Publications
Publication details [#45350]
Maalej, Zouhair. 2007. The embodiment of fear expressions in Tunisian Arabic: Theoretical and practical implications. In Palmer, Gary B. and Farzad Sharifian, eds. Applied Cultural Linguistics. Implications for second language learning and intercultural communication. (Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 7). John Benjamins. pp. 87–104.
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Annotation
The study investigates the conceptualization of fear in Tunisian Arabic, arguing that fear shows three types of “cultural embodiment”: (i) seemingly physiological, where the fear expression profiles a part of the body physiologically thought to be affected by fear, (ii) culturally driven, where the fear expression profiles a part of the body thought to be physiologically affected by the emotion, and the basic-level category is grounded in culture, and (iii) culturally specific, where the fear expression schematically profiles a part of the body associated with physiological change. The implications of such culturally constructed embodiment will be pointed out for the theory of embodiment, which needs to be made bi-directional in terms of directionality of mappings, for ESL, and for cross-cultural communication.