Inflation is a Person – On Language-Image Relations in Internet Memes

Kopecka, Beata; Rut-Kluz, Dorota

doi:10.2478/slgr-2025-0017

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse language-image relations in Polish-language Internet memes in which the concept of INFLATION is communicated by means of conceptual metaphors. The memes chosen for this study rely on two modes, which are: written language and static image. With this in mind, this analysis concentrates on a multimodal process of meaning construction by showing how these two modes contribute to the shape of conceptual metaphors that can be identified in connection with a given meme. The meaning construction is seen as a cognitive process in which the final product is a conceptual metaphor characterized by the pattern B is A, where B, being the metaphorical target concept is INFLATION, whereas A, being the metaphorical source domain is a concept linked with the domain HUMAN BEING. With the assumption that meaning is a mental process, the analysis is cognitively oriented, and the adopted model is the extended conceptual metaphor theory (ExCMT) as proposed by Kövecses (2017, 2020). The unquestionable advantage of this model is the fact that being a multi-level theory of metaphor, the ExCMT accounts for the creation of novel metaphors in discourse.

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Inflation is a Person – On Language-Image Relations in Internet Memes

Abstract

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