Milena Podolsak

Milena Podolsak is a PhD candidate in Scandinavian languages and lecturer in Swedish as a foreign language at Stockholm University's Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism. She is actively engaged in research on lexical semantics with particular focus on metaphor and metonymy in political discourse.

Her research interests center on lexical semantics, metaphor analysis, and metonymy within political discourse. She examines how motion and journey metaphors function in political rhetoric, with particular attention to conceptual integration and metaphorical meaning construction. Her work bridges cognitive linguistics with political communication analysis, exploring how language shapes political messaging and public perception.

Her research output primarily focuses on conceptual metaphors in Swedish political speeches, demonstrating trends in how political actors use spatial metaphors to frame policy discussions and national direction. Her analytical approach combines Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Blending Theory, and Holistic Spatial Semantics to examine discrepancies in metaphorical projection from concrete motion to political activity.

Milena teaches courses in grammar, text analysis, multimodality, and Swedish as a foreign language, contributing to both undergraduate education and language instruction for international students.