The conceptual nature of the Turkish emotion term ‘Heyecan’

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the Turkish emotion concept heyecan (i.e., thrill, excitement, and nervousness), which can be used with different semantic contents depending on the context. The conceptual metaphor theory frames this analysis to reveal the metaphorical and metonymical conceptualizations of heyecan. For this purpose, the lemma heyecan is searched in the Turkish National Corpus, and 700 concordance lines gathered from the corpus are examined through the metaphor identification procedure to identify the source domains and interpret the conceptual coding. The findings reveal a folk model of heyecan in which several metaphors and metonymies characterize different dimensions of it: arousal–existence–disappearance, intensity–passivity, control, cause–effect, and individual–social. Qualitative and quantitative findings embody various linguistic metaphors that can be grouped under several source domain categories including substance in a container, location, and object as the most frequent ones, whereas physiological effect is the most frequent metonymy. The metaphors and metonymies are discussed with their examples in this study. The concordance lines show several emotion terms that heyecan is collocated with, among which the emotion families of ‘fear’ and ‘happiness’ outnumber the rest. This study demonstrates how corpus data are helpful in pinpointing the conceptual content of an emotion term in a coherent way.

1. Introduction

Emotion words differ in meaning from one language to another, even though we can often find their equivalencies in bilingual dictionaries. This variation is attributed not only to biologically motivated physiology but also to culturally motivated conceptualizations. Accordingly, different languages might have diverse emotion vocabularies as they vary in the way they divide the domain of emotion (Wierzbicka, 1999). For instance, saudade in Portuguese refers to the feeling of “a melancholic yearning for someone or something that is far away or lost” (Watt, 2016, p. 434). It’s not merely a nostalgic feeling, rather hopefulness is accompanied by grief. In other words, yearning merges with a delight in remembering old-time joys; hence, it is difficult to translate it into English or into Turkish without a loss of meaning. Similarly, the English word love is translated as either aşk or sevgi in Turkish, yet these two words have separate culturally unique connotations.

It is not only the emotion vocabulary but also the conceptualizations of particular emotion types that differ from one language to another. People belonging to different cultures perceive the world differently, which results in various categorizations and encodings of abstract concepts. Emotion, as a highly abstract concept, is one of the frequently used target domains that is largely conceptualized and expressed through metaphors and metonymies (Kövecses, 2000). A systematic analysis of these conceptual structures leads to a folk understanding of emotion concepts. Members of a cultural group acquire specific attitudes and beliefs about feeling and expressing emotions in particular ways, which constitute the emotion schemas (Sharifian, 2003). Therefore, to come up with a profound evaluation of what a cultural group feels when referring to an emotion, it is important to consult a large collection of data to elucidate these emotion schemas. Since language provides evidence for the existence of figurative thought, corpora allow researchers to discover the linguistic patterns for the underlying conceptual structures through analysis of empirical data in naturally occurring discourse.

Accordingly, this study focuses on the Turkish emotion concept heyecan, which is easy to feel but difficult to describe. Heyecan is defined as “(1) a strong and temporary emotional state that is caused by joy, fear, anger, sadness, jealousy, love, etc.; (2) enthusiasm” by the online dictionary of Turkish Language Institution (TLI). ¹ Additionally, it is defined as “(1) exacerbation, hyperactivity and flurry of the senses due to sudden and unexpected changes and affectivity (2) psychic exuberance, overflow of emotions, (iii) eagerness, desire, and enthusiasm” (Kubbealtı Lugatı ²). Based on these definitions, it can be hypothesized that heyecan is a multi-faceted emotion with positive and negative valences as it is usually accompanied by other emotions. This results in its mistranslation into other languages and misuse by language learners in communication since it can correspond to ‘excitement,’ ‘nervousness,’ ‘thrill,’ or ‘sensation’ in English depending on the context.

There are several studies on the conceptual nature of some basic emotion concepts in Turkish such as anger (Aksan, 2006; Arıca Akkök, 2017), fear (Adıgüzel, 2018), love (Aksan & Kantar, 2007), and sadness (Baş & Büyükkantarcıoğlu, 2019), which propose typical cognitive/cultural models for these emotion types. Additionally, Aksan and Aksan (2012) compare the conceptual metaphors for the two co-referential terms duygu (emotion) and his (feeling) and find that these two terms are basically conceptualized similarly, although the terms differ in the salience of their source domains. While the object source domain is used more often to conceptualize duygu (emotion), the internal sensation domain is preferred more for his (feeling). On the other hand, the emotion concept heyecan has not been examined in detail yet. In an attempt to bridge this gap in the literature, this study aims to investigate heyecan from a corpus-based and cognitive semantic perspective to propose a folk model of this emotion type. Accordingly, the central research question of this study is as follows: What conceptual metaphors and metonymies are typically used to conceptualize and communicate the emotion term heyecan?

The following section will present a general overview of the metaphoric and metonymic conceptualizations of emotions, while the third section outlines the dimensions of emotions proposed by psychologists to describe emotion concepts. The fourth section presents a brief description of heyecan in Turkish as an emotion concept. After presenting the method for data collection and analysis in section five, the findings on the conceptual profile of heyecan are presented in relation to the five dimensions in section six. The final section discusses the mappings gathered from the database and presents the conclusion and implications for future research.

