Metaphorical Conceptualization of Positive and Negative Emotions in Italian

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the conceptualization of negative and positive emotions in Italian. In other languages, emotions have been found to have a very complex conceptual structure. Many authors (Fainsilber and Ortony 1987; Fussell and Moss 1998; Gibbs 1994; Kövecses 2000a; Gibbs, Leggitt and Turner 2002; Kövecses 2014) who worked on the conceptualization of emotions make it clear that metaphorical language plays an important role in understanding the language of emotions, not only describing and categorizing emotional experiences, but also defining them more precisely and even creating them. Since valence is one of the most important features of emotions, we were interested in how it influences their conceptualization and how differences in valence are manifested at the level of metaphors and metaphorical linguistic expressions. We analysed more than 150,000 concordances from the itWaC corpus and found that emotions in Italian have a complex conceptual structure. Comparing the results by valence, we found that the differences between emotions with positive and negative valence do not occur at the level of basic metaphors, but at the level of some specific metaphors and even more clearly at the level of metaphorical linguistic expressions. We found that while all emotions are perceived as OPPONENT / ENEMY, this source domain applies in particular to emotions with negative valence. Only emotions with negative valence are perceived as OPPONENT WE FIGHT, which means that we have to overcome and control them. In contrast, only positive emotions are perceived as LIGHT, MEDICINE, DRUG and BUILDING. As with the metaphor EMOTIONS ARE FOOD, positive valence is clearly associated with a good and sweet taste and negative valence with a bitter taste. If emotions with a positive valence are perceived as LIGHT, emotions with a negative valence are perceived as DARKNESS (SADNESS), COLD (FEAR) and HEAT (ANGER). At the level of metaphorical linguistic expressions, we found some other interesting differences.