Article published in:
“Happiness” and “Pain” across Languages and Cultures
Edited by Cliff Goddard and Zhengdao Ye
[Benjamins Current Topics 84] 2016
► pp. 109–122

Some remarks on “pain” in Latin American Spanish

| Australian National University

The aim of this chapter is to examine the Spanish counterpart of pain, that is, the lexeme dolor. It seems that dolor, different from both English pain and French douleur, has two clearly distinguishable meanings, dolor1 referring to physical (and emotional) sensation of pain, and dolor2, a quite frequent emotion term belonging to the domain of “sadness.” This article examines different lexical occurrences of the word dolor, coming inter alia from tango lyrics, in order to support the above hypothesis.

Keywords: cross-cultural psychology, Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), pain, Spanish
Published online: 26 July 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.84.06bul
References
Besemeres, M
(2011) Emotions in bilingual life narratives. In V. Cook & B. Bassetti (Eds.), Language and bilingual cognition (pp. 479–506). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Bułat Silva, Z
(2011) El dolor y el tango [ Dolor and tango]. Estudios Hispánicos, XIX, 27–37.Google Scholar
(2012) Spanish pain, el dolor . In P. Chruszczewski (Ed.), Languages in contact 2011 (pp. 61–71). Wrocław: Wydawnictwo WSF.Google Scholar
Biblia Reina-Valera
(1960) Sociedades Bíblicas Unidas. = [BRV]Google Scholar
Biblia Versión Popular
(1992) Sociedades Bíblicas Unidas. = [BVP]Google Scholar
Carvajal, C.S., & Horwood, J
(2009) Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chojnacka-Kuraś, M
(2012) Czy wyrażenia ból głowy i ból rozstania odsyłają do tego samego pojęcia ‘bólu’? [Do expressions ból głowy and ból rozstania refer to the same concept of ‘pain’?]. In A. Mikołajczuk & K. Waszakowa (Eds.), Odkrywanie znaczeń w języku (pp. 170–186). Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.Google Scholar
Elpidio, A
(2011) Lista de sentimientos. http://​www​.alfonsoelpidio​.com​/blog​/lista​-de​-sentimientos/ [13.01.2016]Google Scholar
Fabrega, H., & Tyma, S
(1976) Culture, language and the shaping of illness: An illustration based on pain. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 20, 323–337. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frijda, N.H., Markam, S., Sato, K., & Wiers, R
(1995) Emotions and emotion words. In J.A. Russell, J.M. Fernández-Dols, A.S.R. Manstead & J.C. Wellenkamp (Eds.), Everyday conceptions of emotion: An introduction to the psychology, anthropology, and linguistics of emotion (pp. 121–143). Dordrecht/Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gran Diccionario de la Lengua Española
(1995) Madrid: SGEL. = [GDLE]Google Scholar
Hinton, D.E
(2012) Pain’s description: Beginning grammar and biological philology. Emotion Review, 4(3), 322–323. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A
(2014) Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M
(1980) Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lascaratou, C., Despotopoulou, A., & Ifantidou, E
(2008) Tracking pain and joy: Breaching boundaries, bridging fields. In C. Lascaratou, A. Despotopoulou & E. Ifantidou (Eds.), Reconstructing pain and joy (pp. 1–14). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
LeVine, S
(1993) Dolor y alegria. Women and social change in urban Mexico. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Moliner, M
(2007) Diccionario de uso del español. 3rd Edition. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Morris, D.B
(1991) The culture of pain. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nasio, J.D
(2004) The book of love and pain. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Perlin, O
(2002) Wielki słownik polsko-hiszpański. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna.Google Scholar
Real Academia Española
Banco de datos (CREA) [on-line]. Corpus de referencia del español actual. http://​www​.rae​.es [31.01.2014]
Seco, M., Andrés, O., & Ramos, G
(1999) Diccionario del español actual. Madrid: Aguilar.Google Scholar
Shweder, R.A
(2008) The cultural psychology of suffering: The many meanings of health in Orissa, India (and elsewhere). Ethos, 36, 60–77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, J.A., & Osborn, M
(2007) Pain as an assault on the self: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the psychological impact of chronic benign low back pain. Psychology and Health, 22(5), 517–534. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Travis, C.E
(2006) The communicative realization of confianza and calor humano in Colombian Spanish. In C. Goddard (Ed.). Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 199–229). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
VOX
(2007) Diccionario Manual de la Lengua Española. Barcelona: Larousse.Google Scholar
Wasikowski, J.M
(2012) Los siete dolores y gozos de la vida de San José. S.L.: Wasikowski.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A
(2012) Is ‘pain’ a human universal? Conceptualization of ‘pain’ in English, French and Polish. Colloquia Communia, 1(92), 29–53.Google Scholar
(2014) Imprisoned in English: The hazards of English as a default language. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Word Reference
(2013) http://​www​.wordreference​.com [28.01.2014]
Wordsworth Spanish Dictionary
(1991) Ware: Wordsworth.Google Scholar
Zubieta, E., Fernández, I., Vergara, A.I., Martínez, M.D., & Candia, L
(1998) Cultura y emoción en América [Culture and emotion in America]. Boletín de Psicologia, 61, 65–89.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Wierzbicka, Anna
2014. “Pain” and “suffering” in cross-linguistic perspective. International Journal of Language and Culture 1:2 ► pp. 149 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 09 january 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.