“If I Name How I Feel” is a web-based interactive narrative project that explores the language of emotions within the context of culture. This project focuses on Korean emotion terms that do not have direct correspondence to English. By showing these differences through narrative and video, the project illustrates how language shapes individuals’ understanding of abstract concepts like emotions, highlighting the cultural nuances that exist across different societies.

One way to look at it is that the words we choose to use influence the mental models in which we operate. Aaron. Z Lewis told me “Language is the ultimate form of augmentation.”
– Yatú Espinosa
“Things aren’t all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable. They happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke, excerpt from ‘Letters to a Young Poet’

“When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.), I must speak the language of every day. Is this language somehow too coarse and material for what we want to say?”
– Ludwig Wittgenstein















It was always difficult for me to answer why I chose this topic as my thesis project because every reason I could think of was just a small part of my overall motivation. It was not only about culture, not just about the emotion, and not about the language itself. I vaguely knew this project is about small frowns when we don’t understand each other and short silence after the miscommunication, but I couldn’t exactly articulate why I was doing this.


But by reflecting on a specific moment back in 2019, I finally understood why. I was frequently asked how I felt at that time, but it was difficult for me to answer because no single word could capture my feelings, because I was feeling happy, sad, bitter, relieved, and anxious at the same time. So whenever I was asked how I felt, I would answer with 'I don’t know' or use awkward GIFs that were close to my feelings. Since I couldn’t articulate my emotions clearly, those who asked couldn't understand them either.

When I first arrived in New York, I encountered similar situations. Expressing my emotions was confusing because terms like 'grounded,' 'frustrated,' and 'sarcastic,' which I now find familiar and fitting, did not resonate with my feelings. I felt more '서운하다 Seo-Un-Hada' than disappointed,  '답답하다 Dap-Dap-Hada' than frustrated. Whenever I attempted to explain my feelings in a Korean context, I would get lost in the explanation, or be met with puzzled reactions asking, 'What do you mean?'

Reflecting on all these experiences—being questioned about my feelings, feeling confused about them, struggling to explain them, and being misunderstood—I realized that these moments were the main motivation behind my project. This project is not only about culture, but also a personal experience of how we feel, explain, and share our feelings. It is located somewhere between “What do you mean?” and “Do you know what I mean?”, dedicated to those seeking to expand their emotional vocabulary and for those who wish to understand others’ feelings more deeply.

As this project has made me more expressive and better able to explain my feelings, I hope it can help others in the same way.