2. Metaphoric and metonymic conceptualizations of emotions

Kövecses (1990, 2008) views emotional concepts as a set of cognitive models with one or more prototypical models in the center. He suggests that a system of conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and a set of inherent concepts constitute these cognitive models. Since emotion language is largely figurative, it is commonly communicated through metaphoric and metonymic expressions. The metaphor involves conceptual mappings between the target domain of emotion and more tangible source domains, while the conceptual metonymy involves the behavioral and physiological reactions that frequently accompany emotions. In other words, metaphors provide an “is like” relation, whereas metonymies provide a “stand for” relation. The related concepts are the conceptually linked expressions that are commonly associated with particular emotions and form a network together (Kövecses, 1990, 2008).

The metaphoric and metonymic conceptualizations of emotion usually create a conceptual link between psychological states and physiological states or some material phenomena. Certain emotion types are typically mapped with certain source domains. For instance, fear is mostly conceptualized as cold since the feeling of fear and the sensation of cold have the same physiological reaction on the body (e.g., shaking) (Apresjan, 1997; Kövecses, 1990). Scholars have listed various metaphors for different emotion concepts. Among them, the source domain of containment applies to all emotions, which is elaborated either as container or as contained in the body. The liquid/containment metaphors denote the mapping of an emotion is a substance (fluid) in a container that apply to anger, disgust, fear, happiness, love, lust, pride, sadness, or shame (Kövecses, 1998, 2000; Stefanowitsch, 2016). This metaphor entails that the container can be filled as the emotion gets stronger, causing pressure and overflow. Moreover, the human body is one of the most frequently used source domains in the metaphorical and metonymic conceptualizations of emotions. Emotions are generally seen as occurrences inside the body, yielding the body is a container for the emotions metaphor (Kövecses, 2000, 2010). There are other metaphors that apply across a range of emotions not only in English but also in other languages including burden, fire/heat, force, opponent, illness, (inanimate) object, insanity, internal pressure, light/dark, living organism (animal, person, plant), nutrient, physical agitation, physical damage, and unity (Kövecses, 1998, 2000; Stefanowitsch, 2016; Yu, 1995).

Based on the cognitive model proposed by Kövecses (1990, 2000), a general folk theory of emotion can be characterized in the following five-stage scenario:

$$ {\displaystyle \begin{array}{rcll}\mathrm{Cause}& \to & \mathrm{Emotion}\to \mathrm{Control}\to \mathrm{Loss}\ \mathrm{of}\ \mathrm{Control}\to & \mathrm{Physiological}/\mathrm{Behavioral}\ \mathrm{Response}.\ \end{array}} $$

Additionally, since the body is not only a place where emotions are experienced but also a medium to convey it, many emotional figurative expressions are metonymical in nature. Thus, body parts and inner organs are used to refer to emotions such as ‘my heart skips a beat’ for fear. The physiological effect stands metonymically for the emotional cause in such cases. In the cases of ‘swallowing one’s tongue’ or ‘being breathless,’ the behavioral effects stand metonymically for the emotional cause of fear (Baş, 2015; Kövecses, 1990). Such somatic metonymical expressions create a more direct link between specific physical symptoms and behavioral reactions of an emotion and the conscious perception of the emotion. Foolen (2012) links this association with James–Lange reasoning that “bodily experience is primary, and the mental feeling is caused by it” (p. 359).

However, although the aforementioned metaphors and metonymies are universally widespread, there can be a cross-cultural variation in their use. Each culture imposes different construal of the world to its speakers. Even though the human physical form is identical in all communities, “bodies are not culture-free objects” (Gibbs, 2005, p. 13). Therefore, cultures may show variation concerning where in the body they locate emotions or in what terms they frame body–emotion associations. Especially when it comes to figurative use of language, there appears to be a difference between the embodied metaphors, which are constant, and cultural metaphors, which are changeable. For instance, Yu (1995) reveals that the gas metaphor is selected in Chinese for anger, while Maalej (2007) finds the fear is a reaper metaphor in Tunisian Arabic, which are culturally specific for these languages. Aksan and Kantar (2007, 2008) demonstrate that love is conceptualized with the pain/suffering metaphor and is seen as a sufi journey in Turkish in accordance with an idealistic Sufi philosophy and spiritual cultural model.

The literature shows that the subjective experience of emotion is largely understood and expressed in figurative ways, and the emotion language strongly relies on embodied cognition. Based on these findings and the theoretical framework, this study tries to find out how the emotion term heyecan is conceptualized in Turkish and to show what kind of universally accepted or culturally specific conceptualizations are regularly used to communicate this emotion type.

3. Dimensions of emotions

A scientific definition of emotion concepts is notoriously hard to make due to their blurry and complicated nature. Generally, emotion can be described as “valenced reactions to events, agents or objects, with their particular nature being determined by the way in which the eliciting situation is construed” (Ortony et al., 1988, p. 13). Psychologists have tried to set certain features or dimensions not only to classify and define ‘emotion’ itself but also to make the description and categorization of different emotion concepts simpler and more systematic. Among them, valence (i.e., pleasure–displeasure) and arousal (i.e., activation–deactivation or stimulated–relaxed) are important dimensions that many scholars agree on (Barrett, 2006; Russell, 1991; Ortony et al., 1988; Wierzbicka, 1992). One famous model is the pleasure–arousal–dominance (PAD) model representing three scales of emotion: pleasure–displeasure (i.e., positive versus negative affective states), arousal–non-arousal (i.e., mental and physical activity levels), and dominance–submissiveness (i.e., control versus lack of control over others or situations) (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974).

