the Appendix).

In the first three questions adolescents have to define and explain the COVID-19 virus and the pandemic. This sequence aims that they face different pragmatic requests: defining, explaining for someone else, and exemplifying.

The questionnaire asks, in the first question, to define the phenomenon (1. “¿Qué es la enfermedad COVID-19?” | “What is the COVID-19 illness?”). In the second question, a specific addressee profile is introduced, so the adolescents can better build an adequate explanation about the pandemic situation (2. “¿Cómo le explicarías la situación de pandemia causada por COVID-19 a un viajero en el tiempo que no sabe qué es ni qué pasó?” | “How would you explain the pandemic caused by COVID-19 to a time traveller who does not know what it is or what happened?”). To answer this question, it is needed to build an explanatory text (Adam, 1992) with state-of-mind attributions (Wellman, 2014), which implies hierarchizing information, adapting it, rephrasing it, etc. The third question asks for examples once the explanation is exhausted, aiming to motivate metaphor uses (3. “¿Qué ejemplos le darías para que se imagine la situación?” | “What examples would you give to help the time-traveller to imagine the situation?”).

The last three questions ask students to refer to their own experience. The fourth one asks them to narrate their individual experiences (4. “¿Cómo viviste la cuarentena y el aislamiento por COVID-19?” | “How did you experience the lock-down and isolation by COVID-19?”). The fifth introduces a metacognitive activity in relation to the previous one, because students could answer the fourth very briefly (such as “well”, “badly”, “not bad”) (5. “¿Por qué pensás que lo viviste así?” | “Why do you think you experienced it this way?”). This question asks for a reason to justify the previous one and promotes the insertion of a personal experience narrative. The sixth question allows the students to contrast their lock-down routines in 2020 with those that they do in the post pandemic (022). Also, they can explain the reasons for the differences (6. “¿Qué hacés distinto a causa de la pandemia de COVID-19? ¿Por qué?” | “What do you do differently now because of the COVID-19 pandemic? Why?”).

Procedure

The administration was carried out in a group setting as a “pen and paper” exercise, by a Literature teacher. She explained the task to the students and remarked that it would be confidential, and it would not affect their qualifications. All the adolescents agreed to participate voluntarily. The administration took around 40 minutes, and it was in September 2022.

Analysis

81 handwritten records with a total of 759 utterances and 16,907 words conform the corpora. Only 80 manuscripts were considered because in one of them we inferred a low understanding of the instructions.

The occurrence of metaphors was analysed. We considered as metaphor a discursive sequence —a word, a sentence, or a paragraph— in which two or more meanings coexist and where a source and a target domain can be identified (Kövecses, 2010; Rubbo et al., 2022). In the following statement, for example, the source domain WAR (the most frequent domain to refer COVID-19) (Olza et al., 2021) is used to talk about the target domain HEALTH AND ILLNESS (COVID-19):

1) “La humanidad tuvo que desatar una contienda frente un enemigo invisible que amenaza el bienestar de las sociedades”

“Humanity had to unleash a struggle against an invisible enemy that threatens the well-being of societies” (302.34, Rubbo et al., 2025b).

In this example, COVID-19 is introduced as a threatening enemy into a battle, rather than as “an extremely small piece of organic material that causes disease in humans, animals, and plants” (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d., Definition 1 of virus ).

The analysis was carried out in six steps. First, we digitalised and anonymised the 80 students’ written tests. All were scanned for better handling, and each one was assigned with a unique Participant Identification Number (PID). Some students had included their name even though it was not requested. In these cases, this information was crossed out.

Secondly, two judges read the corpora independently and identified the metaphors. After that, their level of agreement was calculated. When a disagreement was found, a joint reanalysis was performed. The index of agreement for metaphor identification was 92%, which increased to 96% after the reanalysis. A third judge decided on the 4% of unresolved cases.

