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Part of
Figurativity and Human Ecology
Edited by Alexandra Bagasheva, Bozhil Hristov and Nelly Tincheva
[Figurative Thought and Language 17] 2022
► pp. 151–180

Kinaesthetic embodied schemas in emotion language

A contrastive comparison between manner-framed and path-framed languages

ORCID logo | University of Genova
This chapter explores how culture and cognition intertwine in the conceptualisation of emotive meaning through the analysis of emotive factive constructions (e.g. afraid of spiders; furious at the angry words; delighted over his behaviour). It aims to identify the embodied schemas that motivate the close-knit unit of emotion adjective and prepositional phrase in the English-Italian language pair. The differences that occur in the combination between the open-class of emotion adjectives and the closed-class of prepositions in the two languages appear to be motivated by embodied cognition, but also by typological features being in close connection to cultural preferences. The dataset, compiled by querying the British National Corpus and the Italian La Repubblica Corpus, shows that English gives prominent role to the manner of experiencing emotions, while Italian foregrounds the cause that prompts emotions. The hypothesis is put forward that the different type of verbalisation may be correlated with Talmy’s dichotomy between manner-framed and path-framed languages.
Keywords: emotive factive construction, emotion adjectives, locative and directional prepositions, embodied schemas, contrastive linguistics, talmy’s binary typology.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Emotions
  • 3.Embodiment in cognition and language
  • 4.Emotions and the AdjEM+PP construction
    • 4.1Direct cause: of
    • 4.2Means cause: by
    • 4.3Indeterminate cause: about
    • 4.4Targeting cause: at
    • 4.5Intense emotional cause: in/into
    • 4.6Motive cause: out of
    • 4.7Concomitant cause: with
    • 4.8Reasoned cause: for
    • 4.9Repetitive cause: over
  • 5.Embodied schemas in the English language of emotions
    • 5.1Delighted
    • 5.2Happy
    • 5.3Thrilled
    • 5.4Angry
    • 5.5Disappointed
    • 5.6Furious
  • 6.Embodied schemas in the Italian language of emotions
    • 6.1Delighted about/at/by/with vs. Felice di/per
    • 6.2Happy about/at/for/in/with vs. contento di/per
    • 6.3Thrilled at/by/over/with vs. entusiasta di/per
    • 6.4Angry about/at/over/with vs. arrabbiato per/con
    • 6.5Disappointed about/at/by/in/with vs. deluso di/da/per
    • 6.6Furious about/at/over/with vs. furioso di/per/con
  • 7.Typology in emotion language: Closing remarks
  • References
  • Corpora
  • Dictionaries
Published online: 10 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.17.07bai
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