We study a partial differential equation on a bounded domain $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^N$ with a $p(x)$-growth condition in the divergence operator and we establish the existence of at least two nontrivial weak solutions in the generalized Sobolev space $W_0^{1,p(x)}(\Omega)$. Such equations have been derived as models of several physical phenomena. Our proofs rely essentially on critical point theory combined with corresponding variational techniques.