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Emotion Concepts

Book · January 1990

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4612-3312-1

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Zoltán Kövecses
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 Emotion concepts: from happiness to guilt
A cognitive semantic perspective1

Zoltán Kövecses
Department of American Studies
Eötvös Loránd University
Budapest

Abstract
In this paper, I will discuss some specific emotion concepts by making use of the
conceptual tools of cognitive linguistics. In previous work, it has been shown that
emotion concepts are characterized by metaphors, metonymies, and inherent
concepts that converge on and create our cultural models of emotions. We can take
these cultural models as mental representations of emotions. The paper draws
attention to one way of dealing with the structure and content of emotion concepts
and points to some possible connections with psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
Some limitations of the approach are also discussed.

Introduction

Previous research in cognitive linguistics showed that emotion concepts have a

great deal of conceptual content (see Kövecses, 1986, 1988, 1990). This
conceptual content derives in large part from the metaphors we are about to present
below. But in addition to the metaphors, two other cognitive tools contribute to the
conceptual content: metonymies and “inherent concepts.” I will demonstrate the
relevance of all three cognitive tools to the study of emotion in the pages below.
But how precisely is this conceptual content structured? In other words,
what is the specific structure of emotion concepts? The objectivist (i.e.,
structuralist and Chomskyan) definition of the meaning of concepts in general
maintains that meaning (conceptual content) can be given by means of a small set
of features, or meaning components. The componential definitions of concepts are
taken to differ minimally from each other (i.e., in terms of at least one feature), and
therefore distinguish concepts from each other minimally. These features of
meaning, or meaning components, are conceived of as semantic primitives. Thus,
for example, the meaning of anger could be defined as “intense displeasure over a
1
I want to thank Tom Ormay for his several useful comments on some of the psychoanalytic aspects of the paper.
wrong done to a person.” This would be a definition of the word anger that is
assumed to apply to all cases of anger and to anger only.
This view of meaning was rejected by Wittgenstein who suggested that there
is no fixed set of features, or components, that can define a concept. Wittgenstein’s
example was the concept of games. His idea was that there are no shared features
that apply to all cases or forms of games. The game of ring-around-the-rosy has no
features in common with boxing or soccer. His suggestion was that all the different
forms of games are related to each other by what he called “family resemblance.”
This means that some features apply to some members of a category (like games),
but there are no features of meaning that apply to all members of a category. If a
category has the three members A, B, and C, then A may share certain features
with B, B may share certain features with C, but there is no one feature that A, B,
and C all share.
To take an example from the domain of emotions, we might suggest that all
emotions ‘have an object’; that is, they are all about something (i.e., they have a
cause). However, it turns out that some emotions do not have one. In other words,
not all emotions have the feature “have an object.” For example, fear has an object,
but anxiety does not. But we know that fear and anxiety are closely related
emotions. Their relatedness comes from the fact that anxiety is in many ways like
fear, except that it has no object. Several emotion concepts are related to each other
in exactly this way: A particular emotion does have an object, while a closely
related one does not. As noted, fear is about something, but anxiety is not (at least
not consciously). Or, I feel angry about something, whereas I can feel resentment
for no particular reason. Resentment is in many ways like anger, except that it
doesn’t have a (conscious) causal component, that is, it is not specifically about
something.
But if the meaning of concepts is not defined by a small number of semantic
features that apply to all the members of a category, how can their structure be
defined? Instead of (or maybe alongside) the minimal definitions of concepts by
means of a small number of semantic features, or components, I suggest, together
with many cognitive scientists today, that our knowledge of concepts comes in the
form of “cultural models.” Cultural models have a number of important
characteristics.
First, cultural models are cognitive representations of our coherent
experiences in a culture. Thus, anything can be represented as a cultural model: a
chair, restaurants, emotions, and the like. Many cultural models have a script-like,
or scenario-like, structure. For example, emotions can be thought of as such script-
like mental structures. The cultural models of emotions present emotions as brief
unfolding stories (i.e., as mini-narratives) beginning typically with some cause for
the emotion and resulting in an action-like stage with several other stages in
between these two.
Second, cultural models serve as prototypes, or reference points, with
respect to which people can notice all kinds of digressions. Thus, cultural models
provide a view of categories in which some instances of a category are better
examples than others. The best examples of a category are prototypical, while the
less good examples, that is, the cultural and individual digressions with respect to
the cultural norm, are less prototypical members of the category; nevertheless, the
less prototypical members are still instances, or members, of a category. Below, I
will present many such deviations, or digressions, from the cultural norm in the
case of emotions.
Third, cultural models are not concrete, specific instances of a category; they
are idealized versions of reality. This is why several authors refer to such cultural
models as “idealized cognitive models” (e.g., Lakoff 1987, who coined the term).
Thus, prototypical cultural models are not necessarily sociologically real (i.e., are
not the most commonly found conceptions in social reality) and they are not
necessarily true of the world. As the name implies, they are idealized
conceptualizations of an aspect of experience in a particular culture.
Let us now turn to our survey.

