The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics

Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 23

[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 23, No. 0, pp. 448-460
Abbreviation: KASELL
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Received 13 May 2023 Revised 12 Jun 2023 Accepted 16 Jun 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.23..202306.448

SELF Metaphors in the Picturebook Hey, Al
Youngju Choi
Professor, Dept. of English Language and Literature, Chosun Univ., Tel: +82-62-608-5132 (ychoi1@chosun.ac.kr)


© 2023 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Lakoff (1996) claims that a person is conceptualized as two different entities, SUBJECT and SELF. In the expression I am not myself today, the subject I and the self myself are expressed as two different entities. Lakoff’s claim has been further investigated in English, Japanese, and other languages, but it has not been pursued in other modalities. In this paper, in order to determine whether the same metaphors are observed not only in verbal but also in other modes, the picturebook Hey, Al is analyzed, exploring the DIVIDED PERSON metaphors and other SELF metaphors. The analysis reveals that, around its main theme, finding one’s true identity, the picturebook Hey, Al demonstrates diverse SELF metaphors, such as the DIVIDED PERSON metaphor, the OBJECTIVE-SUBJECT metaphor, the INNER SELF metaphor, the SPLIT SELF metaphor, the ABSENT-SUBJECT metaphor, the TRUE-TO-YOURSELF metaphor, the SELF-AS-COMPANION metaphor, the LOSS-of-SELF metaphor, and the TRUE-SELF metaphor.


Keywords: DIVIDED PERSON metaphor, SELF metaphors, picturebooks, Hey, Al, visual and verbal texts

References
1. Hasegawa, Y. and Y. Hirose. 2005. What the Japanese language tells us about the alleged Japanese relational self. Australian Journal of Linguistics 25(2), 219-251.
2. Hirose, Y. 2002. Viewpoint and the nature of the Japanese reflexive zibun. Cognitive Linguistics 13(4), 357-402.
3. Lakoff, G. 1996. Sorry, I am not myself today. In Fauconnier, Gilles and Eve Sweetser, eds., Spaces, Worlds and Grammar, 91-123, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
4. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.
5. Lee, D. 2001. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
6. Moser, K. S. 2007. Metaphors as symbolic environment of the self: How self-knowledge is expressed verbal. Current Research in Social Psychology 12(11), 151-178.
7. Nikolajeva, M. and C. Scott. 2001. How Picturebooks Work. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc.,
8. Nodelman, P. 1988. Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press.
9. Pantaleo, S. and L. R. Sipe. 2012. Diverse narrative structures in contemporary picturebooks: Opportunities for children's meaning-making. Journal of Children's Literature 38(1), 6-15.
10. Pritzker, S. 2007. Thinking hearts, feeling brains: Metaphor, culture, and the self in Chinese narratives of depression. Metaphor and Symbol 22(3), 251-274.
11. Sipe, L. R. 1998. How picture books work: A semiotically framed theory of text-picture relationships. Children's Literature in Education 29(2), 97-108.
12. Slingerland, E. 2004. Conceptions of the self in the Zhuangzi: Conceptual metaphor analysis and comparative thought. Philosophy East and West 54(3), 322-342.
13. Wetzel, P. J. 1994. A movable self: The linguistic indexing of uchi and soto. In Bachnik, J. M. and C. J. Quinn, eds., Situated Meaning: Inside and Outside in Japanese Self, Society, and Language, 73-87. Princeton: Princeton University Press.