Based on Hockett’s design features of language, Scherer (2005) lists the design features of emotions as follows: event focus, appraisal-driven, response synchronization, rapidity of change, behavioral impact, intensity, and duration. For Scherer, these features can be used to come up with a more scientific semantic profile of emotion concepts. Cochrane (2009) proposes an eight-dimensional model to differentiate emotion labels, some of which overlap with the previous categorizations. Each of these dimensions has two distinct values, which are not mutually independent. These are (1) valence (attracted–repulsed), (2) personal strength (powerful–weak), (3) freedom (free–constrained), (4) probability (certain–uncertain), (5) intentional focus (generalized–focused), (6) temporal flow (future-directed–current–past-directed), (7) temporal duration (enduring–sudden), and (8) social connection (connected–disconnected).

From a linguistic perspective, Kövecses (2000) mentions the aspects of cause, control, desire, difficulty, (positive–negative) evaluation, existence, harm, intensity, and passivity that are used to characterize a language-based folk model of emotion concepts. He highlights that these aspects can be considered as the target domains specific to the source domains in connection with the emotion concepts (p. 47).

Having been inspired by different psychological dimensional models and linguistic aspects cited here, certain dimensions were adopted to simplify the organization of the metaphorical and metonymical conceptualizations. Based on the corpus data, five dimensions are employed in the study, namely, arousal–existence–disappearance, intensity–passivity, control, cause–effect, and individual–social dimensions. The arousal dimension indicates the appearance of the emotion so that the emoter starts to feel the emotion, whereas disappearance refers to not feeling the emotion anymore. Existence is added by the researcher as an intermediate medium state indicating an ongoing emotional state. The intensity dimension applies when the degree of emotion rises, whereas passivity applies when the level goes down. Control is related to being able to manage the power of the emotion on the self. The cause–effect dimension is about the reasons and physiological, mental, and behavioral effects of the emotion on the emoter. Finally, the social dimension indicates whether the emotion is shared by others because of social connection as opposed to being felt by the individual alone.

4. Description of Heyecan as a Turkish emotion concept

In their study, Smith and Smith (1995) adopt a prototypical approach to Turkish emotion concepts and indicate that the words duygu and heyecan are the superordinate terms in Turkish, and both correspond to the word ‘emotion’ in English. While duygu is a Turkish word referring to both ‘emotion’ and ‘feeling’ in English, heyecan is a borrowed word from Arabic “denoting excitement or enthusiasm, corresponding to the English term passion in its archaic sense” (p. 105). It is also reported that heyecan is a technical word used as a counterpart of ‘emotion’ in older psychology books.

Heyecan generally emerges as a reaction to situations where the person does not adapt at all or poorly adapts to an event; thus, it appears as a change in mental and physical strength. In comparison to duygu, heyecan is a short-term, more-intense, and acute general state of arousal (Erkuş, 1994, p. 64). Additionally, Bakırcıoğlu (2012, p. 418) associates heyecan with motives and defines it as “an intense and strong emotional state that leads to a high level of activity and internal organ changes.” In this respect, as an emotion type, heyecan is related to external stimulant situations and the importance of these situations for the individual.

Emotion scholars list enthusiasm, excitement, and thrill as subcategories of the primary emotion of ‘joy,’ whereas nervousness, worry, and anxiety are categorized under the ‘fear’ category (Parrott, 2001; Shaver et al., 1987). Based on the Turkish-English bilingual dictionary definition (i.e., excitement, nervousness, or thrill), heyecan can be placed on the continuum of excitement and worry in relation to its cause and intensity since depending on the context, the meaning of this emotion may refer to a pleasant or unpleasant sensation. In either case, the energy level is high, which is dependent on the stimulus and needs to be relieved. A schematic representation of heyecan can be described in Figure 1, based on the map of core affect (Barrett, 2011; Barrett & Russell, 1998). The dotted blue line between the nodes of ‘nervous’ and ‘excited’ signifies where heyecan fits best in relation to other emotions. In accordance with the emotion scholars’ taxonomy (Parrott, 2001; Shaver et al., 1987), we hypothesize that when heyecan is a pleasant emotion in the sense of excitement or enthusiasm, it is under the category of joy; however, when it is an unpleasant emotion in the sense of agitation or nervousness, it is in the category of fear.

Figure 1. Schematic representation of heyecan on the map of core affect.

Enthusiasm, which is described as the second sense of heyecan in the dictionary definitions, is felt when a goal an individual is pursuing is believed to be achieved as they have the required internal capability to achieve it (Poggi, 2007). It is often felt at the initial stages of a new activity, particularly one that is significant, and therefore enhances motivation and commitment to the activity. Poggi (2007) also notes that enthusiasm is contagious, that is, it gets transmitted in society without conscious control.

5. The corpus data and analysis

The data of the study come from the Turkish National Corpus (TNCv3), ³ which represents present-day language and ensures a balanced distribution of words for each text domain, time, and medium of text. TNCv3 is a 50 M+ word corpus covering both written (98%) and transcribed spoken (2%) data between the years 1990 and 2013 (Aksan et al., 2012). The lemma ‘heyecan’ was searched in the corpus, and a total of 2,561 concordance lines were returned by TNCv3 in Excel. The first 700 concordance lines were included in the study.

