Metonymies and metaphors of sadness in the Old English vocabulary
The aim of this paper is to explore the predominant metonymic and metaphoric conceptualizations of sadness in the Old English period. To this end, the Old English expressions for emotional distress recorded in The Old English Thesaurus and old English dictionaries have been analyzed. Taking as a starting point the experiential grounding of emotion conceptualization, we first present experimental evidence in support of the role of somato-behavioral reactions in emotion recognition, affective state induction and emotional information processing and interpretation, and review the most common metonymic and metaphoric expressions for sadness in Modern English. Next, we analyze the Old English vocabulary for sadness and the interplay between embodiment and culture in the conceptualization and linguistic description of emotional distress. Such analysis makes it clear that in ancient times, as in present day English, sadness and psychological distress were also conceptualized in terms of unpleasant physical conditions such as illness, cold, darkness or heaviness. Consequently, a long-term diachronic trend in the conceptualization of sadness can be traced even though its linguistic realization and motivation have varied through time.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Literature review
- 2.Materials and method
- 3.Findings and discussion: Sadness in the oe vocabulary
- 4.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00022.cas
References
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 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.