Food Metaphors Representing Men-Women Relationships in K-Pop Songs

Abstract

Korean pop music (K-Pop) has become popular cultural phenomenon in the past three decades. The purpose of this study was to reveal the source domain, the target domain, image schemes, and concepts that exist in the food metaphors found in K-Pop songs. This study used conceptual metaphor theory and capitalism (Lakoff and Johson, 1980; Goatly, 2007). The steps of this study were to collect K-Pop songs that contain food metaphor and analyze these metaphors. There were 6 songs as well as 6 metaphors derived from the songs. They are WOMEN ARE ICE CREAM, MEN ARE CANDIES (perceived by men themselves), MEN ARE CANDIES (perceived by women), WOMEN ARE SOUR CANDIES, WOMEN ARE STRAWBERRIES, and WOMEN ARE CANDIES. The source domains of the metaphors were ice cream, candies, sour candies and strawberries. The target domains of the metaphors were men and women. The image schema in the metaphors were food and its correlation with sexual activities. Food metaphors philosophically meant that women exist for the satisfaction of men’s appetites. The metaphors were derived from basic metaphor HUMAN IS FOOD, which was a part of Capitalism-influenced metaphor (Goatly, 2007). The concepts represented young men and young women’s type of relationships, that is likely to be sexual and pleasure-oriented, but not for long-term purpose. Another concept found was men tend to ignore their own and women’s negative character traits, while women do not.