HAPPINESS

Metaphors of happiness

The list of metaphorical source domains to follow is taken from Kövecses (1991a)
and Lakoff and Johnson (1980). It also includes some others.

HAPPY IS WARM: That warmed my spirits.

HAPPINESS IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: He was overflowing with joy.
HAPPINESS IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL: His feelings of happiness broke loose. She
couldn’t hold back her feelings of happiness.
HAPPINESS IS AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE: He was knocked out! She was
overcome by joy.
HAPPINESS IS A RAPTURE/HIGH: I was drunk with joy.
HAPPY IS UP: We had to cheer him up.
HAPPINESS IS BEING OFF THE GROUND: I am six feet off the ground. I was so
happy my feet barely touched the ground.
HAPPINESS IS BEING IN HEAVEN: That was heaven on earth.
 HAPPY IS LIGHT: She brightened up at the news.
HAPPINESS IS HEALTH: It made me feel great.
HAPPINESS IS A PLEASURABLE PHYSICAL SENSATION: I was tickled pink.
HAPPINESS IS INSANITY: They were crazy with happiness.
HAPPINESS IS A NATURAL FORCE: He was swept off his feet.
HAPPINESS IS VITALITY: He was alive with joy
A HAPPY PERSON IS AN ANIMAL THAT LIVES WELL: He was happy as a pig in
shit. He looks like the cat that got the cream.
JOYFUL BEHAVIOR STAND FOR HAPPINESS: He was jumping up and down for
joy.

Here, we find some very general metaphorical source domains, such as CAPTIVE
ANIMAL, OPPONENT, INSANITY, etc. The concept of happiness is also characterized by
a number of more limited source domains, including UP, LIGHT, RAPTURE/HIGH. It
seems to have some very specific ones as well, such as AN ANIMAL THAT LIVES WELL
and PLEASURABLE PHYSICAL SENSATION.
A central aspect of the concept of happiness involves evaluation. We suggest
that it is the notion of positive evaluation that lends the concept its special flavor
(see also Kövecses, 1991a). This will become especially clear if we compare the
happiness metaphors with those of sadness.

Metaphors and the concept of happiness

As we have seen above, speakers of English have several conceptual metaphors for
the concept of happiness; that is, they resort to several source domains in
understanding a single target domain—happiness. This is typical of target
domains. We use not just one but a number of source concepts to comprehend
them. The question inevitably arises: Why should this be the case? Why don’t we
simply have one conceptual metaphor for a given target? The answer is simple:

Since concepts (both target and source) have several aspects to them,
speakers need several source domains to understand these different aspects
of target concepts.

But how does this actually happen? How do several metaphors jointly characterize,
or produce an understanding for, a given target domain? To get an idea of this, we
will discuss the concept of happiness in some detail, as it is jointly characterized
by a number of conceptual metaphors. (The discussion will be based on Kovecses,
2001.) The word happiness, in many of the instances to follow, is replaceable and
is often replaced by the word joy. In the discussion of each of these metaphors we
will point out the most important mappings between the source and the target of
this emotion.
The first three conceptual metaphors all give happiness an “upward
orientation.” The upward orientation of these metaphors makes the concept of
happiness coherent with a number of other concepts; through the “up” metaphors,
it gets a highly positive evaluation.

BEING HAPPY IS BEING OFF THE GROUND

She was on cloud nine.
I was just soaring with happiness.
I’m six feet off the ground.
After the exam, I was walking on air for days.

BEING HAPPY IS BEING IN HEAVEN

That was heaven on earth.
I’ve died and gone to heaven.
It was paradise on earth.
I was in seventh heaven.

HAPPY IS UP
We had to cheer him up.
They were in high spirits.
Lighten up!
She lit up.

We prefer to keep these three metaphors distinct, since they are characterized by
distinct but obviously related source concepts: being off the ground, heaven, and
the general concept UP. The obvious relationship among them is that they are all
“upward oriented.”

Since light, as opposed to dark, is valued positively, the LIGHT metaphor also
highlights the positive evaluation of happiness (light up, brighten up, shine).
Furthermore, as several examples indicate, the happy person is characterized by a
great deal of energy; the light appears to derive from an internal heat energy (cf.
radiate, glow, shine).

HAPPINESS IS LIGHT
He radiates joy.
 There was a glow of happiness in her face.
When she heard the news, she lit up.
Nothing to worry about, brighten up.
She was shining with joy.
Her face was bright with happiness.

The main emphasis of the VITALITY metaphor is that the happy person is energetic,
active; he or she is “full of life.”

HAPPINESS IS VITALITY
He was alive with joy.
I’m feeling spry.
I felt vivacious.
That put some life into them.
She’s animated with joy.
I got a big charge out of it.

The CONTAINER metaphor’s major focus is on the intensity and control aspects of
happiness. It depicts happiness as a highly intense emotional state that may lead to
difficulties in controlling it. Intensity in this metaphor is indicated by the quantity
of the fluid in the container (fill) and by the corresponding inability of the subject
of happiness to keep the fluid inside the container (can’t contain, brim over,
overflow, burst).

