Analysis of Baby-Boom Promoting Billboards in Iran
299in Iranian culture that is applied to overcome one’s concern of the inability
to make ends meet. Ahmadinejad uses this metaphor to assure Iranians that
they will not be financially hard-pressed if they have more children. The
other encouraging remarks of Ahmadinejad seem to be overstating the
positive consequences of having a large family. The idea that large families
provide the ground for academic excellence and developing talents sounds
novel as it changes the mental association that has so far existed between
having a small family and the very advantages that Ahmadinejad proposed
for large families.
Negative representation of western lifestyle and negative consequences
of family planning in the billboards are both motivated by the RESULT FOR
ACTION metonymy, which indicates the role of political ideology in
structuring the meanings represented by the billboards. The PATH image
schema is also the one, which in the political statements and the billboards,
acts as a major metaphorical source domain. However, in the billboards,
the main meaning focus (Kövecses 2002) of the metaphor PROGRESS IS
MOVING ALONG A PATH is the difficulties on the way of progress caused by
lack of young work force. Furthermore, inefficiency of senior citizens is
illustrated in a billboard through SENIOR CITIZENS ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO
PROGRESS metaphor. The other major negative effect of family planning
highlighted in the billboards is the elimination of family relationships. The
RESULT FOR ACTION metonymy applies to illustrate the outcome of family
planning. In a culture, where family relationships are deemed significant
and part of the public image of individuals, losing family connections is
disastrous.
Financial concerns about having children are attributed to couples’
budget mismanagement, which is claimed to be the reason for which they
postpone having children. Given the divine support, as proposed by the ex-
president, and budget mismanagement, as illustrated in the billboards,
financial concern loses its status as a serious consideration and is largely
conceptually backgrounded.
Happiness is the main emotion concept represented both visually and
verbally in the billboards. The RESULT FOR ACTION metonymy, a
realization of the more general EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy, provides the
cognitive link between having more children and happiness. The same
metonymy operates to provide a conceptual link between adopting a non-
Islamic lifestyle and depression/sadness. Whereas verbal manifestations of
happiness correspond with its visual manifestations in all the billboards
analyzed, the adjectives ‘younger’ (a younger society) and ‘better’ (a
better life) in the slogans are in contrast with their corresponding visual
manifestations. These two adjectives give prominence to the solutions