Thirdly, all the metaphors identified were extracted, assigned with a unique Metaphor Identification Number (MID), analysed and classified into Di Vincenzo’s (2021) categories: lexicalised, typical, and compositional.

Lexicalised metaphors are part of the language usages. Speakers usually do not notice them because their everyday use makes them highly frequent. They cannot be segmented without losing their meaning. Examples of this type of metaphors is:

2) peste negra

“Black Death” (46.19, Rubbo et al., 2025b)

Typical metaphors are those that project meanings from a source to a target domain and could have a systematic set of mappings. An example of this kind of metaphor is:

3) Cada vez que mis papás iban al supermercado, parecía que iban a la guerra

“Every time my parents went to the supermarket, it seemed like they were going to war”

In this example, the source domain WAR displays an EVENTS AND ACTIONS target domain. The mappings conceptualise the COVID-19 strategy displayed by the adolescent’s parents before leaving their home. In fact, all the cautions needed in everyday situations —such as being sure that they bring everything needed, to have the official permission to go out, to wear a mask, to take physical distance, to disinfect footwear and hands— are linguistically codified as warlike actions —to wear an armour or uniform, to take cautions if they face someone dangerous, to develop a tactic to enter a place, etc. Due to this complex sequence being condensed as a warlike strategy they can be metaphorized as the WAR domain.

Compositional metaphors are those in which meanings increase with other mappings. Even though the “starting” metaphor could be considered typical, the domain is mapped to other domains, as in the following example:

4) “prender la tele y ver cómo los números de fallecidos subían”

“turning on the TV and watching how the numbers of the deceased people went up” (15.5, Rubbo et al., 2025b).

In this case, the deceased are metaphorized using a MATHEMATICAL source through the LIFE AND DEATH target. Then the number of dead people —the mathematical source—is taken up again and mapped onto MOVEMENT AND DIRECTION (subían, “went up”) to keep explaining the LIFE AND DEATH target with an orientational metaphor (HIGHER IS UP). This kind of metaphor maps throughout the text and provides layers of meaning to others.

To identify the metaphoric domains, we appeal to previous classification (Kövecses, 2010; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Rubbo et al., 2022).

Metaphors were divided by thematic category: COVID-19 or pandemic. Any allusion to illness, virus, bacteria, or symptoms of the disease were considered as COVID-19.The metaphors referring to the disease experience or their consequences, its social context and the emotions involved were considered as Pandemic. In addition, the most salient word of the metaphor was identified in order to build a tag cloud. We grouped different lexemes into the same lemma —encerrados (“locked up”) was considered the same tag encerrar (“to lock up”).

Fourthly, we divided the corpus according to orthographic criteria, considering the presence of initial capital letters and full stops. Where the orthographic sequence was incomplete, the criterion of complete syntactic-semantic unit was taken. Then, all the words and utterances were counted.

Six students made explicit that they grouped some responses. In five of these written tests, the analysts could recognise the boundaries between responses attending to each pragmatic request. In one case this was not possible, so it was discarded.

We calculated descriptive statistics (frequencies, means, and ranges) and a ratio of thematic MID. ¹ It was calculated by dividing the number of COVID-19 and pandemic metaphors produced by each participant by the number of questions. ² A non-parametric test of related samples mean ranks (Wilcoxon test) was used to calculate differences between ratios. A non-parametric test for independent samples (Mann-Whitney U test) was used to calculate differences between gender means. We used Jamovi software (version 2.3, The jamovi project, 2022). The qualitative analyses of lemmas were bubble-plotted using the Awario site (SEO PowerSuite, 2023).

Results

80 handwritten records were analysed, with a Mean of 9.3 utterances and 207.5 words per participant (753 utterances, Range3-24; 16,811 words, Range 53-496).

A mean of 2.8 metaphors per participant was identified (total of 225 metaphors, Range 0-10). Lexicalised metaphors were the preferred category, with a Mean of 1.8 (148, Range 0-8). Table 1 shows the analysis results in frequencies, percentages, and ranges.

