The Role of Metaphor in the Structuring of Emotion Concepts

Abstract

Conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) is one of the most prolific frameworks in the study of emotion concepts. Following the seminal work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and subsequent work by Kövecses (1986Kövecses ( , 1990 and Kövecses and Lakoff (1987), an impressive number of studies in cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics have sought to document and confirm the claim that conceptual metaphor (CM) structures affective concepts. I attempt a brief overview of CMT claims about and CMT-inspired research on emotion concepts. I continue by presenting a study based on data collected in six languages, to assess the role of CM in the structuring of emotion concepts. I introduce the procedure, the corpus, and the analyses that have been carried out, including a detailed discussion of the considerations that informed the coding decisions applied to the corpus in a tentative quantitative analysis. Finally, I highlight a series of difficulties and controversies raised by CMT-driven analysis of emotion concepts that could be employed in hypothesis-driven experiments to test conceptual processing claims made within CMT.

Betrayed Sentiments: Joseph Anton and the Phraseology of Emotional Representation

“…Some linguists go so far as to claim that much of the "expressive language" (Irvine, 1982: 31) used to talk about emotional states is figurative in nature (Kövecses, 2002: 111). Figurative language is intricately linked to the concept of emotion as it is believed to be created as a way of conceptualizing human emotional experiences (Gibbs et al, 2002;Meier and Robinson, 2005;Sauciuc, 2009), even if such symbolizations are imperfect (Larsen et al, 2008: 181). The use of phraseologisms as a means of expressing emotions has been discussed in connection with their semantic/pragmatic functions and their contextual senses (Koller, 1977: 70ff).…”

When two Horses Become Minji na Ndengũ (Peas and Green Grams): A Cognitive Integration Analysis of Blended Idioms of Political Campaign in Kenyan Newspapers

“…This means that the relationship between language and cognition is highly important in making contextual inferences in speech. Writing on the nature of idiomatic expressions in speech, Sauciuc (2009) argues that idioms have fixed forms and an attempt to modify them is motivated by intentional reasons. Such inten-…”

“…Speakers who have mastered a particular language use idiomatic expressions to mark inclusion into that community. Although these are functions performed by the canonized idioms, Sauciuc (2009) advises that scholarly attention should be directed at the language phenomenon which gives writers and speakers the license to flout canonized idiomatic forms with the objective of creating special meaning. Sauciuc's (2009) opinion is buttressed by Cacciari and Tabossi (2014) who opine that figurative competencies in everyday language are achieved through the use of modified idiomatic expressions.…”

“…Although these are functions performed by the canonized idioms, Sauciuc (2009) advises that scholarly attention should be directed at the language phenomenon which gives writers and speakers the license to flout canonized idiomatic forms with the objective of creating special meaning. Sauciuc's (2009) opinion is buttressed by Cacciari and Tabossi (2014) who opine that figurative competencies in everyday language are achieved through the use of modified idiomatic expressions. Cacciari and Tabossi (2014) add that people resort to modified idiom use in order to create novel meanings through indirect references that ordinary language cannot express.…”

Metaphor peace

“…The strong view that metaphors were almost entirely responsible for our abstract concepts has been extensively criticized (BUNDGAARD, 2019;BUNDGAARD, 2009;MURPHY, 1996;SAUCIUC, 2009). Today, research in abstract and concrete concepts abound, and we know that these concepts comprise much other rich knowledge beyond metaphors 26 The definitions of metaphors changed with time (see Lakoff 2008; Gibbs 2017).…”