Metaphors of institutional strain and repair: A corpus-based analysis of Nepalese media self-narration of the 2025 Nepal protests

This article examines metaphorical framing of the 2025 Nepal protests in Nepalese, Western, and Chinese news coverage, with particular attention to Nepalese media self-narration. Drawing on a corpus of 173 English-language reports published between 8 and 15 September 2025, it combines Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU)-based metaphor identification with qualitative discourse analysis. The findings show that Nepalese reporting foregrounds institutional strain, fragility, repair, and civic sacrifice, while external reference coverage tends to emphasize confrontation, accusation, or stabilization. The study argues that metaphor helps organize crisis interpretation and responsibility attribution through different patterns of self- and other-narration in media discourse.