HAPPINESS IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER

The sight filled them with joy.
I brimmed over with joy when I saw her.
She couldn’t contain her joy any longer.
He bubbled over with joy when he got his presents.
She overflowed with joy.
I was bursting with happiness.

Given the examples below, it seems that the CAPTIVE ANIMAL metaphor captures
two aspects of happiness: giving up the attempt to control the emotion (give way
to, break loose, can’t hold back) and the need to communicate one’s feelings to
another (can't keep it to myself).

HAPPINESS IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL

I couldn’t keep my happiness to myself.
 She gave way to her feelings of happiness.
His feelings of joy broke loose.
He couldn’t hold back tears of joy.

To the extent that we can take the following examples to be symptomatic of

happiness, they seem to indicate that happiness is a powerful and intense emotion
that we regard as taking control of us. That is, the OPPONENT metaphor suggests
that there is an attempt at controlling the emotion on the part of the subject of
happiness but this struggle for control typically results in losing control for the
happy person.

HAPPINESS IS AN OPPONENT
She was overcome with joy.
Happiness took complete control over him.
He was knocked out!
She was seized by joy.

Rapture, or a high, is associated with energetic behavior. Another aspect of rapture

is the pleasure it imparts. This depicts happiness as a very pleasurable experience.
However, the major aspect of happiness that the RAPTURE metaphor highlights is
excessiveness and loss of control. If we are drunk with joy, we do not quite know
what we are doing.

HAPPINESS IS A RAPTURE
It was a delirious feeling.
I was drunk with joy.
The experience was intoxicating.
I’m on a natural high.
I’m high on life.

According to the metaphor below, a happy person gets what he or she needs from
the outside world (as a pig gets its slop, as a horse gets its hay, etc.). Such a person
feels comfort and well-being, in harmony with the surrounding world.

A HAPPY PERSON IS AN ANIMAL (THAT LIVES WELL)

He was happy as a pig in slop.
She was chirping like a cricket.
He is as happy as a clam.
He was as happy as a pig in shit.
 He is as happy as a horse in hay.
She was crowing with excitement.
He was wallowing in a sea of happiness.

This metaphor shares some examples with the next one. Here, as well, the aspects
of pleasurability and comfort or harmony with the world are focused on.

HAPPINESS IS A PLEASURABLE PHYSICAL SENSATION

I was purring with delight.
She was crowing with excitement.
He was wallowing in a sea of happiness.
I was tickled pink.

The next metaphor also highlights the feature of control. Insanity is a complete
lack of control. The INSANITY metaphor suggests an even greater lack of control
than the RAPTURE metaphor.

HAPPINESS IS INSANITY
They were crazy with happiness.
She was mad with joy.
I was beside myself.

If we are carried away and swept off our feet, we have no control over what is
happening to us. And not only do we not have control over it, we can’t help it
either. In other words, we are passive in relation to the event or state that we are
involved in. We are not the agents but the patients. It is this aspect of the concept
that is highlighted by the NATURAL FORCE metaphor.

HAPPINESS IS A NATURAL FORCE

She was overwhelmed with joy.
We were carried away with happiness.
He was swept off his feet.
I was bowled over.
They were transported.

We can now lay out the mappings for each of the metaphors for happiness in the
following way:

Metaphor Mappings
 Aspects of Source Aspects of Target
BEING HAPPY IS BEING the goodness of being the goodness of
OFF THE GROUND “up” happiness
BEING HAPPY IS BEING IN
HEAVEN
HAPPY IS UP
HAPPINESS IS LIGHT the goodness of being the goodness of
“light” happiness
the energy of light the energy that
accompanies happiness
HAPPINESS IS VITALITY the energy of vitality the energy that
accompanies happiness
HAPPINESS IS A FLUID IN the quantity of the fluid the intensity of
A CONTAINER happiness
trying to keeping the trying to control
fluid inside happiness
the inability to control a the inability to control
large quantity of the intense happiness
fluid
HAPPINESS IS A CAPTIVE the inability to hold the the inability to control
ANIMAL animal back happiness
HAPPINESS IS AN the inability to the inability to control
OPPONENT withstand the attack of happiness
an opponent
HAPPINESS IS A RAPTURE the physical pleasure of the emotional
rapture pleasantness of
happiness
the lack of control in a the lack of control in
state of rapture happiness
A HAPPY PERSON IS AN the satisfaction of the the harmony felt by the
ANIMAL (THAT LIVES animal happy person
WELL)
HAPPINESS IS A the pleasurable physical the harmony felt by the
PLEASURABLE PHYSICAL sensation happy person
SENSATION
HAPPINESS IS INSANITY the mental lack of the emotional lack of
control over insanity control over happiness
HAPPINESS IS A NATURAL the inability to resist the the inability to control
 FORCE force happiness
the physical the emotional passivity
helplessness

The highlighted elements in the target domain converge on a certain stereotypical

concept of happiness. Given these mappings, we can characterize a good portion of
the everyday concept of happiness as follows:

 You are satisfied. (from AN ANIMAL THAT LIVES WELL)

