Emotion concept disgust and its German counterparts: Equivalence determination based on language corpora data
Abstract
Our two-stage methodology was tested in order to determine the most accurate equivalent for Anglo-Saxon emotion concept (EC) disgust among German ekel, abneigung, abneigung and abscheu. At the first stage, the authors identified the closest in terms of content equivalents to disgust on the basis of the comparison of the German ECs names definitions in explanatory and bilingual dictionaries. It was established that equivalence with disgust, albeit incomplete, is shown only by the nouns Ekel and Abscheu, which are so semantically close to each other that they can be used interchangeably in some contexts. At the second stage, on the basis of a comparative analysis of the most frequent collocates of the concept names disgust, ekel and abscheu in representative corpora of the English and German languages, (a) the relevant content of these concepts was established and (b) a comparison of their semantic structures was made according to the criteria of arousal and valence. A comparison of the semantic structures of disgust, ekel and abscheu revealed that both German concepts show numerous overlaps with disgust. At the same time, abscheu is semantically more similar to disgust than ekel. This indicates that the transfer of disgust to the German language community by means of ekel and abscheu can be quite adequate, since both of these concepts evoke associations in representatives of German-speaking culture similar to those that arise in Anglo-Saxons in connection with disgust.
References
Alvarado N (1998) A reconsideration of the structure of the emotion lexicon. Motivation and Emotion 22(4): 329–344. DOI: 10.1023/A:1021356424065
Andrew R (1963) Evolution of facial expression. Science 142(3595): 1034–1041. DOI: 10.1126/science.142.3595.1034
AoE (2023) Atlas of Emotions: Disgust [online]. Available at: http://atlasofemotions.org/#actions/disgust
Bąk H (2022) EmCat-Eng: A catalogue of 1,759 basic emotion terms in English. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 57: 33–59. DOI: 10.2478/stap-2022-0003
Beolingus (2022) Beolingus Dictionary [online]. Available at: https://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/
BNC (n.d.) British National Corpus [online]. Available at: https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/
Boster J (2005) Emotion categories across languages. In: Cohen H and Lefebvre C (eds.) Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp.187–222.
CD (2022) Cambridge Dictionary [online]. Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/
Chen C, Crivelli C, Garrod O, et al. (2018) Distinct facial expressions represent pain and pleasure across cultures. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115(43): E10013–E10021. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1807862115
Collins (2022) Collins Dictionary [online]. Available at: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/
Colombetti G (2009) What language does to feelings. Journal of Consciousness Studies 16(9): 4–26.
Doyle C, Gendron M, and Lindquist K (2021) Language is a unique context for emotion perception. Affective Science 2(2): 171–177. DOI: 10.1007%2Fs42761-020-00025-7
Duden (1996) Deutsches Universalwörterbuch [German Universal Dictionary]. Mannheim/Leipzig/Wien/Zürich: Duden.
DWDS (n.d.) Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache [online]. Available at: http://www.dwds.de/ressourcen/korpora/
Ekman P (1999) Basic emotions. In: Dalgleish T and Power MJ (eds.) Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. New York: Wiley, pp.45–60.
Ekman P and Cordaro D (2011) What is meant by calling emotions basic. Emotion Review 3(4): 364–370. DOI: 10.1177/1754073911410740
Ekman P and Friesen W (1969) The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica 1(1): 49–98. DOI: 10.1515/semi.1969.1.1.49
Ekman P and Friesen W (1971) Constants across cultures in the face and emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 17(2): 124–129. DOI: 10.1037/h0030377
Ekman P, Sorenson R, and Friesen W (1969) Pancultural elements in facial displays of emotions. Science 164(3875): 86–88. DOI: 10.1126/science.164.3875.86
Emotion (2022) Was Ist Emotion? Psychologische Erklärungsmodelle [What Is Emotion? Psychological Explanatory Models] [online]. Available at: https://arbeitsblaetter.stangl-taller.at/EMOTION/Emotion.shtml
Erk S and Walter H (2003) Funktionelle Bildgebung der Emotionen [Functional imaging of emotions]. In: Stephan A and Walter H (eds.) Natur und Theorie der Emotion. Paderborn: Mentis, pp.51–74.
Foolen A (2012) The relevance of emotion for language and linguistics. In: Foolen A, Lüdtke U, Racine T, and Zlatev J (eds.) Moving Ourselves, Moving Others: Motion and Emotion in Intersubjectivity, Consciousness and Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp.347–368. DOI: 10.1075/ceb.6.13foo
Gallo I, Fernández-Dols JM, Gollwitzer P, et al. (2017) Grima: A distinct emotion concept? Frontiers in Psychology 8: 131. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00131
Gendron M, Roberson D, van der Vyver J, et al. (2014) Perceptions of emotion from facial expressions are not culturally universal: Evidence from a remote culture. Emotion 14(2): 251–262. DOI: 10.1037/a0036052
Goddard C (2014) On “Disgust”. In: Baider F and Cislaru G (eds) Linguistic Approaches to Emotions in Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp.73–98.
