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Article published In:
Emotion, Body and Mind across a Continent: Figurative representations of emotions in Australian Aboriginal languages
Edited by Maïa Ponsonnet, Dorothea Hoffmann and Isabel O'Keeffe
[Pragmatics & Cognition 27:1] 2020
► pp. 20–82

The role of the body in descriptions of emotions

A typology of the Australian continent

ORCID logo | The University of Western Australia | The University of Sydney | Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
| Macquarie University

This article presents the first systematic typological study of emotional expressions involving body parts at the scale of a continent, namely the Australian continent. The role of body parts in figurative descriptions of emotions, a well-established phenomenon across the world, is known to be widespread in Australian languages. This article presents a typology of body-based emotional expressions across a balanced sample of 67 languages, where we found that at least 30 distinct body parts occur in emotional expressions. The belly is by far the most frequent, and a dozen others also have significant representation. The study shows how the properties of these body parts – e.g., whether they are internal organs or visible facial parts – partly determine which historical scenarios led to their linguistic associations with emotions, and in turn, their semantic and figurative properties.

Keywords: figurative language, metaphors, metonymies, body parts, emotions, linguistic typology, Australian languages
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The data
    • 2.1Language sample and data
    • 2.2The limits of documentation
    • 2.3Interpreting the sources
  • 3.Framework and overview of results
    • 3.1Identifying and characterizing emotions
      • 3.1.1Working definition of emotions
      • 3.1.2Discrete labels
      • 3.1.3Categories of emotions
    • 3.2A typology of tropes
    • 3.3Typified emergence scenarios
      • 3.3.1Cultural association
      • 3.3.2Pragmatic bridges
      • 3.3.3Semantic shift
      • 3.3.4Contact
      • 3.3.5Sources of additional expressions
    • 3.4Body part profiles
  • 4.Internal body parts with prevalent somatic bridges
    • 4.1The belly
      • 4.1.1Semantics
      • 4.1.2Figurative profile
        • 4.1.2.1Non-somatic metonymies
        • 4.1.2.2Somatic metonymies
        • 4.1.2.3Property metaphors
        • 4.1.2.4Other metaphors
    • 4.2The heart
      • 4.2.1Semantics
      • 4.2.2Figurative profile
    • 4.3The throat
      • 4.3.1Semantics
      • 4.3.2Figurative profile
  • 5.Abdominal body parts sensitive to semantic shift
    • 5.1The liver
      • 5.1.1Semantics
      • 5.1.2Figurative profile
      • 5.1.3Semantic-shift scenario
    • 5.2The abdomen
      • 5.2.1Semantics
      • 5.2.2Figurative profile
    • 5.3The chest
      • 5.3.1Semantics
      • 5.3.2Figurative profile
  • 6.Visible body parts with behavioral bridges
    • 6.1The eyes
      • 6.1.1Semantics
      • 6.1.2Figurative profile
    • 6.2The nose
      • 6.2.1Semantics
      • 6.2.2Figurative profile
    • 6.3The face
  • 7.Visible body parts with intellectual bridges
    • 7.1The ear
      • 7.1.1Semantics and intellectual bridges
      • 7.1.2Figurative profile
    • 7.2The head
      • 7.2.1Semantics and intellectual bridges
      • 7.2.2Figurative profile
    • 7.3The forehead
      • 7.3.1Semantics
      • 7.3.2Figurative profile
  • 8.Others
  • 9.Recapitulation and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 September 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.00011.pon
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