Language is a beautiful, intricate, and confusing creation we use every day and cannot live without. The words we wield and how we employ them are significant. Our language allows us to conceptualize the world around us literally and metaphorically (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 69), and our language affects how we perceive ideas, feelings, actions, and people (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 83). We are sculpted by our words just as we craft the ones we use. Our word choices, such as between synonyms with different connotations (e.g. cheap vs. inexpensive), today are not only influenced by our linguistic decisions yesterday but also impact the selections we will make tomorrow.
Even more influential than synonyms and connotations, we are affected by the metaphors we employ to understand our world. The metaphors we use highlight certain aspects of various concepts while, by the nature of this highlighting, also obscuring others (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 10). For example, our Western cultural experiences of work and time have given rise to the metaphor time is a resource (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 66), as evidenced by such things as the expression “time is money.” Through using this metaphor to conceptualize time, our understanding of time and how we spend it have been shaped by this metaphor. The metaphor highlights aspects of time such as it can be measured, given monetary value based upon labor performed, and used up, but this metaphor also hides other aspects of time like the value of inactivity (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, pp. 66-67) or how “our concepts of labor and time affect our concept of leisure, turning it into something remarkably like labor” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 67).
Our personal and cultural experiences give rise to metaphors as means for understanding the world, but our actions toward these subjects become informed by the metaphors we use and what is highlighted and hidden by them. There is a recursive dynamic between how we conceptualize something and interact with it. For example, from the metaphor argument is war, we understand a verbal dispute through the idea of fighting, and this conceptualization becomes the basis for how we participate in arguments (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 63). We engage in arguments by strategizing ways to attack our opponent’s position while defending our own (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 62). Our experiences with arguments based on this cultural conceptualization of them then reinforces our views that arguments are war. Our language usage shapes us, and we can analyze our words to see how we understand the world and what implicit views we hold about the things, events, and people around us (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 7).
An example of uncovering basic beliefs that I have been mulling over recently is the metaphor children are nuclear reactors. This metaphor is signaled by the phrase that someone, usually a child, is “having a meltdown.” A meltdown? Like Chernobyl? We often use the term meltdown to describe a tantrum or a strong emotional outburst of anger and frustration[1]. Have you used this expression? Recently? The definition relating to the earliest uses of the term meltdown is “the action or process of melting; (now) specifically: liquefaction of the fuel of a nuclear reactor as a result of uncontrolled heating, with the potential to melt the reactor core and shielding” (Oxford University Press, n.d.), so why do we use this expression for strong emotional distress?
While the use of the term meltdown predates the Atomic Era with such examples as a journal from 1919 on the processing of iron ore, a manufacturer’s notes on ice cream mouth-feel from 1937, and other technical writings (Oxford University Press, n.d.), it was not until around the 1950’s with the development of nuclear reactors and the application of this term in this setting that the word meltdown became more widely known (Merriam-Webster, n.d.; Oxford University Press, n.d.). This led to its eventual metaphorical usage for emotional breakdown beginning around the mid to late 1970’s (Oxford University Press, n.d.). It may be that the term meltdown is used to describe emotional distress because, in part, of how children often physically collapse or seem to melt onto the floor when extremely upset. While the term meltdown lends itself to the physical description of a child melting, the fact that meltdown only began to be used for emotional distress two decades following the advent of nuclear power and amidst the height of the nuclear threats of the Cold War suggests that the metaphorical use of the term was derived from the use regarding nuclear power and carried such connotations with it. It is important to note that the metaphors we use are not random but are parts of complex systems scaffolding our conception of the world (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 55). Although some metaphors are isolated examples (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 54), most of the metaphors we use, many of them so fundamental to our understanding that we are oblivious to their metaphorical nature (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 11), connect and correlate with each other across our framework for perceiving the world (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 97).
So, what insights can we gain from examining the metaphor that children are nuclear reactors? What can the idea that my daughter is having a meltdown tell us about how we view children’s emotions or human emotions in general? Why is it that we have adopted this term meltdown when other terms like tantrum have long predated it (Oxford University Press, n.d.)? Is it that we have an awareness that a child’s emotional outbursts can reach levels where it feeds off itself and balloons into a greater and greater distress? While this makes sense, if this was the belief underpinning this expression, or at least a primary component, then I would think that expressions like “my toddler is beginning to snowball” or “my child snowballed at the park” would also be used. Please, let me know if you or anyone you know uses such snowball phrases.