To decide the figurative uses, the researcher looked at the ten words preceding and the ten words following the keyword ‘heyecan’ in each concordance line, and the lexical units were determined. When this line of 21 words was unclear, the researcher read the whole text. The online dictionary of Turkish ⁴ was used to confirm the basic contemporary meaning of lexical units. Following the metaphor identification procedure (MIP, Pragglejaz Group, 2007; MIPVU, Steen et al., 2010), when the basic meaning and the contextual meaning were different, and the contextual meaning could be understood in comparison with the basic meaning, a lexical unit/phrase was marked as metaphorical, and its source domain was determined. For a consistent taxonomy of the source domains, previous studies on emotion metaphors were consulted, and the source domains were determined as the most representative of the metaphorical keywords in the data.

It should be stated that it is not always simple to put the figurative keyword(s) in a single source category as they may carry out more than one function simultaneously. In such cases, the dominant meaning was considered, and in some cases, more than one metaphoric/metonymic conceptualization was tagged for a single line. For the quantitative analysis, the distributions of the source/subdomains were calculated in terms of their absolute frequencies (Deignan, 2005) to find out the most typical mappings for heyecan in the corpus. A comprehensive list of the metaphors categorized under the respective source domains and the metonymies was presented in the Appendices A and B at the end of the article. In the second step of the analysis, the researcher read each line to determine the dominant emotional dimension (e.g., arousal or effect) of heyecan. The source domains were then grouped according to these dimensions and explained in the Findings section.

In order to test the inter-rater reliability, two independent metaphor scholars were asked to rate a subset of 10% of the data (Neuendorf, 2002; Wimmer & Dominick, 2013) that corresponded to the 70 concordance lines. These lines were randomly selected for each source domain in accordance with their frequency of occurrence. The coders were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with the given source domains and to suggest their own domains/subdomains if they disagreed with the author. The analysis revealed 90% agreement between the coders. The disagreements were settled in a postcoding discussion among the coders.

6. The conceptual profile of heyecan

The node word heyecan is observed in 1780 texts, with a 7110 frequency in the TNC. The conceptual analysis shows that out of the 700 concordance lines selected from the corpus data, 677 of them were found to be metaphorical or metonymical. One line was found to include more than one metonymy, and three lines were found to include more than one metaphor. Therefore, the total number of metaphorical and metonymical conceptualizations makes 681. This supports the view that emotion language is highly figurative, consisting of metaphorical and metonymical expressions (Kövecses, 2008, p. 380).

The analysis reveals 14 different metaphorical source domains for the target domain heyecan: substance (in a container), object (possession), location (bounded space), living being, force, physical sense, opponent, nutrient, physical agitation, fire, burden, physical entity, light, and music. Table 1 demonstrates the main metaphorical source domains and the metonymies for heyecan. It is seen in the table that the most typical metaphor is heyecan is substance in a container (f = 175), while the most typical metonymy is the physiological effects of heyecan for heyecan (f = 57).

Table 1. General distribution of the metaphorical source domains and metonymies

For the qualitative analysis, the conceptual mappings are grouped within five different dimensions for the characterization of heyecan. Because of the space limitations, the most dominant metaphors and metonymies are discussed to identify the cognitive model of this emotion concept.

6.1. Arousal–existence–disappearance dimension of heyecan

The arousal–disappearance dimension is expressed through the source domains of object (f = 83), substance (in a container) (f = 65), physical sense (f = 35), living being (f = 34), location (f = 14), nutrient (f = 13), physical entity (f = 2), and force (f = 1). The arousal of heyecan is most typically expressed via object, or more specifically the possessed object source domain. This domain entails that experiencing heyecan is conceptualized as a commodity or possession that is earned, aimed at, owned, or transferred from one person to another through the keywords ara- (lit. look for), iste- (lit. to want), getir- (lit. to bring), kazan- (lit. to earn), and ver- (lit. to give). On the other hand, when the emoter does not feel it anymore, that is, when the emotion dissipates, the possession is lost (lit. kaybet-, yitir-). This yields the metaphors heyecan is a possessed object (possession), the arousal of heyecan is acquiring an object, causing heyecan is transferring an object, and the disappearance of heyecan is losing an object (possession).

substance (in a container) is the second most typical source domain in the arousal dimension. Accordingly, this substance can be gas, liquid, or something unspecified that is contained in a bounded space as elaborated in the keywords of bulaş- (lit. to spread), dol- (lit. to fill), kabar- (lit. to swell), kat- (lit. to add) kapla- (lit. cover), sal- (lit. to release) sar- (lit. to wrap), and sığ- (lit. to fit into). This bounded space is typically the body in relation to the central metaphor the body is a container for emotions (Kövecses, 2000).

Additionally, the substance can be seen as a mixture or unity with different components forming a mixture through the linguistic examples bir arada (lit. together), birleş- (lit. to unify), birlik (lit. unity), karışım (lit. mixture), and oluştur- (lit. to comprise). These examples also reflect the fact that heyecan usually accompanies other emotions, as indicated in the dictionary definition, and that it fills the body or more specific body parts (e.g., the heart).

On the other hand, not feeling heyecan anymore is seen as the absence of this substance: bit- (lit. to finish), ortadan kalk- (lit. to disappear), tüken- (lit. to run short), yok (lit. absent), and yok et- (lit. to extinguish). As the emotion disappears, the substance goes away in accordance with the existence of emotion is presence here metaphor (Kövecses, 2000).

