“My heart falls out”

Language- and culture-specific body part expressions systematically reflect metaphorical and metonymic conceptualizations and the relations holding between body part concepts and target concepts like emotions. Embodiment and cultural models play significant roles in the processing: embodiment as near-universal principle constitutes the ‘skeleton’ of a concept due to experience, while cultural models as shared worldviews elaborate and organize this perceived reality. In this article, Beaver Athabascan emotion and personality trait expressions employing body part terms are presented. Besides linguistic data, metalinguistic statements of the speakers reveal underlying conceptual phenomena and idiosyncratic linguistic patterns, which are both highly relevant for the Beaver system of emotion concepts and expressions.