Our use of meltdown also perhaps betrays our view that children’s emotions are dangerous. We as a culture may feel that children’s emotions, especially negative ones and those not approved of by society, are potentially harmful to them, others, and ourselves. Although this view may originate as our reaction to negative emotions, it could quickly spill over into our thoughts on any strong emotion. Building on this idea, another belief that may be revealed by this metaphor is that such tantrums can lead to a child’s loss of emotional control and containment to social norms and behaviors. This view that children’s emotions can become uncontrollable also suggests that their emotions need to be regulated.
Most likely, our culture’s use of the expression meltdown indicates beliefs that are a combination of these three ideas. These insights about our cultural views are helpful for monitoring my own perception of my daughter and her emotions. I do not want to see her emotions, positive or negative, as something dangerous to be controlled or suppressed. As parents, we want to help our children learn to process and manage their emotions; this is a vital role we play. I am not saying that we should withdraw from our children’s feelings, that would be a terrible response, but I do not want to judge my daughter’s big emotions as something bad or wrong or dangerous. I also do not want to conceptualize myself as the control rods that dampen my daughter’s feelings. Something that may be hidden by the use of this metaphor is the opportunity for child to learn within the circumstance of the emotional outburst. Instead of exploring the role that the child could play in the resolution of the situation, the metaphor that children are nuclear reactors emphasizes the need for parental intervention in the governing of the tantrum. It therefore may be that my labeling of my daughter’s reaction as a meltdown says more about my ability or inability to tolerate her emotions than her own emotional regulation.
As previously described, many of our metaphorical frameworks and linguistic means of understanding the world are connected and overlap, and this metaphor of children are nuclear reactors fits within the larger context of beliefs about emotions that also warrants reflection. What can we learn by taking a step back and considering other metaphors that form our conception of emotions? If we see children’s emotions as nuclear reactors, how do we view our own?
In many ways, the language we use implies a negative perspective on emotions. Another metaphor in our understanding of emotions is that emotions are hot as evidenced by phrases such as needing to cool off after an argument or someone who is easily excited being described as hot-blooded. Someone who is hot-headed is argumentative and emotional while someone who is calm and rational is said to be cool and collected. This metaphor overlaps significantly with the metaphor emotions are volatile substances. The words react and reaction describe emotionally charged responses we have in conversations or to events around us, and these words build upon the belief that emotions are explosive through our understanding of prototypical chemical reactions. This view that emotions are volatile substances is demonstrated in the differences between our understanding of someone who is reacting compared to someone responding to a situation. A response is calm and conversational while a reaction is emotional and dangerous. Within our Western post-Enlightenment culture, rational thought has been elevated above other perspectives, including emotion, and this has led to a disparaging view toward emotions. The emotional connotation of the word react, and negative view of emotions, is further shown through the word overreact characterizing excessive emotional responses while overresponsive suggests being overly communicative. We may not know which arose first, use of the word react to describe emotional responses or chemical interactions, but these two uses have certainly coevolved and influenced our understanding of each other through their correlations. The words and metaphors we use often cast emotions in a negative light.
Even if we explicitly reject the idea that strong emotions are dangerous or need to be controlled, are we still subtly influencing ourselves into believing this thought through the words and metaphors that we use to scaffold our concepts? Do we continually reinforce these negative views of emotions with our choice of words? Though every word choice and utterance we make may seem insignificant, our language and conceptions of the world emerge from the interplay between these millions of decisions. What can be done? We need to consider our words and metaphorical usages and think about how the words we employ affect what we believe about the world. I want the implicit understandings of my language to reconcile with my explicit beliefs about the actions, ideas, and people around me. We may need to change our language through conscious effort and find more accurate words and concepts for articulating what we intend to say in our everyday lives. Describing that my daughter is having strong feelings of frustration or disappointment seems to avoid the negative influence of the word meltdown (do you agree or disagree?) and helps her and me identify, discuss, and process her feelings rather than label them as dangerous or needing to be controlled. In addition to avoiding the term meltdown, are there other metaphors, concepts, or words that better describe or highlight important aspects of our emotions?
Footnotes: [1] This colloquial use of the term meltdown differs from how it has come to be used within the contexts of ASD and neurovariance.
References
- Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.
- Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Meltdown. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meltdown
- Oxford University Press. (n.d). Meltdown. In Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved April 28, 2022, from https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/116282.
- Oxford University Press. (n.d). Tantrum. In Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/197624.
The Writings of T. H. Oldenkamp 