Third, the arousal of heyecan is seen as physical sense that is experienced by the emoter with the linguistic keywords duy- (lit. to feel, hear, perceive), yaşa- (lit. to live), and hisset- (lit. to feel). Feeling heyecan is conceptualized as sense perception that can be physically sensed; hence, it accords with the general metaphor emotional effect is physical contact.

The arousal of heyecan is also seen as a living being (person/plant/animal) with the keywords yarat- (lit. to create), uyandır- (lit. to awaken), doğur- (lit. to bear), and dirilt- (lit. to revive). In contrast, when the emotion disappears, the living being dies (lit. öl-), is killed (lit. Öldür-), or fades away (lit. Sol-). These examples show the emotion’s coming into existence, development and ending as it is aroused, exists, and disappears in the individual.

When the cause of heyecan is stimulated by an outside factor, it is seen as location (bounded space), or more specifically a destination to reach. The keywords in this category include gel- (lit. to come), getir- (lit. to take), gir- (lit. to go in), koş- (lit. to run), and taşı- (lit. to carry). This metaphor implies that the emoter has a passive role in feeling the emotion, and heyecan is a natural result of the change of the emotional state in relation to the means of change of state are paths to destinations (Kövecses, 2000) and emotion is motion (Lakoff et al., 1991) metaphors.

When something new and desirable is experienced, heyecan is aroused as a positive feeling. In this case, it is conceptualized as nutrient, or more specifically appetizing food. The keywords besle- (lit. to feed), sindir- (lit. to digest), susa- (to get thirsty), tat- (lit. to taste), tatlı (lit. sweet), and taze (lit. fresh) show that heyecan is something edible, drinkable, or something sweet; hence, the psychological state is seen as a physical need that is satisfied.

In addition to the arousal–disappear dimension, the existence dimension of heyecan is conceptualized as location (f = 49), object (f = 35), substance (in a container) (f = 18), living being (f = 4), and physical entity (f = 3). In relation to the location source domain, experiencing heyecan is more typically seen as being inside a bounded space (i.e., container) through the use of the keyword içinde (lit. in/inside) in accordance with the emotions are bounded spaces (Kövecses, 1990) and existence of emotion is being in a bounded space (Kövecses, 2000) metaphors.

Within the object domain, experiencing heyecan is also seen as a possession through the possessive constructions, especially the 3^rd person possessive suffix (−(s)I) and the comitative suffix (−(y)lA) added on the word heyecan. This accords with the metaphor the existence of emotion is possessing an object (Kövecses, 2000).

Feeling heyecan is seen as a substance that already exists or having already filled not only the body container but also other things with the keywords dolu (lit. filled) and var (lit. to exist) in relation to the existence of emotion is presence here metaphor (Kövecses, 2000).

6.2. Intensity–passivity dimension of heyecan

The intensity dimension of heyecan is highlighted by the source domains of substance (in a container) (f = 79), physical agitation (f = 15), fire (f = 11), burden (f = 9), force (f = 2), and nutrient (f = 1). The quantitative findings show that the substance source domain dominates the conceptualization of this dimension. People are carriers of emotions, while emotion is a physical substance that is kept in the body. There is a certain amount of emotion that individuals can have with them, and this amount can increase and decrease as emotion gets intense or weak in relation to the intensity of emotion is amount/quantity (of a substance in a container) metaphor. Accordingly, the amount of the substance that covers the emoter increases gradually as the emotion gets intense.

The substance source domain is found in the data with various keywords: art- (lit. to increase), aşırı düzeye eriş- (lit. to reach an extreme level), azal- (lit. to decrease), biraz (lit. some), büyük (lit. big), dolup taş- (lit. to overflow), doruk noktasına çık−/ulaş- (lit. to reach the peak), derin (lit. deep), (dozu) dorukta (lit. (dosage) meridian), düş- (lit. to drop), ekle- (lit. to add), eksil- (lit. to lessen), fazla (lit. more), kabar- (lit. to swell), küçük (lit. little), miktarını ayarla- (lit. to set the amount), sığdır- (lit. to cram), sonlara dayan- (lit. to reach the end), sınırsız (lit. limitless), şişir- (lit. to inflate), tırman- (lit. to climb up), yatış- (lit. to soothe), yüksek düzeyde (lit. at a high level), yüksel- (lit. to rise), and zirvede (lit. on the top). These keywords also yield the mappings intensity of heyecan is depth/height, intensity of heyecan is physical size, intensity is high/up, and passivity is low/down.

containment and quantity are often blended in the same expression to refer to having excessive heyecan:

The source domain of fire indicates the intensity of the emotion in two ways: Fire, to some extent, can be harmless as it triggers the person to take action (19); however, intense heyecan causes physical harm to the person (20). In the corpus, the intensity of heyecan is fire metaphor has the keywords ateşli (lit. flaming), kavur- (lit. scorch), kavrul- (lit. be scorched), körük- (lit. to fire), küllen- (lit. to cool), sön- (lit. to die out), yakıcı (lit. burning), and yan- (lit. to burn).

When the intensity of heyecan increases to an unwanted degree, it is sensed as an unpleasant emotion that makes the emoter suffer. In these cases, it is seen as a burden or physical agitation. The intensity is burden metaphor has the keywords of taşı- (lit. carry) and kaldır (lit. lift). Since any kind of difficulty is construed as a burden in accordance with the emotional difficulties are burdens metaphor (Kövecses, 2000), the intense feeling of heyecan causes emotional stress and hardship in the form of an external pressure that the emoter cannot bear.

