Children’s storybooks as a tool for socialization: Comparing somatic emotion words in Japanese and English

• In Event: The role of culture and language in parent-child emotional communication: From storybooks to disease management

Abstract

Socialization is a process of learning a cultural pattern (Denham, Bassett, Wyatt, 2015). Children learn about emotion everyday across various means, including how others speak about emotion (Eisenberg, Cumberland, Spinrad, 1998). As such, developmental and emotion researchers alike have focused on the key role of language in shaping the emotional experience (Lindquist et al., 2006). To better understand the emotional language children are exposed to on a daily basis across cultural contexts, we tested the use of somatic emotion words and phrases in Japanese and English children’s storybooks.

Based on previous studies documenting the use of somatic emotion words among Asian populations (e.g., Tsai et al., 2004), we hypothesized higher frequency of somatic emotion words and phrases in Japanese children’s storybooks compared to English storybooks. Further, considering cultural differences in emotion concept and recognition (e.g., Junling, 2011; Yuki et al., 2007), we predicted qualitative differences in the specificity of body parts in Japanese (e.g., eyes, nose) in contrast to English (e.g., head, heart).

For the analyses, we used the largest children’s storybook corpora to date (Fujita et al., 2017), including 6,338 children’s storybooks in Japanese and 2,606 storybooks in English. Both corpora include best-selling, award-winning, and librarian-selected children’s books. First, frequency of 22 body-part words were compared across Japanese and English storybooks. Second, frequency of 217 somatic emotion words and phrases were measured in Japanese storybooks.

Consistent with our hypothesis, preliminary results showed that Japanese storybooks contained higher frequency of body-part words in than in English storybooks (Table 1). Moreover, qualitative differences were noted, such as the use of “eyes” in more than half all Japanese storybooks, as compared to the use of “head” as the most frequent body part used in English storybooks. Additionally, granular body parts, such as “nose” and “mouth” were found more frequently in Japanese than English storybooks.

Of 217 somatic emotion words/phrases, Japanese storybooks contained 119 words/phrases. A wide variety of words/phrases with “eye,” including idiomatic phrases derived from facial expressions, appeared in the storybooks (Table 2). Future full analyses will include a comparison of somatic emotion words and phrases in both languages. Specifically, a comprehensive list of emotion words and phrases will be developed integrating previously-cited emotion word lists in Japanese (Tsuji, 2011; Watanabe et al., 2019) and English (Baron-Cohen et al., 2010; Gruhn et al., 2010; Farkas et al., 2020; LIWC 1999).

Constructionist theories of emotion suggest that language plays a constitutive role in the emotional experience, such that affective states are made meaningful as instances of emotion categories that exist in a given cultural context (Lindquist, Gendro, Satpute, 2018). A cross-linguistic study of emotion words and phrases in children’s storybooks allow us to understand how cultural values are reflected and reinforced in socializing children’s emotions. For instance, the high frequency of “eyes” in Japanese storybooks mirror the dominant use of eyes in emotion recognition among Japanese children (Yuki et al., 2007). Findings will contribute broadly to the literature on children’s emotion socialization across cultures.

Authors

• Naomi Watanabe, NTT Communication Science Laboratories
  Presenting Author

• Aya Williams, University of California - Berkeley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Takashi Hattori
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sanae Fujita
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tessei Kobayashi
  Non-Presenting Author