Various ways of supporting society

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 ( Charles J. Forceville & Eduardo Urios-Aparisi 2009 ), 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 1978 ; Robert W. Rieber & Aaron S. Carton 1987 ), 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.