Similarly, the keywords of physical agitation/illness çek- (lit. to suffer), dayan- (lit. to endure), dayanılmaz (lit. unendurable), nöbet geçir- (lit. suffer an attack), öl- (lit. to die), şiddetli (lit. acute), and uyuştur- (lit. to numb) show how the person is negatively affected and suffered somatically with the unwanted severity of heyecan, while dindir- (lit. to relieve/calm), geç- (lit. to get over), and rahatlat- (lit. to relieve) indicate the relief after the intensity is over.

6.3. Control dimension of heyecan

When the intensity of heyecan increases, it can be challenging to control it. Kövecses (1998) highlights that control is a complex notion that is composed of three stages: attempt to control, loss of control, and lack of control, each of which has specific conceptualizations. The control dimension of heyecan is expressed through the metaphors of force (f = 35), opponent (f = 22), substance (in a container) (f = 11), living being (f = 5), object (f = 4), nutrient (alcohol) (f = 2), and physical entity (f = 1).

Among these, the control of heyecan is more typically conceptualized in relation to force that is expressed through the keywords alıp götür- (lit. to sweep away), dalga (lit. wave), fırtına (lit. storm), it- (lit. to push), kapıl- (lit. to be seized), kasırga (lit. hurricane), çek- (lit. to draw), sars- (lit. to shake), set çek- (lit. to embank), and sürükle- (lit. to drag). Some of these keywords entail the specific natural force metaphor including flood, earthquake, and heavy storm, while some others illustrate physical force (e.g., push and draw). Since emotional stability is balance, heyecan as force (either physical or natural) ruins this stability; thus, the emoter either develops counterforce to regain stability or surrenders to this force. This metaphor manifests lack of control and passivity in relation to the general metaphors attempt at control is struggle with force and loss of control is losing control over force (Kövecses, 1998). The words ‘storm’ and ‘hurricane’ also imply that the emotion prevails longer.

When it gets hard to control one’s heyecan, it is displayed explicitly; hence, it is felt as an unpleasant emotion. In such cases, the emoter views their heyecan as an opponent in a struggle. This metaphor contains the keywords denetle- (lit. monitor/control), hakim ol-, (lit. to command), yen- (lit. to overcome/win), yenik düş- (lit. be defeated), and yönet- (lit. to manage). Controlling one’s heyecan is related to the attempt at emotional control is trying to overcome an opponent metaphor (Kövecses, 1998).

As the amount of the substance increases as heyecan gets intense, it causes internal pressure on the container (Kövecses, 2000, p. 66); hence, it becomes difficult to control it, and the person loses control over themselves. The (pressurized) substance metaphor has the keywords bastır- (lit. to suppress), patla- (lit. to explode), tut- (lit. to hold), and yatıştır- (lit. to sooth). The data yield the metaphors intense heyecan produces pressure in the container and when heyecan becomes too intense, the person explodes in relation to the metaphor the loss of emotional control is the explosion of the container.

When the emotion is out of control, it is seen as a wild animal or horse (within the domain of living being) that the emoter has trouble with through the keywords ayaklan- (lit. to rise), dizginle- (lit. to rein back), kamçıla- (lit. to whip), şaha kalk- (lit. to rear up), yabani (lit. wild), and zapt et- (lit. to capture). As Kövecses (2000, p. 70) highlights, the struggle between the master and the animal refers to the struggle for emotional control. This attempt to control one’s heyecan is related to the attempt at emotional control is trying to hold back a captive animal metaphor (Kövecses, 1998). As one loses control, they also lose their rational self that result in unintended emotional responses.

6.4. Cause–effect dimension of heyecan

The corpus data reveal several causes that make people feel heyecan. These causes can be grouped from pleasant to unpleasant as achievement-related situations (e.g., victory, teaching, or catching a fish), future expectations (e.g., upcoming birthday or seeing someone), novel experiences (e.g., adventure, learning/discovering new things, love, meeting someone, playing games, or first kiss), spiritualism (e.g., prayers or Eid morning), (unexpected) outside events (e.g., war or snow), unknown or challenging situations (e.g., football match, curiosity, or mystery), or unwanted and stressful situations (e.g., having an exam/operation). Although several other examples of causes can be added to the list, these groups show us that altogether, heyecan can be either self-triggered or triggered from the outside.

Additionally, when all the concordance lines were examined in terms of the co-appearance of emotion terms, the corpus data showed that other emotions prompt the arousal of heyecan as it usually co-exists with other emotions. It is often through the conjunction ‘and’ that heyecan is connected to other emotion words. This entails that heyecan may appear with and accompany various emotion types and is related to other emotion concepts in language. This finding is in line with its dictionary definitions. Table 2 shows that the most frequently collocated emotion words are categorized within the emotion families of fear, happiness, and enthusiasm, among others.

Table 2. Emotion types that collocate with heyecan in the corpus

Heyecan is an emotion that seems to be characterized by a productive system of its physiological effects (f = 57), behavioral reactions (f = 21), and mental effects (f = 11). Additionally, the source domains of force (f = 2) and substance (in a container) (f = 2) were found to reflect various effects of heyecan on the emoter. For the physiological effects of heyecan, we observed the following system of metonymies: shaking of the body/parts of the body (28), increase in heart rate (29), (involuntary) voice change (30), redness in the face (31) or change in the face shape, the eyes getting wider (32), dryness in the mouth (33), inability to breathe (34), and feeling dizzy (35).

