The language of emotion

The Language of Emotions
The language of emotions has most often been studied as part of a larger subset of language, typically referred to as “internal state language.”

Some investigators have focused exclusively on the emotion lexicon or in the lexicon of desire (subset of volition and ability), feeling (positive and negative emotion), an metal state or other subsets.

These semantic subcategories are quite heterogenous and all findings must be interpreted in the context of the specific definitions used.

Many words of English which can refer to emotions or other internal states have multiple meanings, only some of which are relevant here.

For example, the word like may refer to an emotional state or a judgment of similarity; the word blue to an emotional state or a color; and the word can to ability/permission or to a container.

For this reason, observational studies of internal state language require careful examination of potential internal state words in context, and parental checklists require the specification of the relevant meaning.

Although the vocabulary of emotions and other internal states is extensive and distinctive these words have no distinctive grammatical correlate or pronunciation.

Thus this aspect of language is not specifically marked in any way for children, despite the very considerable challenge such words pose.

These words are relatively abstract: most of them do not have a clear, consistent, visible referent.

Even in those cases which do have a visible referent such as happy and mad, it is transitory an somewhat idiosyncratic across individuals.

Furthermore, the essence as well as the self. Such as act of categorization would appear to require a high degree of non-egocentrism, on the part of the child to infer an internal state for another.

Reassert in internal state language did not begin until relatively recently, in part because of the assumption that such non-egocentrism would not be reliably established until the concrete operational period i.e. the early school years.

Finally, the processes that have been posited to enable children to master an enourmous vocabulary in the preschool years have a little to offer in this area of learning.

For example, the taxonomic constraint has been proposed as a pre-existing bias to apply labels to categories of similar objects, and the principle of mutual exclusively has been proposed as a bias to assume that a new refers to a new object or set of objects. Neither appears to be particular relevant for internal state language.
The Language of Emotions

Communication and Emotion

Communication is possible without words too. And this is largely thanks to the basic emotions every share.

When anthropologists first come onto contact with a previously isolated people, their only means of communication is via facial expressions and bodily gestures, many of which are specifically designed to express emotions.

The anthropologists may smile, an expression that will be recognized immediately by the isolated tribes people.

The tribes people may smile in return, showing that they share the same basic emotional repertoire.

Different cultures have elaborated on this repertoire, exalting different emotions, downgrading others and embellishing the common feelings with cultural nuances, but these differences are more like those between two interpretations of the same musical works, rather than those between different compositions.

Just as two orchestras will play the same symphony slightly differently, so two cultures will play out their emotional repertoire in different tones.

It will be clear to all however, that the score is the same.
Communication and Emotion