Summary
Contents
Subject index
`There is much that is fascinating here. Long-established experiments and conclusions are rubbished and reinterpreted, long-established assumptions and beliefs about emotions are soundly trounced, and generally a good going-over is delivered to the whole field... it is such a blockbuster that one can only reel backwards and tell anyone studying the subject that they would be crazy not to get it' - Self & Society This fascinating book overviews the psychology of the emotions in its broadest sense, tracing historical, social, cultural and biological themes and analyses. The contributors - some of the leading figures in the field - produce a new theoretical synthesis by drawing together these strands.
Chapter 8: Emotion Talk across Cultures
Emotion Talk across Cultures
Emotional life has sparke the human imagination. Members of different societies talk about their emotions in a wide variety of ways, many of which strike us as distinctly imaginative. The Javanese of Ponorogo, for example, employ liver talk: ‘it is the liver (ati) that appears in idiomatic expressions indicating emotion’; and ‘the role of the liver is not altogether just a metaphor’ (Weiss, 1983: 72).
In this chapter I shall take the reader on a ‘Cooks tour’ of societies whose members talk about emotions in an ‘exotic’ fashion. As we shall see, there are very considerable differences in the number of emotions clearly identified; what emotions mean; how they are classified and evaluated; how the nature of emotions is ...
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