Cover not available

Article published In: Emotions across Languages and Cultures
Edited by Angeliki Athanasiadou and Ad Foolen
[International Journal of Language and Culture 4:1] 2017
► pp. 73–99

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Multiplicity of motivation behind dynamic descriptions of emotion in Estonian

 | Institute of the Estonian Language
Published online: 17 October 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.4.1.05vai
Abstract
The rich variety of emotion descriptions in terms of motion verbs found in standard Estonian was studied in respect of their general motivation and some specific motivating factors, such as conceptual structures and cognitive mechanisms. The possibilities of being a relatively late cultural loan and a direct influence of the humoral theory were both rejected, because of the discovered abundance of semi-schematic patterns and the lack of prominence of patterns related to the specific motion of body fluids. The universalistic account of bodily experience was considered to be the most powerful available explanation. The generalised embodied understanding of emotion in terms of motion was revealed by (a) the rich variety of conceptual metaphors and metonymies that were used (often simultaneously), and (b) how well they fit into the three-stage cognitive model of a typical emotion scenario. Gradual deliteralization of the verbs’ meanings is also a plausible mechanism at work because the semantic abstractness of a motion verb was found to be a function of the nature of the entities filling the slots in the semi-schematic patterns.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Selection of the material and methods
  • 3.Spread of dynamic descriptions
    • 3.1Motion-emotion co-occurrences
    • 3.2Semantic and syntactic patterns
    • 3.3Conclusions about the spread of the dynamic descriptions
  • 4.Embodied dynamic understanding
    • 4.1Beginning of an emotion
    • 4.2Emotion exists
    • 4.3Emotional response
    • 4.4Conclusions about embodied dynamic understanding
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (26)
References
Bamberg, M. (1997). Emotion talk(s). The role of perspective in the construction of emotions. In S. Niemeier & R. Dirven (Eds.), The Language of emotions. Conceptualisation, expression and theoretical foundation (pp. 209–225). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bloem, A. (2012). (E)motion in the XVIIth century. A closer look at the changing semantics of the French verbs émouvoir and mouvoir . In A. Foolen, U. M. Lüdtke, T. P. Racine & J. Zlatev (Eds.), Moving ourselves, moving others. Motion and emotion in intersubjectivity, consciousness and language (pp. 407–422). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron, L. (2008). Metaphor and talk. In Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 197–211). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
EED= (2009). Langemets, M., Tiits, M., Valdre, T., Veskis, L., Viks, Ü., & Voll, P. (Eds.). Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [The explanatory dictionary of Estonian] (Vol. I–VI1). Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evans, V., & Green, M. (2006). Cognitive linguistics. An introduction. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geeraerts, D. (2009). Deliteralization and the birth of emotion. A presentation held at Workshop of the FOCUS Foundation. Serock, Poland. Slides retrieved from [URL].
Geeraerts, D., & Grondelaers, S. (1995). Looking back at anger: Cultural traditions and metaphorical patterns. In J. Taylor and R. MacLaury (Eds.), Language and the cognitive construal of the world (pp. 153–179). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. Jr. (2006). Embodiment and cognitive science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination and reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Z. (2000). Metaphor and emotion. Language, culture and body in human feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2005). Metaphor in culture. Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). Embodiment, experiential focus, and diachronic change in metaphor. In R. W. McConchie et al. (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 2005 Symposium on new approaches in English historical lexis (pp.1–7). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Metaphor and emotion. In R. W. Gibbs (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 380–395). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Kövecses, Z. (1987). The cognitive model of anger inherent in American English. In D. Holland & N. Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (pp.195–221). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar I. Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maalej, Z. (2004). Figurative language in anger expressions in Tunisian Arabic: An extended view of embodiment. Metaphor and Symbol, 19(1), 51–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Metsmägi, I., Sedrik, M., & Soosaar, S.-E. (2012). Eesti etümoloogiasõnaraamat [The etymological dictionary of Estonian]. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ross, K. (2011). Historical aspects of Estonian Bible translation and the formation of biblical terminology from the Middle Ages up to the 18th century. Magyar Terminológia, 11, 19–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (1988). Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science, 121, 49–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vainik, E. (2002). Emotions, emotion terms and emotion concepts in an Estonian folk model. TRAMES: A Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences, 6(4), 322–341.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). The dynamic body parts in the Estonian figurative descriptions of emotions. In Z. Maalej & N. Yu (Eds.), Embodiment via body parts: Studies from various languages and cultures (pp. 41–70). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yu, N. (1995). Metaphorical expressions of anger and happiness in English and Chinese. Metaphor and symbolic activity, 10(2), 59–92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Metaphor from body and culture. In R. W. Gibbs, Jr. (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 247–262). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J., Blomberg, M., & Magnusson, U. (2012). Metaphor and subjective experience: A study of motion-emotion metaphors in English, Swedish, Bulgarian, and Thai. In A. Foolen et al. (Eds.), Moving ourselves, moving others. Motion and emotion in intersubjectivity, consciousness and language (pp. 423–450). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue