Intertextual meme “One does not simply”: conceptual blending diagrams

Abstract

The article aims to expand the analytical and explanatory potential of the theory of intertextuality by applying the principles and methodology of cognitive-discursive linguistics to take into account the cognitive mechanisms of establishing intertextual relations in the formation of intertextually active multimodal texts and their life cycle. The study attempts to transcend the exclusively descriptive approach to text analysis and instead to explore the intertextually active multimodal meme-image macros “One does not simply”, to consider the mechanisms of conceptual integration and their effects in the processes of the meme’s emergence, intertextual instantiation, growth, decline and decay, and to elicit and analyse the verbal/nonverbal structures, manifesting such processes of meaning production. To achieve the set goal, the paper proposes and tests a procedure for comprehensive analysis of a multimodal meme-image macro at all the stages of its life cycle, which involves: 1) discovering the lingual and extralingual context of the meme formation; 2) identifying the meme’s typological structural-semantic, multimedia, and other features and prototyping them; 3) analyzing cognitive operations and conceptual integration mechanisms that form the prototypical structural-semantic parameters of the meme and the processes of meaning formation and intertextual bonding; 4) investigating the transformations of the identified prototypical parameters at all the life cycle stages. The application of the proposed methodology for analysing the life cycle of the meme-image macro “One does not simply” revealed the multi-stage nature of the conceptual integration process, leading to the emergence of the meme, the emergence of meaning from direct and reverse mapping of integrated features, the elaboration of the resulting integrative structure due to snowcloning and other transformations, and the meme’s loss of its multimodality and precedent potential at the final stage of its life cycle. The analysis demonstrated that the verbal and non-verbal components of the image macro’s structure are not arbitrary: they reflect the core processes of conceptual integration and they are adapted to intertextual existence.