Goddard C (2018) Vocabulary of emotions and its development in English, German and other languages. In: Schiewer GL, Altarriba J, and Ng BC (eds.) Handbook of Language and Emotion. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Grötsch C (2022) Viele Wege Führen zur Emotionalen Kundenansprache [Many Paths Lead to an Emotional Customer Approach] [online]. Available at: https://www.handelskraft.de/viele-wege-fuhren-zur-emotionalen-kundenansprache/
Gutierrez R, Giner-Sorolla R, and Vasiljevic M (2012) Core emotion or anger synonym? Moral context influences predictors of disgust word use. Cognition and Emotion 26(1): 53–64. DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2011.567773
Han D, Kollareth D, and Russell J (2015) The words for disgust in English, Korean, and Malayam questions its homogeneity. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 35(5): 569–588. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X15619199
Heinämaa S (2020) Disgust. In: Szanto T and Landweer H (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotions. Abington, Oxon/New York, NY: Routledge.
Hwang H and Matsumoto D (2015) Evidence for the universality of facial expressions of emotion. In: Mandal MK and Awasthi A (eds.) Understanding Facial Expressions in Communication: Cross-cultural and Multidisciplinary Perspectives. New Delhi: Springer, pp.41–56. DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1934-7_3
iWeb (n.d.) Word Web Corpus [online]. Available at: https://www.english-corpora.org/iweb/
Jack R, Garrod O, Yu H, et al. (2012) Facial expressions of emotion are not culturally universal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109(19): 7241–7244. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1200155109
Kelly D (2011) Yuck! The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Knipprath R (2021) Emotionstheorie nach Robert Plutchik [Emotion Theory according to Robert Plutchik] [online]. Available at: https://rknipprath.de/emotionstheorie-nach-robert-plutchik-1927-2006/
Kollareth D and Russell J (2017) The English word disgust has no exact translation in Hindi or Malayalam. Cognition and Emotion 31(6): 1169–1180. DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2016.1202200
Kollareth D, Shirai M, Helmy M, et al. (2021) Deconstructing disgust as the emotion of violations of body and soul. Emotion 22(8): 1919–1928. DOI: 10.1037/emo0000886
Kövecses Z (1990) Emotion Concepts. New York: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4612-3312-1
Langenscheidt (2022) Langenscheidt Dictionary: English–German [online]. Available at: https://en.langenscheidt.com/english-german/disgust
Lee S and Ellsworth P (2011) Maggots and morals: Physical disgust is to fear as moral disgust is to anger. In: Scherer KR and Fontaine JRJ (eds.) Components of Emotional Meaning: A Sourcebook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp.271–281. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199592746.003.0018
Levenson R (2011) Basic emotion questions. Emotion Review 3(4): 379–386. DOI: 10.1177/1754073911410743
Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk B and Wilson P (2018) Sources of data and methodological foundations of a contrastive linguistic analysis of emotion concepts. Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Językoznawczego 74: 157–190.
Mackensen L (1986) Deutsches Wörterbuch [German Dictionary]. München: Südwest Verlag.
Matsumoto D (2009) Culture and emotional expression. In: Wyer RS, Chiu C, and Hong Y (eds.) Understanding Culture: Theory, Research, and Application. New York: Psychology Press, pp.271–287.
McGinn C (2011) The Meaning of Disgust. New York: Oxford University Press.
Menninghaus W (1999) Ekel. Theorie und Geschichte einer Starken Empfindung [Disgust. Theory and History of a Strong Sensation]. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Miller WI (1997) The Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mizin K and Letiucha L (2019) The linguo-cultural concept TORSCHLUSSPANIK as the representative of ethno-specific psycho-emotional state of Germans. Psycholinguistics/Psiholingvistika 25(2): 234–249. DOI: 10.31470/2309-1797-2019-25-2-234-249
Mizin K and Ovsiienko L (2020) Application perspectives of corpus-based methods within linguo-cultural and psycholinguistic analysis: German emotional concept SEHNSUCHT. East European Journal of Psycholinguistics 7(1): 111–127. DOI: 10.29038/eejpl.2020.7.1.miz
Mizin K and Petrov O (2021) Emotional state GEMÜTLICHKEIT in cross-cultural perspective: Corpus-based approach. Studies about Languages/Kalbų Studijos 38: 43–60. DOI: 10.5755/j01.sal.1.38.26581
Mizin K, Slavova L, and Khmara V (2021) The equivalence of terms denoting the emotion concepts of Ger. angst and A.-S. fear: A corpus-based method. Lege artis. Language Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow 6(2): 69–104.
