The paper discusses two approaches to research in emotions: a metaphorical, universalist, and experientialist one and a non-metaphorical, non-universalist, and social constructionist one, and attempts to reconcile both. Recent research affirms the universality of certain basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, love, disgust (D'Andrade 1995). A large body of other research has shown that emotion terms and expressions are more than registers of physiological experience; they also have conceptual structure (Kövecses 2000). If it is the case that certain emotions are universal, due to innate psychological and physiological processes, but also have conceptual structures that are cultural in origin, then there is a problem in understanding the semantics of emotion language. This paper explores the tension between universals and cultural constructions in theories of emotion language and attempts a synthesis. Topics discussed include Words and Emotion, Meaning Theories and Emotion, Some General Issues (including the universality of emotion prototypes, the role of metaphor and metonymy, and lay conceptions versus scientific theories), Synthesising Experientialist and Social Constructionist Accounts, and Implications for Consciousness Studies. (Zoltán Kövecses, Gary B. Palmer, and René Dirven)