'Life is a rollercoaster:' A Cognitive Discourse Analysis of school-agers’ understanding of meaning in life

While the human quest for meaning in life is widely studied across various disciplines, research examining how children discursively construct and communicate this concept remains underexplored. Extensive cognitive linguistic research on meaning in life has primarily focused on the use of metaphors in adults. This study moves beyond figurative language to explore the broader range of linguistic features used by 10-year-old Hebrew native speakers (N = 10) when discussing life’s meaning during semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Using Cognitive Discourse Analysis (CODA) of rich interview data, we find that children navigated their understanding of meaning in life through polar oppositions, as well as metaphors involving opposing directional spatial relationships (e.g. a rollercoaster and a Ferris wheel). Crucially, in recounting significant life events, participants frequently adopted thematic positions characterized by affectedness rather than agentivity. This pattern suggests that, for children, meaning is derived from social recognition and appreciation. The detailed analysis of children’s discourse concerning existential concepts in this study exemplifies CODA’s potential for gaining insights into meaning-making processes.