The analysis by task has shown that the pragmatic request implies differences in the frequency of metaphor production (see Table 2).

The highest frequency of metaphor production can be found in question 3 (27.6%). This question asks examples about the pandemic. In second place is question 2 (21.8%), which requests an explanation for someone who is unfamiliar with the topic and context (the time-traveller). Among those questions which request an explanation of a personal experience (4, 5, and 6), question 4 (20%) was the most metaphorically productive.

The thematic analysis shows that different words are chosen to mention the pandemic and COVID-19. Figure 1 shows the lemmas used for the disease. The verb perder (“to lose”) was the most frequent, even more so than atacar (“to attack”), which is typical of the WAR domain. Words such as gripe (“flu”) and fiebre (“fever”) appear, too. It means that to refer COVID-19, students have metaphorized it as another illness or its symptoms.

Figure 2 shows the items used for pandemic. Although we observe that some of them were included to refer COVID-19 —such as atacar (“to attack”), compared with Figure 1 we found more lexical variety there. The most frequently used lemmas were llegar (“to arrive”) and encerrar(“to lock [someone] up”). In the third place is the verb atacar (“to attack”).

We carried out a related-group difference analysis considering the ratio of thematic metaphor per subject. Assumptions of normality were analysed using the Shapiro-Wilk statistic, which showed that the distribution of the measures departed significantly from a theoretically asymptotic normal distribution (SW = .929, p < .001). For this reason, it was decided to use the Wilcoxon rank paired samples comparison statistic.

At the 5% significance level (p < .05), the test results showed that the ratios of COVID-19 and pandemic metaphors are significantly different, in favour of pandemic (p < .001). Table 3 shows the Mean, Median and Standard Deviation of the illness and pandemic metaphor ratios.

Regarding the use of metaphors by gender, an independent sample comparison analysis was carried out on the adolescents identified as female and male. It was decided to discard from this analysis 2 students who identified themselves as non-binary. The Shapiro-Wilk test suggested a violation of the normality assumption (SW = 0.937, p < .001) and the Levene’s test indicated that the variances were not homogeneous (p = .007). The U Mann-Whitney test identified a significant difference between groups (U = 450, p = .002) favouring the female adolescents. Descriptive results by gender are shown in Table 4.

Discussion

We observed that the test and the type of administration allowed us to elicit significant data. We value the high level of acceptance among the students. Some of them included written messages expressing their enthusiasm, such as the following:

5) Espero que ayude lo que les conté♥

“I hope it helps what I have told you♥”.

Also, they made an effort to be clear and informative in their answers. Furthermore, the students made suggestions to improve the test and the administration.

As we have pointed out, the designing of the test has involved theoretical and methodological decisions. Metaphors are not merely an analogical device, their nature is a complex symbolic one (Di Vincenzo, 2021). Because of that, the methods to study them cannot only test metaphors of an analogic nature. If so, the Conceptual Metaphor Theory assumptions of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) would be discarded because an analogical procedure is a translational one, and it does not consider mappings (Kövecses, 2020), nor the speaker’s point of view (Aydoğdu & Gürsoy, 2021). In fact, the first step when we design tests is to evaluate their theoretical framework and population adjustment levels (Iacobuzio et al., 2022).

The tests of Aydoğdu and Gürsoy (2021), Colak (2022), and Gök and Kara (2022) have shown highly effectiveness at metaphor elicitation. They display a syntactical structure making their insertion mandatory (X is like... because…). Though this structure can be useful requesting metaphor production, it does not consider that using them is motivated by a discourse function, such as to explain, to narrate or to give an example. Studying metaphor usage in written discourse also allows us to test other performance levels of skills and knowledge, such as Theory of Mind, syntactic knowledge, etc. In sum, writing always involves its functional use of the metaphor as a symbolic device (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2013). The data obtained in this research confirms the relevance of collecting metaphors by quasi-experimental settings because it allows us to consider them in their natural discursive context and function.