Additionally, heyecan affects the emoter mentally yielding the metonymies inability to remember, inability to think (36), inability to sleep (37), or even getting mad as a hyperbole when the emotion becomes too intense.

Similarly, the emoter shows different involuntary behavioral responses because of heyecan including the slip of the tongue, inability to talk (38), inability to eat, inability to move (39), abrupt movements (40), and eating one’s nails or screaming.

6.5. Individual–social dimension of heyecan

Although heyecan is mainly felt at the individual level as presented in the previous examples, in a small amount of data in the corpus, the social dimension is observed with the metonymy heyecan for action (f = 14) and the metaphors object (f = 8), light (f = 4), and music (f = 1). When heyecan as an emotion type replaces the action that causes this emotion, it yields the metonymy heyecan for action. In such cases, ‘heyecan’ itself stands for a national, sportive, or cultural activity, and the emotion is shared by a large group of people. In these cases, heyecan can also indicate ‘enthusiasm’ (coşku) that is experienced at the social level and is spread from one person to another. For instance, in (41), the football match is represented as the emotion that is felt at the national level.

The emotion is seen as a possessed/shared object that is transmitted from one person to another in accordance with the sharing experiences is sharing objects metaphor (Kövecses, 2000). The keywords ortak ol- (lit. to be party to), katıl- (lit. to join), and paylaş- (lit. to share) indicate that heyecan is experienced at the social level and shared among the members of a group.

Heyecan can also be shared with others through the light and music source domains. The keyword yansı(t)- (lit. to reflect) highlights the transmission of heyecan from one person to another (43), and the music tone (Tr. ton) indicates heyecan can be a common feeling experienced by several people at the same time (44).

7. Discussion and conclusion

This study examined the emotion concept heyecan in terms of several dimensions: arousal–existence–disappearance, intensity–passivity, control, cause–effect, and individual–social. The data have revealed that the arousal of heyecan is the aspect that needs figurative conceptualization more frequently as out of 681 metaphorical and metonymical collocation lines, 248 are found to express the arousal–disappear aspect. This implies that feeling heyecan as a new emotional experience is most frequently communicated by emoters.

The metaphors and metonymies that we have examined before merge on a prototypical cognitive model of heyecan, which is outlined in the following text with its typical metaphors and metonymies (adapted from Kövecses, 1990, pp. 184–185):

1. 1. Stimulus arouses Heyecan. Internal or external stimuli cause heyecan to come into existence: substance in a container, possessed object, physical sense, living being, location, or nutrient

2. 2. Heyecan exists. Heyecan exerts force on the self, and the self experiences physical and physiological sensations: location, possessed object, or substance in a container

3. 3. Heyecan spreads. The emotive effect of heyecan is transmitted from the self to others: heyecan for action, transferred/shared object, light, or music

4. 4. Attempt to control heyecan. The self uses a counterforce to control one’s heyecan: natural force, opponent, or pressurized substance

5. 5. Loss of control. The intensity of heyecan goes above the limit, and it takes control of the self: exploded substance, physical agitation, fire, or burden

6. 6. Effects of heyecan. The self performs certain reactions under the influence of heyecan: involuntary behavioral response, involuntary physiological response, or mental response

7. 7. Heyecan disappears. The intensity of heyecan decreases, and it (gradually) ceases to exist: substance in a container, or possessed object.

Based on this cognitivecultural model, we deduce that like other emotive expressions, we tend to conceptualize heyecan in a more tangible way by creating a conceptual link between the sensorimotor experience and inner emotional/mental experience. Each metaphor provides a cognitive scenario to make this emotion concept more visible both for speakers and listeners. Similarly, a semantic preference analysis of heyecan has shown that at the n-3 position, it is more commonly collocated with quality (e.g., sweet), type (e.g., exam), emotion (e.g., happiness), or quantity (e.g., some), and at the n + 3 position, it is more often collocated with action (e.g., to give), emotion (e.g., curiosity), location (e.g., inside), state (e.g., full), or nature (e.g., wave) (Baş, 2023). These semantic categories and the collocation list indicate that the conceptualization and communication of this abstract emotion type is mostly figurative. This finding matches with Aksan and Aksan’s (2012, p. 303) observation that “in the lexicalization of emotions there is a tendency to use a more concrete language” in Turkish.

Most of the metaphorical and metonymical conceptualizations accord with the conventional metaphors and metonymies identified for other languages and emotion types (e.g., Aksan, 2006, Apresjan, 1997; Arıca Akkök, 2017; Baş, 2015; Kövecses, 1990; Maalej, 2007; Yu, 1995). This consistency supports the experiential basis of conceptual emotion metaphors and their relationship with metonymies. Among them, the heyecan is a substance (in a container) metaphor dominates the corpus data and is connected to the containment/fluid metaphor, which foregrounds that people situate emotions inside the body. This substance exists in the body to some extent and increases or decreases in amount depending on the triggering event. This metaphor is in harmony with the master metaphor emotions are entities inside a person (Lakoff et al., 1991) and provides further support for the (near-)universal metaphor body is a container for emotions (Kövecses, 2000) in relation to the embodiment thesis. In the corpus data, the body container is typically specified through the internal organ ‘heart’ (Tr. yürek, kalp) or the more general term ‘inside’ (Tr. iç), which are covered or filled by heyecan. This finding accords with the conceptualization of the heart as the seat of emotions (Baş, 2017; Niemeier, 2003) and Bakırcıoğlu’s (2012, p. 418) description of heyecan as an emotional state that causes changes on internal organs.

