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Emotions and body parts through the language filter of diverse cultures Krzysztof Trochimiuk Podtatrzaska 68/25 34-400

Nowy Targ ktrochimiuk@poczta.onet.pl Podhalaska Pastwowa Wysza Szkoa Zawodowa w Nowym Targu

Emotions play a central role in all aspects of life, spurring humans to make certain decisions, procreate or wage wars, to name but a few. A particular individual exposed to emotional states experiences more or less salient physiological changes, such as quickened breath, rapid heartbeat, profuse perspiration, increased body temperature, etc. It is indisputable that from the point of view of physiology humans share identical capabilities to experience emotional states, despite small distinctive features which define various races, for example skin pigmentation or physical stature. However, such genetic pre-wiring does not limit the way different cultures link various body parts with emotions. If one confronts speakers of any of the SAE languages with the question concerning the seat of emotions, the majority of them will invariably point to the heart. Nevertheless, in spite of a seemingly general consensus, there are linguistically separate cultures that identify locus sentiendi somewhat differently. For example users of Tsou, a language spoken in the mountainous region of Southwest Taiwan, would unequivocally pinpoint the ear (koyu) as the centre of emotions. In Japanese it is the stomach (hara) that is perceived as the predominant container of emotions. Still the greatest surprise comes from speakers of Tok Pisin, creole spoken in Papua New Guinea, as the locus sentiendi is moveable, reflecting the phraseology registered in indigenous languages. In consequence, some Papua New Guineans locate their emotions in the liver (lewa), others in the neck (nek), while still there are those, who prefer the stomach (bel [from English belly]). Interestingly enough, a linguistic tradition regarding expressive language may yield to a dominant influence of a different culture as was the case with the speakers of Hawaiian, who used to identify intestines (ake) as the prime location for emotions but in the 19th century changed their preference in favour of the clichd heart (uma. uma). It is worth noting that a

slightly modified approach, namely to investigate emotions on a specific state basis, will lead an expressive language anatomist to particular organs as well. Consequently, speakers of English will see the spleen as the container of negative emotions, such as malice, spite and, though archaic, also melancholy and low spirits. Similarly, any intensely negative experience will make speakers of Totonac, one of the Indian languages in Mexico, use the expression to be spleenbroken. My aspiration is to take a linguistic tour of the human body in search of emotions hiding in specific organs and highlight the differences of such linguistic picture of the world in various cultures. In my methodology I subscribe to the BODY PART FOR EMOTION metonymy within a CONTAINER schema widely used in cognitive linguistics.

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