 You feel energized. (from VITALITY)
 You experience your state as a pleasurable one. (from PLEASURABLE
PHYSICAL SENSATION, RAPTURE)
 You feel that you are in harmony with the world. (from AN ANIMAL THAT
LIVES WELL)
 You can’t help what you feel; you are passive in relation to your feelings.
(from NATURAL FORCE)
 The intensity of your experiences is high. (from A FLUID IN A CONTAINER)
 Beyond a certain limit, an increase in intensity implies a danger that you will
become dysfunctional, that is, will lose control. (from A FLUID IN A
CONTAINER, A CAPTIVE ANIMAL, AN OPPONENT, NATURAL FORCE)
 It is not entirely acceptable to give free expression to what you feel (i.e., to
become dysfunctional). (from A FLUID IN A CONTAINER, A CAPTIVE ANIMAL,
AN OPPONENT)
 You try to keep the emotion under control. (from A FLUID IN A CONTAINER)
 You nevertheless lose control. (from A CAPTIVE ANIMAL, AN OPPONENT, A
NATURAL FORCE) As a result, there is a lack of control over behavior. (from
INSANITY)

This description results from the metaphorical mappings in the conceptual

metaphors we have seen. It constitutes a large portion of the concept of happiness.
This is what we mean by conceptualizing an aspect of experience, or
understanding a concept, jointly by several metaphorical source domains.
However, the characterization of the concept of happiness as given above is
incomplete. Thus it is not claimed that the entire concept is metaphorically
structured. Certain further aspects of it are structured by other than metaphorical
means, including metonymy and literal concepts.
A more complete description of happiness would look like this:
Stage 1: Cause of happiness
You want to achieve something.
You achieve it.
There is an immediate emotional response to this.

Stage 2: Existence of happiness

You are satisfied.
You display a variety of expressive and behavioral responses including
brightness of the eyes, smiling, laughing, jumping up and down, and,
often, even crying.
You feel energized.
You also experience physiological responses, including warmth, agitation,
and excitement.
The context for the state you are in is often a social one involving
celebrations.
You have a positive outlook on the world.
You feel a need to communicate your feelings to others.
The feeling may “spread” to others.
You experience your state as a pleasurable one.
You feel that you are in harmony with the world.
You can’t help what you feel; you are passive in relation to your feelings.
The intensity of your experiences is high.
Beyond a certain limit, an increase in intensity implies a danger that you will
become dysfunctional, that is, will lose control.
It is not entirely acceptable to give free expression to what you feel (i.e., to
become dysfunctional).

Stage 3: Attempt at control

Because it is not entirely acceptable to communicate and/or give free
expression to what you feel, you try to keep the emotion under
control: You attempt not to engage in the behavior responses and/or
not to display the expressive reactions and/or not to communicate
what you feel.

Stage 4: Loss of control

You nevertheless lose control. As a result, there is a lack of control over
behavior.

Stage 5: Action
 You engage in the behavioral responses and/or display expressive reactions
and/or communicate what you feel. You may, in addition, exhibit
unusually active behavior (often in the form of dancing, singing, and
energetic behavior with a lot of movement).

As can be seen, part of the content of the concept HAPPINESS is not metaphorical
(but literal and metonymic). However, without the extensive metaphorical
contribution to this content, the concept could not be adequately described and
characterized.

The prototypical case of happiness as represented above is most often captured with
the word joy. However, this is not the only prototype of happiness based on English
usage. There is also a dispositonal prototype, usually given by the word glad. A third
one is what we can call “existential happiness,” which is expressed by the word
happiness. (On these and the distinctions among them, see Kovecses, 1991a.)
Furthermore, many nonprototypical cases can be defined relative to these prototypes.
One of them is what is commonly referred to as euphoria. This can be defined as a
modification of the joy-prototype in that it is not an event-like scenario as the joy-
prototype but a state. However, the state of euphoria is characterized by
physiological, expressive, and behavioral reactions that are similar to but even more
intense than those characterizing the joy-prototype.

LOVE

Metaphors of love have been studied by Kovecses in his The Language of Love
(1988), in which he also drew on Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) work. The conceptual
metaphors for love that make themselves manifest in the use of everyday language
are the following:

LOVE IS A NUTRIENT: I am starved for love.

LOVE IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: She was overflowing with love.
LOVE IS FIRE: I am burning with love.
LOVE IS AN ECONOMIC EXCHANGE: I’m putting more into this than you are.
LOVE IS A NATURAL FORCE: I was overwhelmed by love. She swept me off my
feet.
LOVE IS AN OPPONENT: She tried to fight her feelings of love.
LOVE IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL: She let go of her feelings.
LOVE IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: She is completely ruled by love.
 LOVE IS RAPTURE / A HIGH: I have been high on love for weeks. Love made him
drunk.
LOVE IS A DISEASE / AN ILLNESS: I am heart-sick
LOVE IS MAGIC: He was enchanted
LOVE IS A JOURNEY: It's been a long, bumpy road.
THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS APPETIZING FOOD: Hi, sweetie-pie.
LOVE IS A UNITY (OF COMPLEMENTARY PARTS): We're as one. They’re breaking
up. We’re inseparable. We fused together.
LOVE IS CLOSENESS: They're very close.
LOVE IS A BOND: There is a close tie between them
LOVE IS A PHYSICAL FORCE: I was magnetically drawn to her
LOVE IS INSANITY: I am crazy about you
THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS A DEITY: Don’t put her on a pedestal. He worships her.
THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS A VALUABLE OBJECT: You’re my treasure!
LOVE IS WAR: She conquered him.
LOVE IS SPORT/A GAME: He made a play for her.
LOVE IS A HIDDEN OBJECT: I eventually found love.
THE OBJECT OF LOVE IS A SMALL CHILD: Well, baby, what are we gonna do?

