Abstract
Multimodal discourse in general, and particularly multimodal and pictorial metaphors, have attracted a great deal of attention in the last decade. However, transmodality and its effects on discourse and on metaphors have only very recently started to be analysed. Transmodal metaphors are those which have migrated from one mode (verbal, visual or sonic) to another, often as a consequence of a change in the medium, which affects both the modes and the discursive practices involved. As a result, new mappings, meanings and functions are developed. This paper examines the effects of transmodality in the creation and development of las mareas (the tides) metaphor in recent Spanish protest movements. Textual, pictorial and musical realizations of the metaphor in different media were collected from May 2011 to March 2016 and then analysed in specific socio-political, cultural and physical contexts in order to explain its different meanings as the metaphor migrated from one mode to another. The results show the evolution of the conventional metaphor a mass of people is a tide, first used to describe the demonstrations, to its consolidation as a conceptual metaphor for social protests in general, as well as for new left-wing political parties (En Marea, Mareas Gallegas, etc.) and, more interestingly, how transmodality has contributed to the new semantic, pragmatic, rhetorical and affective values acquired by the metaphor throughout this evolution.
