Water and Words: The Difference in the Fluid Metaphor. A Japanese-English Comparative Analysis

Abstract

This study applies the conceptual metaphor theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and provides a comparative analysis of LANGUAGE IS A FLUID metaphor in Japanese and English by focusing on one of their constituents: verbs. Since the claim was made by Nomura (1996) that Japanese tends to conceptualize language as a fluid whereas English tends to do so as a solid, several counterarguments have been published indicating that English has similar expressions in which language is regarded as fluid. However, the comparison of each equivalent verb has not been provided. To fill this gap, I conducted this investigation to examine whether equivalent verbs in English can be used in a similar way as Japanese. The usage examples have been assembled from dictionaries, corpus analysis, and internet searches. This research showed that differences are more noticeable under close examination. Even though the original meanings of equivalent verbs are similar, when these verbs are employed in language communication, their meanings can differ across two languages. This result shows that Japanese and English seem to share the same concept at a generic level, but their metaphorical expressions vary when considered carefully.