As can be readily seen, the concept of love is perhaps the most highly
“metaphorized” emotion concept. The central idea, and hence the central metaphor,
in the love system is the notion of UNITY, at least judged by the number of various
metaphorical entailments of and lexical elaborations on such source domains as
UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS, BOND, and CLOSENESS. Although the notion
of UNITY may be a slightly outdated idea in romantic love today, in a set of
interviews conducted by Ted Sablay in 1996 a group of American college students
did come up with the UNITY metaphor in their conceptualization of romantic love
(see Kovecses, 2000).
These love metaphors can be factored into two types: those that primarily
characterize love-as-an-emotion (NUTRIENT, FLUID IN A CONTAINER, FIRE, OPPONENT,
NATURAL FORCE, PHYSICAL FORCE, etc.) and those that primarily characterize love-as-
a-personal relationship (JOURNEY, UNITY, ECONOMIC EXCHANGE, WAR, etc.). Some of
these metaphors in both groups characterize both the love emotion and the love
relationship. They include PHYSICAL FORCE, UNITY, ECONOMIC EXCHANGE, and WAR.
The basis of the distinction between the two types is whether the metaphorical
interaction as captured by a source domain takes place internally, between the self
and the love emotion (love as an emotion), or externally, between two people who
love each other (love as a relationship). Thus, in the OPPONENT metaphor one can
fight off feelings of love, whereas in the JOURNEY metaphor the two lovers can be
said to have gone far in their relationship.
Many conceptual metaphors of love are (cognitively) motivated by a number
of physiological, expressive, and behavioral responses that are commonly and
conventionally associated with romantic love. Here is a list of these:

INCREASE IN BODY HEAT STANDS FOR LOVE: I felt hot all over when I saw her.
INCREASE IN HEART RATE STANDS FOR LOVE: He’s a heart-throb.
BLUSHING STANDS FOR LOVE: She blushed when she saw him.
DIZZINESS STANDS FOR LOVE: She’s in a daze over him. I feel dizzy every time
I see her.
PHYSICAL WEAKNESS STANDS FOR LOVE: She makes me weak in the knees.
SWEATY PALMS STAND FOR LOVE: His palms became sweaty when he looked
at her.
INABILITY TO BREATHE STANDS FOR LOVE: You take my breath away.
INTERFERENCE WITH ACCURATE PERCEPTION STANDS FOR LOVE: He saw
nothing but her.
INABILITY TO THINK STANDS FOR LOVE: He can’t think straight when around
her.
PREOCCUPATION WITH ANOTHER STANDS FOR LOVE: He spent hours mooning
over her.
PHYSICAL CLOSENESS STANDS FOR LOVE: They are always together.
INTIMATE SEXUAL BEHAVIOR STANDS FOR LOVE: She showered him with
kisses. He caressed her gently.
SEX STANDS FOR LOVE: They made love.
LOVING VISUAL BEHAVIOR STANDS FOR LOVE: He can’t take his eyes off of
her. She’s starry-eyed.
JOYFUL (VISUAL) BEHAVIOR STANDS FOR LOVE: Her eyes light up when she
sees him. He smiled at her and the world stood still.

The conceptual metonymies provide the experiential basis for several conceptual
metaphors. For example, INCREASE IN BODY HEAT and BLUSHING motivate the
existence of the FIRE metaphor and PHYSICAL CLOSENESS, INTIMATE SEXUAL
BEHAVIOR, and PREOCCUPATION WITH ANOTHER partially motivate the existence of
the UNITY, CLOSENESS, and BOND metaphors.

Two cultural models of love

There are two prototypical cultural models of love based on what is reflected in
everyday English metaphors, metonymies, and “related concepts.” (Related
concepts will be discussed below.) The “ideal model” portrays love as the unity of
two complementary parts, behavioral reactions, and a state of lack of control. This
seems to be the model that the individual desires. The “typical model,” on the other
hand, represents society’s expectations for the individual. Whereas the individual
appears to want complete lack of control, the society wants him or her to behave in
a socially responsible manner. Here’s the ideal model based on Kovecses (1988
and 1991b): (We indicate the source domain from which a particular part of the
cultural model derives in parentheses.)