Regarding the analysis, we found that the judges’ agreement was higher than in a previous work (Rubbo et al., 2022). We attributed this difference to the improvement of the codifiers’ training method. The analysis requires exhaustive training because, unlike other devices in the study of language and cognition (i.e. grammatical features), metaphors require a higher level of metacognitive thinking (Di Vincenzo, 2021). This observation aligns with Rubbo et al. (2022), who suggest building a fine-grained metaphor definition —not only because it is a problematic issue, but also because the corpus identification requires a metacognitive process that can only be reached by practice.

We have found that the Mean index of MID is likeness with previous studies (Rubbo & Silva, 2024; Rubbo et al., 2022, 2023a, 2023b, 2024). These indices, which are around 0.6, could be a trend usage.

Regarding the frequency of metaphor’s categories, our results differ from previous ones (Rubbo et al., 2023a, 2023b). We consider the differences may be due to the discursive genre. We believe this design could break the unique metaphor mapping process throughout all the discourse, promoting the displaying of new metaphors in each answer. This could be caused, also, by the changes in the pragmatic requests —explanation, exemplification, and narration.

In other words, in opposition to the traditional metaphor tests, and in a similar way as other tests for assessing language and cognitive skills (Silva et al., 2016, see also Nippold et al., 2005 and Wallis & Westerveld, 2024), the ecological framework of this test has influenced the metaphors usages.

The results of MID index by task have shown a higher use frequency in question 3, which requests an example (¿Qué ejemplos le darías para que se imagine la situación? | “What examples would you give to help the time-traveller to imagine the situation?”). This category concentrates around a quarter of the total metaphors produced (27.6%). It seems that asking for an example after an explanation could be a fruitful activity for metaphoric production. In fact, question 2, which asks for an explanation of the pandemic for an imaginary interlocutor, produced a lower use (21.8%).

Considering the metaphor occurrence in explanatory sequences, we observed the first two questions show different frequencies. While question 1 requests a COVID-19 explanation (15.6%), question 2 asks for the pandemic taking into account a specific interlocutor (21.8%). Although the difference in frequency is not so much, it is possible that the students consider that the first answer did not exhaust the request, so the second is a better discursive niche to insert metaphors. We believe that the question theme and the mention of a specific interlocutor allow this through Theory of Mind applying.

We have observed another difference in those answers that request explanations from a personal experience point of view (questions 4, 5, and 6). Although all of them allow the insertion of a narrative sequence, question 4 is the most favourable for metaphors occurrence (20%). This requests the narration of the pandemic and the lock-down experience (¿Cómo viviste la cuarentena y el aislamiento por COVID-19? | “How did you experience the lock-down and isolation by COVID-19?”).

A significant difference in favour of girls was found regarding the frequency of metaphor by gender. This result is aligned with Hussey and Katz (2010) and Vernarská and Zelenayová (2018), but differs from Fattahi and Nushi (2021), Rocha et al. (2021), and Willinger et al. (2019). We believe it is needed to find the factors that could explain this difference and to explore deeper the gender differences in future studies.

The qualitative analysis shows different metaphorical lemmas for consolidated —or easy comparable— (COVID-19) versus not consolidated —or relatively new— experiences (the pandemic). In fact, in Figures 1 and 2 we can observe that students used more lexical diversity to metaphorize the pandemic. We can assume that a new or unfamiliar phenomenon —the global experience of pandemic— promotes more varied metaphorical expressions, while a highly familiar phenomenon —the experience of illness— promotes more established metaphors. Studies on grammaticalization and lexicalisation of metaphors point out that although this is a slow process, it is effectively grounded in the grammar and semantics (González, 2020; Paula & Coelho, 2015; Schiffman, 1999) based on usage (Haiman, 1997).

