Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Preface
- 1 Languages and emotions: What can a multilingual perspective contribute?
- 2 Emotions in the study of multilingualism: Framing the questions
- 3 Vocal level: Is the lady angry?
- 4 Semantic and conceptual levels: The bilingual mental lexicon
- 5 Discursive level: I feel zhalko tebia bednogo
- 6 Neurophysiological level: His coeur is where his feelings dwell
- 7 Social cognition: I no longer wanted to speak German
- 8 Emotions and multilingualism: An integrated perspective
- Appendix A Bilingualism and emotions webquestionnaire
- Appendix B Transcription conventions
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
4 - Semantic and conceptual levels: The bilingual mental lexicon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Preface
- 1 Languages and emotions: What can a multilingual perspective contribute?
- 2 Emotions in the study of multilingualism: Framing the questions
- 3 Vocal level: Is the lady angry?
- 4 Semantic and conceptual levels: The bilingual mental lexicon
- 5 Discursive level: I feel zhalko tebia bednogo
- 6 Neurophysiological level: His coeur is where his feelings dwell
- 7 Social cognition: I no longer wanted to speak German
- 8 Emotions and multilingualism: An integrated perspective
- Appendix A Bilingualism and emotions webquestionnaire
- Appendix B Transcription conventions
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
‘Frustration’ is such an amazing word, the lack of it in a language is so amazing because it carries with it the word ‘frustrate’ to stop to block … so the outside force is carried in that word, it's not just what you feel it's the way you feel because an outside force that is blocking you and you don't have that in Greek …
(Leonidas, a Greek–English bilingual, in Panayiotou, 2004a: 13)For Leonidas – and many other bi- and multilinguals around the world, including the respondents to our webquestionnaire – emotion terms of one language do not neatly map onto the emotion lexicon of another. Greek, in Leonidas's view, does not have a counterpart of ‘frustration,’ which he ‘learned’ to feel as he acquired English; on the other hand, it does have a feeling of stenahoria (discomfort/sadness/suffocation), which he experiences only in Greek-speaking surroundings (Panayiotou, 2004a).
I can relate to his experience of having somewhat distinct emotional lives in two languages. My own daily life is lived through the means of English and Russian, whose emotion terms and scripts at times collide and clash, leading to misunderstandings, tears, and apologies. Take, for instance, two verbs that are indispensable in Russian emotional life – serdit'sia (to get actively angry, mad, or cross at someone, to be upset with them) and obizhat'sia (to feel hurt by someone, offended or upset by them).
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- Information
- Emotions and Multilingualism , pp. 77 - 111Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006