Stage 1:
True love comes along. (PERSON, MOVEMENT HERE)
The other attracts me irresistibly. (PHYSICAL FORCE)
The attraction reaches the limit point on the intensity scale at once.
(PHYSICAL FORCE)

Stage 2:
The intensity of the attraction goes beyond the limit point. ( PHYSICAL FORCE)

Stage 3:
I am in a state of lack of control. (INSANITY)
Love’s intensity is maximal. (FIRE)
I feel that my love gives me extra energy. (PHYSICAL FORCE, NUTRIENT)
I view myself and the other as forming a unity. (UNITY)
I experience the relationship as a state of perfect harmony. (UNITY)
I see love as something that guarantees the stability of the relationship.
(UNITY, BOND)
I believe that love is a need, that this love is my true love, that the object of
love is irreplaceable, and that love lasts forever. (UNITY)
Love is mutual. (ECONOMIC EXHANGE)
I experience certain physiological effects: increase in body heat, increase in
heart rate, blushing, and interference with accurate perception.
(metonymies)
I exhibit certain behavioral reactions: physical closeness, intimate sexual
behavior, sex, loving visual behavior. (metonymies)
I experience love as something pleasant. (RAPTURE, MAGIC)
I define my attitude toward the object of love through a number of emotions
and emotional attitudes: liking, sexual desire, respect, devotion, self-
 sacrifice, enthusiasm, admiration, kindness, affection, care,
attachment, intimacy, pride, longing, friendship, and interest. (related
concepts identified partly through metaphors for the object of love)
I am happy. (follows literally from the state of love)

Related concepts are those that, in addition to the basic relationship of love, define
the emotions and emotional attitudes of the subject of love to the object of love.
They are part of the model to varying degrees. Clearly, affection, liking, intimacy,
sexual desire, etc. are inherent (or almost inherent) elements of romantic love,
whereas, say, respect is not so closely tied to the concept. In other words, there is a
gradient of strength with which related concepts form a part of romantic love.
As can be seen, a large portion of the model is constituted by the UNITY
metaphor and its metaphorical entailments. The entailments include that if two
complementary parts come together, this will be experienced as a state of perfect
harmony; if a part can be complemented only by a single other part, then this part
will be regarded as irreplaceable and the other as “true love”; if I view myself as a
half and thus not quite functional, then love will be seen as a need; and if love is
all of these things as defined by the UNITY metaphor, the then lovers will have the
desire that it last forever. The UNITY metaphor is also important in the other
prototypical model, but several additional features that are equally important enter
the picture. Here’s the typical model:

Stage 1:
I search for true love.
I find my love.
The other attracts me irresistibly.
The attraction soon reaches the limit on the intensity scale.

Stage 2:
I try to keep control of my emotions; that is, I make an effort to prevent
love’s intensity from going beyond the limit.

Stage 3:
The effort is unsuccessful; I lose control over love; love’s intensity goes
beyond the limit.

Stage 4:
I am in a state of lack of control.
Love’s intensity is maximal.
 I feel that my love gives me extra energy.
I view myself and the other as forming a unity.
I experience the relationship as a state of perfect harmony. (UNITY)
I see love as something that guarantees the stability of the relationship.
(UNITY, BOND)
I believe that love is a need, that this love is my true love, that the object of
love is irreplaceable, and that love lasts forever. (UNITY)
Love is mutual, but not necessarily so. (ECONOMIC EXHANGE)
I experience certain physiological effects: increase in body heat, increase in
heart rate, blushing, and interference with accurate perception.
(metonymies)
I exhibit certain behavioral reactions: physical closeness, intimate sexual
behavior, sex, loving visual behavior. (metonymies)
I experience love as something pleasant. (RAPTURE, MAGIC)
I define my attitude toward the object of love through a number of emotions
and emotional attitudes: liking, sexual desire, respect, devotion, self-
sacrifice, enthusiasm, admiration, kindness, affection, care,
attachment, intimacy, pride, longing, jealousy, faithfulness,
friendship, and interest. (related concepts identified partly through
metaphors for the object of love)
I am happy.

Stage 5:
Love is fulfilled in marriage.
Love’s intensity decreases; it goes below the limit; love turns into affection.

There are several differences between the ideal and the typical models. (1) There is
a great deal more temporal structure to the typical model than to the ideal one that
is mostly a static state. (2) The typical model replaces passive waiting for love with
active searching for and controlling love. (3) The typical model culminates in
marriage. (4) While in the ideal model there is the desire that love last forever,
according to the typical model wild romantic love turns into peaceful affection in a
natural way. (5) The typical model recognizes the possibility that related concepts
such as jealousy and faithfulness also play a role in the relationship.
Do people actually use either models to interpret their experiences? In one
study, Averill and Boothroyd (1977) investigated the psychological validity of a
model of romantic love that closely resembles the two models above. Subjects
were asked to read a love story that was taken to be a good illustration of romantic
love (it combined many aspects of the ideal and typical models as outlined here).
Next, they rated on 10-point scale how closely their most intense love relationships
matched the conception of romantic love represented by the story. The results
showed that 40% of the subjects confirmed the conception, and 40% did not. These
results suggest that the language-based prototypical cultural models have some
psychological validity in a particular culture.

ANGER

Anger is perhaps the most studied emotion concept from a cognitive semantic point
of view. Kovecses and Lakoff (Kövecses, 1986; Lakoff, 1987; and Lakoff and
Kövecses, 1987) found a number of metaphorical source domains that characterize
anger. Some further ones can be added to the source domains as identified by
Koveceses and Lakoff, such as AN ANGRY PERSON IS A FUNCTIONING MACHINE and
ANGER IS A SUPERIOR. Below is a list of the main metaphorical source domains for the
concept in English, with a linguistic example illustrating each conceptual metaphor
(consisting of a target and a source domain):

ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER: She is boiling with anger.

ANGER IS FIRE: He’s doing a slow burn. His anger is smoldering.
ANGER IS INSANITY: The man was insane with rage.
ANGER IS AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE: I was struggling with my anger.
ANGER IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL: He unleashed his anger.
ANGER IS A BURDEN: He carries his anger around with him.
ANGER IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: His actions were completely governed by anger
ANGER DIVIDES THE SELF: He was beside himself with anger.
ANGER IS SICKNESS: He was sick with anger.
ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR: Don't snarl at me!
THE CAUSE OF ANGER IS TRESPASSING: Here I draw the line.
THE CAUSE OF ANGER IS PHYSICAL ANNOYANCE: He's a pain in the neck.
ANGER IS A NATURAL FORCE: It was a stormy meeting.
AN ANGRY PERSON IS A FUNCTIONING MACHINE: That really got him going.
.
These metaphorical source domains address various aspects of the concept of anger.
For example, the FUNCTIONING MACHINE metaphor focuses on the angry person,
PHYSICAL ANNOYANCE and TRESPASSING on the cause of anger, AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL
BEHAVIOR on the angry behavior, OPPONENT on the aspect of control, etc. Now the
conceptual metaphor that seems to be the central one for anger is the ANGER IS A HOT
FLUID IN A CONTAINER. Its centrality derives from two sources: One is that the
container metaphor captures many different aspects of the concept of anger. The
other is that it is highly elaborated both in terms of its metaphorical entailments and
its conventionalized vocabulary.
In line with the theory of cognitive linguistics, the conceptual metaphors are
motivated by “correlations in experience”. Thus, in anger certain physiological
effects of anger motivate the particular metaphorical conceptualizations. These
correlations often take the form of metonymies. Thus, the HEAT metaphors have their
experiential basis in INCREASE IN BODY HEAT. The “tension” component of anger that
is found in the CONTAINER metaphor is motivated by INTERNAL PRESSURE (either
blood pressure or muscular pressure). Heat and pressure can be seen jointly in the
metonymy REDNESS IN FACE AND NECK AREA. “Emotional (internal) agitation” that is
part of the CONTAINER metaphor and “external agitation” that is part of the INSANITY
metaphor are motivated by INSANE BEHAVIOR. Thus, we have the following
metonymies for anger:

BODY HEAT FOR ANGER: Don’t get hot under the collar. It was a heated
argument. He is a hothead.
INTERNAL PRESSURE FOR ANGER: Don’t get a hernia! When I found out, I
almost burst a blood vessel.
REDNESS IN FACE AND NECK AREA FOR ANGER: He got red with anger. He
slowly turned livid with rage.
AGITATION FOR ANGER: I was hopping mad. She was shaking with anger. He’s
all worked up.
INTERFERENCE WITH ACCURATE PERCEPTION FOR ANGER: I was beginning to see
red. I was so mad I couldn’t see straight.
INSANE BEHAVIOR FOR ANGER: He’s fit to be tied. She’s about to throw a
tantrum.

In other words, these conceptual metonymies make the emergence and entrenched
use of many of the conceptual metaphors motivated and natural.
Each conceptual metaphor is associated with a “main meaning focus” or
several “main meaning foci” (see Kovecses, 2002). These are the main aspects of a
concept that a conceptual metaphor highlights. For example, the CONTAINER
metaphor addresses a variety of issues for anger: intensity, control, loss of control,
and danger of loss of control. Below we give the main meaning foci of each
conceptual metaphor for anger:

ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER: intensity, control, loss of control, lack

of control, danger of loss of control
 ANGER IS FIRE: intensity, danger of high intensity
ANGER IS INSANITY: lack of control
ANGER IS AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE: control, loss of control
ANGER IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL: control, loss of control
ANGER IS A BURDEN: difficulty that anger presents, responsibility of handling
anger
ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR: angry behavior
THE CAUSE OF ANGER IS TRESPASSING: cause of anger
THE CAUSE OF ANGER IS PHYSICAL ANNOYANCE: cause of anger
ANGER IS A NATURAL FORCE: intensity, passivity in relation to anger, loss of
control
AN ANGRY PERSON IS A FUNCTIONING MACHINE: the coming into being and
existence of anger
ANGER IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: the influence of anger on the angry person

The metaphors and metonymies converge on a cognitive model of anger. Given the
mappings, the metaphorical entailments, and the main meaning foci of the
metaphors, a certain cognitive (folk) model of anger emerges from the
conventionalized expressions. Not all the details of the model below can be readily
seen or derived from the metaphors and metonymies that we listed above. Where the
metaphorical mappings from the source to the target of anger are not obvious or
clear, the reader is recommended to consult other publications for the details
supporting the existence of the model (see Kovecses, 1986, 1990, Lakoff, 1987,
Lakoff and Kovecses, 1987).
The model below has a temporal dimension, and can be conceived of as a
scenario with a number of stages. We call this the “prototype scenario.” We will be
referring to the person who gets angry as S, short for the self.