Finally, considering the impact of educational activities, we believe that our test has provided a productive task to put into words a collective trauma. In previous studies we identified that very few consider COVID-19 consequences on adolescents, do not give them opportunities to speak on emotions, in spite that they were one of the most vulnerable populations during this pandemic (Hoskins et al., 2023; Rubbo et al., 2024). Our results have shown a higher use of metaphors that display confinement and loneliness images. We believe that the rigorous process by which we designed the test allows responses that help students to symbolise meanings for processing emotions in the post pandemics. Also, it could be used for future traumatic collective experiences.

In sum, we consider that this study has made two main contributions. Methodologically, we have observed how an ecological test —that is, one that elicits different discursive genres— allows not only to obtain significant empirical evidence on a phenomenon — the emergence of spontaneous metaphors in discourse— but also offers opportunities for students to express themselves.

Regarding metaphor development, we have taken into account the frequency of use and its different categories considering the topic, the pragmatic request and gender. The results allow us to refine the description of contextualised adolescents’ metaphors usage.

Other issues such as the specific incidence of population factors (age and socio-economic class), as well as other theoretical factors (differences in the frequency of metaphorical domains, and the discursive and grammatical characteristics of each one) remain to be investigated. Replicating this test in public schools and rural environments would show the regional impact of the pandemics. Furthermore, a longitudinal study could show us linguistic and cognitive clues about metaphoric language and emotional conceptualisation, as well as the changes or mutation of a complex psycholinguistic and sociohistorical phenomenon. Finally, we must include a stronger gender perspectivity to better understand gender differences.

Funding Details

This work was supported by the National Scientific and Technical Research Council - Argentina under Grants RESOL-2021-2360-APN-DIR#CONICET and PIPKS0911220210100577CO; and the National Agency for the Promotion of Research, Technological Development and Innovation (Agencia Nacional de Promoción de la Investigación, el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación, Agencia I+D+i) under Grant PICT GRF T1 TI 00207.

Positionality Statement

As social researchers, we design our studies bearing in mind that every step of the research process involves epistemological decisions and, consequently, our lens on the data. By this, from the very first we clarify and debate why we decide to carry out the research. In this case, we should explain that we study Argentine adolescents’ language performance because all the co-authors are Argentine scholars specialised in language development and native Spanish speakers. One of us lives in the neighbourhood of the school, close to the community where the data was collected, thereby offering a valuable insight into the characteristics of the population. All authors worked together as a team, engaging in regular discussions to ensure that the study was guided by their collective cultural knowledge and expertise. This was a collaborative team project that was undertaken to guarantee that the study was both sensitive and appropriate to the context in which it was conducted.

Disclosure Statement

In accordance with our research ethical commitment, we inform that María Florencia Tenaglia was employed by the Secondary school where the research was carried out. Due to this we displayed a protocol for dealing any potential conflicts arising. The other co-authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at the CONICET Digital Institutional Repository http://hdl.handle.net/11336/252421

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the educational community of Instituto Santo Tomás de Aquino for welcoming us to carry out the study presented in this article, especially its students, who participated in a highly collaborative way. Their eagerness and enthusiasm give us enormous hope in the next generations.

References

Notes

* Research article

¹ We decided this because the test is thematically biased, i.e., one question refers to COVID-19, while the other five refer to the pandemic.

² Around 3% of COVID-19 metaphors were found in the questions that asked about pandemics and vice versa, but the values are not significant.

Author notes

^a Correspondence author. E-mail: yamila.rubbo@conicet.gov.ar

Additional information

How to cite: Rubbo, Y., Silva, M. L., Tenaglia, M. F., Iacobuzio, S. V., Gasparini, M. V., & Barreyro, J. P. (2026). Argentine Adolescents’ Discourses on COVID-19: Explaining and Narrating through Metaphors. Signo y Pensamiento, 45. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.syp45.aadc

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