Cover not available

Article published In: Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 12:2 (2025) ► pp.322–345

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Various ways of supporting society

Decoding the tax is support metaphor in Japanese children’s multimodal expressions

ORCiD logo with link | Akita University
Published online: 10 November 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.24002.yua
Abstract
This study sheds light on how Japanese children conceptualize taxation through creative metaphors, offering insights into their cognitive development and societal understanding. Specifically, the research investigates the most prevalent metaphor, tax is support, identified through the analysis of 712 postcards collected from a prefecture-wide children’s competition in Akita, Japan. The study addresses two core questions: (i) How do Japanese children conceptualize the metaphor of tax is support? (ii) What does the metaphor reveal about their understanding of tax and the nature of cognitive effort involved in metaphor interpretation? Drawing on multimodal metaphor analysis (Forceville, C. J., & Urios-Aparisi, E. (2009). Introduction. In C. J. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 3–18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), the study examines how children’s visual and verbal representations complement each other, reflecting deeper conceptual structures. The analysis is also framed by L. S. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Rieber, R. W., & Carton, A. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Problems of general psychology, including the volume thinking and speech. New York: Springer New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), which emphasizes the role of social interaction and cultural tools in shaping cognitive development. Through these lenses, the study explores how Japanese children aged 11 to 12 internalize complex societal concepts like taxation and transform them into meaningful metaphors, reflecting both personal interpretation and the sociocultural values embedded in the competition context.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework
  • 3.The Postcard Contest on Tax and genre convention
  • 4.Methodology and results
  • 5.support metaphors in action
    • 5.1support as a person
    • 5.2support as the foundation
    • 5.3support as a scale
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (41)
References
Bateman, J. A. (2014). Text and image: A critical introduction to the visual-verbal divide. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bolognesi, M. (2018). Review of Multimodal metaphor and metonymy in advertising. Language and Cognition, 10(3), 552–559. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bounegru, L., & Forceville, C. (2011). Metaphors in editorial cartoons representing the global financial crisis. Visual Communication, 10(2), 209–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caballero, R. (2016). Genre and metaphor: Use and variation across usage events. In E. Semino & Z. Demjén (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of metaphor and language (pp. 193–205). London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron, L. (2003). Metaphor in educational discourse. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carriedo, N., Corral, A., Montoro, P. R., Herrero, L., Ballestrino, P., & Sebastián, I. (2016). The development of metaphor comprehension and its relationship with relational verbal reasoning and executive function. PLOS ONE, 11(3), Article e0150289. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chesley, G. L., Gillett, D. A., & Wagner, W. G. (2008). Verbal and nonverbal metaphor with children in counseling. Journal of Counseling & Development, 86(4), 399–411. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deckert, M., Schmoeger, M., Schaunig-Busch, I., & Willinger, U. (2019). Metaphor processing in middle childhood and at the transition to early adolescence: The role of chronological age, mental age, and verbal intelligence. Journal of Child Language, 46(2), 334–367. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Doherty-Sneddon, G., & Kent, G. (1996). Visual signals and the communication abilities of children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 37(8), 949–959. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
El Refaie, E. (2003). Understanding visual metaphor: The example of newspaper cartoons. Visual Communication, 2(1), 75–95. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Epstein, R. L., & Gamlin, P. J. (1994). Young children’s comprehension of simple and complex metaphors presented in pictures and words. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 9(3), 179–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forceville, C. J., & Urios-Aparisi, E. (2009). Introduction. In C. J. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 3–18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., Alibali, M. W., & Church, R. B. (1993). Transitions in concept acquisition: Using the hand to read the mind. Psychological Review, 100(2), 279–297. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodrich Smith, W., & Hudson Kam, C. L. (2015). Children’s use of gesture in ambiguous pronoun interpretation. Journal of Child Language, 42(3), 591–617. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kageyama, T., & Kishimoto, H. (2016). Handbook of Japanese lexicon and word formation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kogan, N., & Chadrow, M. (1986). Children’s comprehension of metaphor in the pictorial and verbal modality. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 9(3), 285–295. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kogan, N., Connor, K., Gross, A., & Fava, D. (1980). Understanding visual metaphor: Developmental and individual differences. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 45(1), 1–78. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (2010). Why it matters how we frame the environment. Environmental Communication, 1(1), 70–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Littlemore, J. (2017). Metaphor use in educational contexts: Functions and variations. in E. Semino & Z. Demjén (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of metaphor and language (pp. 285–295). London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Özçalişkan, Ş. (2005). On learning to draw the distinction between physical and metaphorical motion: Is metaphor an early emerging cognitive and linguistic capacity?. Journal of Child Language, 32(2), 291–318. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (2003). The psychology of intelligence. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pouscoulous, N. (2011). Metaphor: For adults only?. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 25(1), 51–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rahmatirad, M. (2020). A review of socio-cultural theory. SIASAT, 5(3), 23–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rieber, R. W., & Carton, A. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Problems of general psychology, including the volume thinking and speech. New York: Springer New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rocci, A., Mazzali-Lurati, S., & Pollaroli, C. (2018). The argumentative and rhetorical function of multimodal metonymy. Semiotica, 2018(220), 123–153. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sasaki, K. (2020). The current situation and issues of taxpayer education in Japan. International E-Journal of Advances in Education, VI(16), 14–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siltanen, S. A. (1989). Effects of three levels of context on children’s metaphor comprehension. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 150(2), 197–215. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siqueira, M., & Gibbs, R. (2007). Children’s acquisition of primary metaphors: A crosslinguistic study. Organon, 21(43), 161–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2010). A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thibodeau, P. H., & Boroditsky, L. (2013). Natural language metaphors covertly influence reasoning. PLOS ONE, 8(1), Article e52961. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1986). Thought and language. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, J. L. (2015). Metaphorical conceptualizations and classroom practices of instructors teaching an accelerated postsecondary developmental literacy course. In W. Wan & G. Low (Eds.), Metaphor in language, cognition, and communication: Vol. 3: Elicited metaphor analysis in educational discourse (pp. 239–264). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Winner, E. (1997). The point of words: Children’s understanding of metaphor and irony. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(in press). Tiny canvases, big tales: Deciphering the concept of tax through Japanese children’s postcard drawings. Visual Communication.
Zhao, X., & Wu, Y. (2023). Oil as narcotic or as medicine: The DISEASE metaphor in political cartoons on energy crisis. Language and Semiotic Studies, 9(1), 79–103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue