Cover not available

In:Exploring and Exploiting Parallel Corpora of Spanish: The PaCorES corpus collection in language and translation education and research
Edited by Irene Doval and M. Teresa Sánchez Nieto
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 129] 2026
► pp. 306–326

Spanish anger words in translation

 | University Jaume I
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This paper examines the category of anger words in Spanish texts translated from German, compared to original Spanish literary texts. Drawing on Halverson’s (2017) Gravitational Pull Hypothesis (GPH) it predicts the overuse or underuse of specific anger words in the translated texts and evaluates these predictions using the PaGeS corpus. The findings confirm that the salience of source and target language items, as well as the connectivity between them, are reliable predictors of tendencies in translations. Specifically, the word families of ira, furia, enojo, and indignación are overrepresented in the translated texts, while rabia, cólera, cabreo, molestia, fastidio, and disgust are underrepresented. The study further identifies word class as an additional conditioning factor, suggesting that the principles of the GPH operate both on the semantic and the structural level.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Anger words in Spanish and German
    • 2.2The translation of emotions
    • 2.3Theoretical and methodological framework: The GPH
  • 3.Research design
  • 4.Preliminary analysis of the COVALT corpus for hypothesis building
    • 4.1The starting point: German and Spanish anger words
    • 4.2The category structure of German and Spanish anger
    • 4.3Analysis of cognitive factors
      • 4.3.1Magnetism
      • 4.3.2Connectivity
      • 4.3.3Gravitational pull
  • 5.Quantitative corpus analysis: Translated vs non-translated Spanish
    • 5.1Hypotheses
    • 5.2Frequency distribution in Spanish translated and non-translated texts
      • 5.2.1Distribution of anger word families
      • 5.2.2Distribution of individual lexical items
      • 5.2.3Anger words by word class in Spanish, German, and DE-ES translation
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
References
Barcelona, A. (1989). Análisis contrastivo del léxico figurado de la ira en inglés y en español. In AESLA (Ed.), Actas del VI Congreso Nacional de Lingüística Aplicada (pp.141–148). Universidad de Cantabria.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergerová, H. (2011). Emotionen im Spiegel bildlicher Sprache. Fallbeispiel “Ärger”. Acta Facultatis Philosophicae Universitatis Ostraviensis / Studia Germanistica, 6(8), 5–20.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coromines i Calders, D. (2010). Anger-like feelings in translation: Intensity shifts and macrostructural impact. A case-study of Gűnter Grass’s Unkenrufe and its Catalan and Spanish versions. New Voices in Translation Studies, 6(1), 1–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diffo, L. Q., & Atouga, J. P. (2022). Assessing the translatability of emotional discourse in Djaïli Amadou Amal’s Munyal “Les Larmes de La Patience”. Traduction et Langues, 21(2), 146–162. 〈[URL]〉 (30 March 2026).
Domínguez Vázquez, M. J. (2008). Textsorten und Wortbildung im Vergleich: Spanische und deutsche Packungsbeilagen [Textual genres and word formation in comparison: Spanish and German package leaflets]. In L. M. Eichinger, M. Meliss, & M. J. Domínguez Vázquez (Eds.), Wortbildung heute. Tendenzen und Kontraste in der deutschen Gegenwartssprache (105–129). Gunter Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Doval, I., et al. (2019). Corpus PaGeS: A multifunctional resource for language learning, translation and cross-linguistic research. In I. Doval & M. T. Sánchez Nieto (Eds.), Parallel corpora for contrastive and translation studies: New resources and applications (pp.103–121). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Doval, I., & Sánchez Nieto, M. T. (2026). Parallel corpora Spanish (PaCorES): A collection of multifunctional parallel corpora. Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics, 39(2), 1–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Durst, U. (2001). Why Germans don’t feel “anger”. In J. Harkins & A. Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp.115–148). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fries, N. (2004). Gefühle, Emotionen, Angst, Furcht, Wut und Zorn [Feelings, emotions, Angst, Furcht, Wut and Zorn]. In W. Börner & K. Vogel (Eds.), Emotion und Kognition im Fremdsprachenunterricht (pp.3–24). Gunter Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gabrielatos, C. (2018). Keyness analysis. Nature, metrics and techniques. In C. Taylor & A. Marchi (Eds.), Corpus approaches to discourse. A critical review (pp.225–258). Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halverson, S. (2010). Cognitive translation studies: Developments in theory and method. In G. M. Shreve & E. Angelone (Eds.), Translation and cognition (pp.349–369). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halverson, S. L. (2003). The cognitive basis of translation universals. In Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 15, 2, 197–241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Gravitational pull in translation. Testing a revised model. In G. D. Sutter, M.