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Article published In: Applying Cognitive Linguistics: Figurative language in use, constructions and typology
Edited by Ana M. Piquer-Píriz and Rafael Alejo-González
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 14:1] 2016
► pp. 73–101

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Methodological triangulation in the study of emotion

The case of ‘anger’ in three language groups

 | Swiss Center for the Affective Sciences
 | Swiss Center for the Affective Sciences
 | University of Brighton
Published online: 7 July 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.14.1.04oga
This paper explores the value of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) in the interdisciplinary study of emotion. The insights provided by a quantitative, corpus-based analysis of anger metaphors in three languages (English, Spanish, Russian) are compared to those obtained from two other methodologies of a more psycholinguistic kind: a feature-rating and a labelling task. The three methodologies are used to test in language several hypotheses on cross-cultural differences in anger experiences derived from earlier findings in emotion psychology. The three methods are found to be complementary and provide convergent evidence that support the hypotheses, with each method contributing additional pertinent data on some of the issues addressed. We discuss the contribution of CMT, its relative importance and specificity, and highlight several methodological and analytical adaptations that CMT studies should undergo for its results to become informative to other disciplines in the study of emotion.
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