Framing force and control through idioms: A cognitive corpus analysis of the German crisis press

The paper investigates idioms in the German press discourse concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. The study draws on an 11-million-token corpus of press articles published between 2020 and 2021, from which 320 idioms were extracted for analysis. To explore their discursive functions, a mixed-methods approach was employed, combining (1) frequency analysis, (2) annotating idiom types for their underlying image schemas within an ECMT framework, and (3) contextual analysis. Results demonstrate a significant rise in pandemic-related idioms anchored in the PHYSICAL FORCE AND CONTROL image schema, particularly within the PHYSICAL POSSESSION domain. Such idioms conceptualise the relationship between ‘threat’ and ‘counteracting entity’, serving diverse pragmatic purposes ranging from reinforcing coercion to solidarity-building. The applied multilevel framework proved effective in structuring the data, uncovering underlying metaphorisation patterns, yet indicated a necessity for refining and flexibly applying categories, as idioms frequently activate multiple image schemas simultaneously. Abstracting idioms to the image schema level creates a conceptual language beneficial for contrastive research, enabling cross-linguistic comparison of figurative conceptualisations in crisis contexts.