-A. Lefer, & I. Delaere (Eds.), New methodological and theoretical traditions (pp.9–46). De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hanczakowski, A. (2018). Translating emotion from Italian to English: A lexical-semantic analysis. The AALITRA Review: A Journal of Literary Translation, 13, 21–34.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hareide, L. (2016). Is there gravitational pull in translation? A corpus-based test of the Gravitational Pull Hypothesis on the language pairs Norwegian-Spanish and English-Spanish. In M. Ji, L. Hareide, D. Li, & M. Oakes (Eds.), Corpus methodologies explained: An empirical approach to translation studies (pp.188–231). Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holoborodko, A. (2013). Some problems of translating motion words from Russian into Japanese in F. Dostoevsky’s novel “White Nights”: Contrastive analysis of three Japanese translations with the Russian original text concerning emotional discourse (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Hitotsubashi University. Retrieved on 30 March 2026 from [URL]
Joy, L. (2020). Translated emotions. In L. Joy (Ed.), Eighteenth-century literary affections (pp.143–171). Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Z., Szelid, V., Nucz, E., Blanco-Carrión, O., Akkök, E. A., & Szabó, R. (2015). Anger metaphors across languages: A cognitive linguistic perspective. In R. R. Heredia & A. B. Cieślicka (Eds.), Bilingual figurative language processing (pp.341–367). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lamprinou, A. (2011). Translated romances: The effect of cultural textual norms on the communication of emotions. Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 2(1), 1–14.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). A study on the cultural variations in the verbalisation of near-universal emotions: Translating emotions from British English into Greek in popular bestseller romances (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Surrey.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ogarkova, A., & Soriano, C. (2014). Variation within universals: The “metaphorical profile” approach to the study of anger concepts in English, Russian, and Spanish. In A. Musolff, F. MacArthur, & G. Pagani (Eds.), About metaphor and intercultural communication (pp.93–116). Bloomsbury. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ogarkova, A., Soriano, C., & Lehr, C. (2012). Naming feeling: Exploring the equivalence of emotion terms in five european languages. In P. Wilson (Ed.), Dynamicity in emotion concepts (pp.253–284). Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oster, U. (2014). Emotions between physicality and acceptability. A contrast of the German anger words Wut and Zorn. Onomázein, 30, 286–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). Cross-cultural semantic and pragmatic profiling of emotion words. Regulation and expression of anger in Spanish and German. In I. Navarro i Ferrando, (Ed.), Current approaches to metaphor analysis in discourse (pp.35–56). De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). Translating emotions. Languages in Contrast, 23(2), 199–225. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(in press). Emotions in language and translation. In K. Malmkjaer (Ed.), Routledge handbook of translation studies and linguistics. Routledge.
Oster, U., & Navarro i Ferrando, I. (2024). Passive constructions in Spanish texts translated from English, German and French. In J. Marco & I. Tello (Eds.), Towards an empirical verification of the Gravitational Pull Hypothesis. Evidence from the COVALT Corpus (pp.77–110). Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oster, U., & Tello, I. (in press, online first). Between source language constructions and target language expectations. An analysis of passive constructions in translated and non-translated Spanish. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 21(1), 208–237.
Shim, J. (2006). Translating emotions for the local audience. Australasian Drama Studies, 49, 3–5.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soriano, C. (2013). Conceptual metaphor theory and the GRID paradigm in the study of anger in English and Spanish. In J. R. J. Fontaine, K. R. Scherer, & C. Soriano (Eds.), Components of emotional meaning: A sourcebook (pp.410–424). Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soriano, C., Fontaine, J. J. R., Ogarkova, A., Mejía Quijano, C., Volkova, Y., Ionova, S., & Shakhovskyy, V. (2013). Types of anger in Spanish and Russian. In J. J. R. Fontaine, K. R. Scherer, & C. Soriano (Eds.), Components of emotional meaning: A sourcebook (pp.339–352). Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soriano-Salinas, C. (2003). Some anger metaphors in Spanish and English. A contrastive review. International Journal of English Studies, 3(2), 107–122.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tait, P. (2006). Reasoning emotions in theatre. Australasian Drama Studies, 49, 6–9.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tello Fons, I. (2024). Translating diminutives: A corpus-based analysis of the Gravitational Pull Hypothesis. SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation, 17(1), 2–23.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue