Do we experience emotions differently based on the culture we are brought up in?
ooked at 2,439 distinct concepts from 2,474 languages. The team analysed the similarities and differences between languages based on patterns of “colexification”: instances in which multiple concepts are expressed by the same word form.can be used to express both grief and regret; in the Dargwa dialect, spoken in Dagestan in Russia,means grief and anxiety. It follows, therefore, that Persian speakers may understand grief as closer to regret, and Dargwa speakers closer to anxiety.
The analysis allowed the researchers to create networks of concepts that showed, for each language family, how closely different emotional concepts related to each other. These revealed wide variation between language families. For instance, in Tad-Kadai languages, which can be found in Southeast Asia, southern China, and Northeast India, “anxiety” was related to “fear”; in Austroasiatic languages, anxiety was closer to “grief” or “regret”.
But there were some similarities. Words with the same emotional valence — i.e. that were positive or negative — tended to be associated only with other words of the same valence, in all language families across the world. Happiness, for example, was linked to other positive emotions, even if the specific associations were slightly different depending on the language family. . Similarly, low-arousal emotions like sadness were also unlikely to be compared to high-arousal emotions like anger.
And geography also seemed to matter: language families that were geographically closer tended to share more similar associations than those that were far away. The study’s findings suggest that emotional concepts do vary between languages up to a point, raising the question of just how similar supposedly universal experiences are. Of course, it’s impossible to know exactly how somebody else is experiencing the world, and language can often be woefully inadequate when it comes to expressing our internal life.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Mom Raises Awareness on the Challenges of Staying Home With the Kids“You forget what it means or feels like to be an individual, because your entire existence now revolves around that child...I am alone and I am lonely.”
Read more »
For hedge funds chasing sustainable cash, avocados are the new coalSome of the world’s most cynical investors may finally be coming around to climate change.
Read more »
Factbox: Countries evacuating nationals from China virus areasA growing number of countries around the world are evacuating or planning to eva...
Read more »
Hernández: Mookie Betts at top of lineup means Dodgers will be World Series underdogs no moreThe Dodgers were underdogs in recent World Series losses to the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox because of an incomplete offense. Mookie Betts changes that.
Read more »