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Motion for emotion: an empirical cross-linguistic study of conceptual construals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2016

DIANE PONTEROTTO
DIANE PONTEROTTO*
Affiliation:
University of Rome Tor Vergata
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Abstract

This study reports a methodological itinerary aimed at developing a statistically supported investigative procedure useful for the empirical verification of hypotheses in Cognitive Linguistics research. It targets motion–emotion construals and explores the possible conceptual link between upward-oriented movements encoded in some motion verbs and the emotional state of happiness. The results emerging from the observation of two typologically different languages (English and Italian) lend empirically verified evidence for basic hypotheses in cognition and language research regarding the conceptualization of emotions and also for findings in cross-linguistic research on emotion representation.

Keywords

conceptual construalsempirical methodscross-linguisticmotion verbsemotion
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 383 - 411
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Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2016 

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