Metaphors of Crisis and Hope in Social Media Discourse about the 2025 floods in Buner and Swat: An Ecolinguistics Perspective

Abstract

Climate-related disasters have become more common in Pakistan; the 2025 floods in Buner and Swat severely damaged homes, livelihoods, and communities. This study uses an ecolinguistic method to examine metaphorical language in fifty publicly available social media posts from Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok, Wikipedia, and Reuters, investigating how common people express their experiences of hope and tragedy. Based on Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Stibbe's (2015) "stories we live by," the analysis finds two main patterns: crisis metaphors and hope metaphors. Crisis metaphors emphasize vulnerability and destruction by depicting rivers as fierce adversaries, darkness, or emotional drowning. On the other hand, hope metaphors, which represent healing and optimism, place an emphasis on resiliency, community strength, spiritual faith, and ecological regeneration. The results show that metaphorical language encourages ecological knowledge, community cooperation, and perceptions of environmental calamities. Policymakers, environmental communicators, and researchers can develop more effective catastrophe communication and resilience-building initiatives by comprehending these linguistic patterns.

Keywords: Ecolinguistics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Social Media, Floods, Buner, Swat, Crisis Metaphors, Hope Metaphors, Environmental Discourse, Pakistan