Mobbs A (2020) An atlas of personality, emotion and behaviour. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227877. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227877
Nabi R (2002) The theoretical versus the lay meaning of disgust: implications for emotion research. Cognition and Emotion 16(5): 695–703. DOI: 10.1080/02699930143000437
Ogarkova A (2007) “Green-eyed monsters”: A corpus-based study of metaphoric conceptualizations of JEALOUSY and ENVY in modern English. metaphorik.de 13: 87–147.
Ogarkova A, Soriano C, and Lehr C (2012) Naming feeling. Exploring the equivalence of emotion terms in five European languages. In: Wilson P (ed.) Dynamicity in Emotion Concepts. Frankfurt and New York: Peter Lang, pp.253–284.
OALD (2022) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary [online]. Available at: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/
Panasenko N (2012) Linguistic markers of emotional concept LOVE in literary texts. US-China Foreign Language 10(4): 1067–1084.
Pfeifer W (1993) Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen [Etymological Dictionary of German]. Berlin: Akademie Verlag GmbH.
Plutchik R (1997) The circumplex as a general model of the structure of emotions and personality. In: Plutchik R and Conte HR (eds.) Circumplex Models of Personality and Emotions. Washington: American Psychological Association Press, pp.17–46. DOI: 10.1037/10261-001
Pochedly J, Widen S, and Russell J (2012) What emotion does the “facial expression of disgust” express? Emotion 12(6): 1315–1319. DOI: 10.1037/a0027998
PONS (2022) PONS Wörterbuch [PONS Dictionary]. Available at: https://de.pons.com/
Power M and Dalgleish T (1997) Cognition and Emotion: From Order to Disorder. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Rozin P and Fallon A (1987) A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review 94(1): 23–41. DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.94.1.23
Rozin P, Lowery L, Imada S, et al. (1999) The CAD triad hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76(4): 574–586. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.76.4.574
Russell J (1980) A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(6): 1161–1178. DOI: 10.1037/h0077714
Russell J (1991) Culture and the categorization of emotions. Psychological Bulletin 110(3): 426–450. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.110.3.426
Russell J (2014) My psychological construction perspective, with a focus on conscious affective experience. In: Barrett LF and Russell JA (eds.) The Psychological Construction of Emotion. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, pp.183–208.
Russell J and Fehr B (1994) Fuzzy concepts in a fuzzy hierarchy: Varieties of anger. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67(2): 186–205. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.67.2.186
Sharifian F (2015) Cultural Linguistics. In: Sharifian F (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture. New York: Routledge, pp.473–493.
Shaver P, Schwartz J, Kirson D, et al. (1987) Emotion knowledge: Further exploration of a prototype approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52(6): 1061–1086. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.52.6.1061
Soriano C (2015) Emotion and conceptual metaphor. In: Flam H and Kleres J (eds.) Methods of Exploring Emotions. New York/London: Routledge, pp.206–214.
Stemmler G (2009) Enzyklopädie der Psychologie: Psychologie der Emotionen [Encyclopedia of Psychology: Psychology of Emotions]. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Susskind J, Lee D, Cusi A, et al. (2008) Expressing fear enhances sensory acquisition. Nature Neuroscience 11(7): 843–850. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2138
Traue H and Kessler H (2003) Psychologische emotionskonzepte [Psychological emotion concepts]. In: Stephan A and Walter H (eds.) Natur und Theorie der Emotion. Paderborn: Mentis, pp.20–33.
Tybur J, Molho C, Camak B, et al. (2020) Disgust, anger, and aggression: Further tests of the equivalence of moral emotions. Collabra: Psychology 6(1): 34. DOI: 10.1525/collabra.349
Underhill JW (2015) Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Concepts: Truth, Love, Hate and War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511862540
Wahrig (1972) Deutsches Wörterbuch [German Dictionary]. Gütersloh/Berlin/München: Bertelsmann Lexikon-Verlag.
Wierzbicka A (1999) Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511521256
Wilson P and Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk B (2019) Cognitive structure and conceptual clusters of emotion terms. Filozofia i Nauka. Studia Filozoficzne i Interdyscyplinarne 7(1): 91–123. DOI: 10.37240/FiN.2019.7.2.1.6
Yoder A, Widen S, and Russell J (2016) The word disgust may refer to more than one emotion. Emotion 16(3): 301–308. DOI: 10.1037/emo0000118
Copyright (c) 2023 author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The author(s) warrant that permission to publish the article has not been previously assigned elsewhere.
Author(s) shall retain the copyright of their work and grant the Journal/Publisher right for the first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under:
OA - Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0). This license allows for the copying, distribution and transmission of the work, provided the correct attribution of the original creator is stated. Adaptation and remixing are also permitted.
This broad license intends to facilitate free access to, as well as the unrestricted reuse of, original works of all types.
_%E5%89%AF%E6%9C%AC1.png){kind=logo}