The second most frequent metaphor of the prototypical model is heyecan is an object (possession), which implies that heyecan is a personal emotion experienced at the individual level. Three subdomains emerge within this source domain: possessed, shared, and transferred object. Similarly, Aksan and Aksan (2012) found the source domain of constructed, possessed, and hidden object for the conceptualization of ‘duygu’ (emotion) more than others. This domain entails a need for a concrete language for the communication of subjective experience. The conceptualization of heyecan as a possession is generally seen as a desired object as in the expression of “Heyecanımız bol olsun!” (lit. (May we) have a lot of heyecan!) since a certain amount of heyecan is needed for a happy and satisfied life. In collectivistic societies like Turkey, where the interests, achievements, and happiness of the whole group are appreciated (Kövecses, 2015), when this object is shared with others, it rises in value. In addition to the shared/transferred object domain, the source domains of light and music can be considered novel metaphors that are unique to Turkish, which profile the social aspect of this emotion type. Although heyecan is intrinsically an individual emotion, namely, felt by the self and not directed at someone else, like enthusiasm, it is prone to contagion and magnification when expressed in public. Since emotions mostly emerge in social situations, they pertain to the notions of social relations, social norms, and society (Kövecses, 2013, 2015). As a result, we can deduce that the metaphorical conceptualization of heyecan is largely motivated by human physiology, while it is co-constructed by the social and the cultural environment.

Since heyecan metonymies are often bodily based (i.e., physiological, mental, or behavioral), the metonymies found in the study can be gathered under the general bodily reaction for emotion metonymy. Body-based metonymies perform an effective role as mediators between heyecan and its metaphors, forming metaphtonymies especially in idiomatic constructions. For instance, in the idiom “yüreği ağzına gelmek” (lit. having one’s heart in one’s mouth) in (45), sudden anxiety or fear causes excessive heartbeat, which is conceptualized as if one’s heart is moving upward. The target domain with this somatic (metonymic) ground is construed as a physical force that moves the internal organ from its position. In other words, in relation to the effect for cause metonymy, the (physiological) effect of emotion (i.e., excessive heartbeat) stands for the emotion (i.e., heyecan) within the metaphorical target domain. Then, the target domain of emotion (heyecan) maps onto the physical force source domain that causes movement. The resulting pattern is called a “metonymic expansion within the metaphorical target domain” (Perez-Sobrino, 2017) as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Metonymic expansion of the metaphorical target domain in ‘having one’s heart in one’s mouth’.

Another unique use of heyecan is its use as a superordinate term. In the database, five collocation lines were found to represent the heyecan for emotion metonymy, which was not included in the data analysis section. In these lines, heyecan stands for the term ‘duygu’ (emotion) in a general sense as stated in Smith and Smith (1995).

Heyecan metaphors and metonymies were found to have positive, neutral, or negative prosodies. Positive prosody suggests being pleased about the confirmation of a desired event or about the prospect of a desirable event, hence energizing the person to be more attentive to the outer world. The negative prosody implies that heyecan is the opposite of rational thought, calmness, or voluntary act, causing the emoter to suffer psychologically, physically, and mentally, and hence to act irrationally or inconsistently. The metaphors physical agitation (illness), opponent, fire, burden, natural force, and alcohol and the metonymies of mental effect, physiological effect, and behavioral response are the instances of this unpleasant conceptualization of heyecan. Still, it does not mean that the rest of the metaphors do not exemplify the negative sense of heyecan. In such cases, it gains a valence in accordance with the surrounding words it is collocated with, namely, the discourse context (Kövecses, 2015). For instance, in the expression ‘finding life interesting and heyecan giving’ (W-QC37C4A-0084-1583), heyecan has a positive connotation; however, in ‘I sense fear, heyecan and anxiety’ (W-QI43C4A-1428-1924), the co-text attaches a negative connotation to it. In fact, both in this study and the semantic preference study (Baş, 2023), heyecan is found to be collocated with the emotion families of fear and joy more frequently, which convey two opposing valences. Based on this conceptual and collocational structure, in Turkish, heyecan can be good, bad, or neutral depending on its cause, degree of intensity, and effect on the self. When it is good, it is closer to ‘excitement/enthusiasm/thrill’; when it is bad, it is closer to ‘nervousness/flurry’; and when it is neutral it refers to ‘sensation’ or ‘emotion,’ as categorized at the beginning of the study.

In Turkish culture, language users conceive emotional experiences holistically; hence, “antecedents, situational components, physiological arousal, and even resulting behavioral responses enter into the conceptualization of subjective experience” (Aksan & Aksan, 2012, p. 303). This reflects on how emotions are expressed in daily life linguistically. As Kövecses (2020) puts forth in his extended conceptual metaphor theory, metaphor is not only a cognitive phenomenon but also a contextual phenomenon. For this reason, the linguistic realizations of metaphors and metonymies in situational context need to be explored in depth with real-life data. In relation to collectivism, the cultural context plays a significant role in Turkish society in considering emotion (Smith & Smith, 1995), and heyecan is a highly situation-based emotion. We need to consider different aspects of emotions to understand the conceptual nature of them, and corpus provides an important tool to achieve this goal. To sum up, this analysis shows us that the concept of heyecan is not only a biologically (universal) determined emotion but also socially (culture-specific) determined emotion and that the expressions of heyecan in Turkish are reflections of a particular cognitive/cultural model.