Stage 1: Offending event

There is an offending event that displeases S. There is a wrongdoer who
intentionally does something directly to S. The wrongdoer is at fault and S is
innocent. The offending event constitutes an injustice and produces anger in
S. The scales of justice can only be balanced by some act of retribution. That
is, the intensity of retribution must be roughly equal to the intensity of the
offense. S has the responsibility to perform such an act of retribution.

Stage 2: Anger
Associated with the entity (substance) anger is a scale that measures its
intensity. As the intensity of anger increases, S experiences physiological
 effects; increase in body heat, internal pressure, and physical agitation. As the
anger gets very intense, it exerts force upon S to perform an act of retribution.
Because acts of retribution are dangerous and/or socially unacceptable, S has
the responsibility to control his anger. Moreover, loss of control is damaging
to S’s well-being, which is another motivation for controlling anger.

Stage 3: Attempt at control

S attempts to control his anger.

Stage 4: Loss of control

Each person has a certain tolerance for controlling anger. That tolerance can
be viewed as the limit point on the anger scale. When the intensity of anger
goes beyond that limit, S can no longer control his anger. S exhibits angry
behavior and his anger forces him to attempt an act of retribution. Since S is
out of control and acting under coercion, he is not responsible for his action.

Stage 5: Act of retribution

S performs an act of retribution. The wrongdoer is the target of the act. The
intensity of retribution roughly equals the intensity of the offense and the
scales are balanced again. The intensity of anger drops to zero. Anger ceases
to exist.

Given this model, we can see how the various conceptual metaphors and
metonymies we have briefly discussed all map onto a part of the prototypical
scenario, and how they jointly converge on that scenario. This enables us to show
exactly how the various metaphors and metonymies are related to each other, and
how they function together to help characterize a single concept—anger. This
characterization of anger demonstrates how in the cognitive linguistic view
conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and a prototypical scenario can
jointly define a(n emotion) concept.
However, this is not the only model of anger that can be recovered from the
conventionalized linguistic expressions describing anger in English. But, as we will
shortly see, all of these other models can be characterized as minimal variants on the
prototypical model. Not all the possible non-prototypical models or cases are given
below. There are many others, which can be found in the publications mentioned
above.
The course of anger depicted in the prototype scenario is by no means the only
course anger can take. In claiming that the scenario is prototypical, we are claiming
that according to our cultural theory of anger, this is the normal course for anger to
take. Deviations of many kinds are both recognized as existing or recognized as
being noteworthy and not the norm. Let us consider some such deviations from the
prototype.

 One case is someone who “turns the other cheek,” that is, someone who
does not get angry or seek retribution. In this culture, such a person is
considered virtually saintly.
 Someone who has no difficulty controlling his anger is especially
praiseworthy.
 A “hothead” is someone who considers more events offensive than
most people, who has a lower threshold for anger than the norm, who
cannot control his anger, and whose acts of retribution are considered
out of proportion to the offense. Someone who is extremely hotheaded
is considered emotionally “unbalanced.”
 The case of “Don’t get mad, get even!” In English, it is common for
responsibilities to be metaphorically understood as burdens. There are
two kinds of responsibilities involved in the cultural model of anger.
The first is the responsibility to control one’s anger. In cases of extreme
anger, this may place a considerable burden on one’s “inner resources.”
The second comes from the model of retributive justice that is built into
the concept of anger; it is the responsibility to seek vengeance. What is
particularly interesting is that these two responsibilities are in conflict
in the case of angry retribution: If you take out your anger on someone,
you are not meeting your responsibility to control your anger, and if
you do not take out your anger on someone, you are not meeting your
responsibility to provide retribution. The slogan “Don’t get mad, get
even!” offers one way out: retribution without anger. The human
potential movement provides another way out by suggesting that letting
your anger out is okay. But the fact is that neither of these solutions is
the cultural norm.

These different kinds or cases of anger assume the prototypical cognitive model of
anger; they can all be defined in relation to it. As mentioned above, there are many
other “deviations” from the prototype. A person who acts in the manner described in
the prototypical scenario would not be considered “abnormal” at all, whereas people
who act in a way that deviates from the model that defines cultural expectations can
often be regarded as somehow not quite socially acceptable.
FEAR

The metaphors for the concept of fear were described by Kövecses (1990). They
include the following conceptual metaphors:

FEAR IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: The sight filled her with fear.

FEAR IS A HIDDEN ENEMY: Fear slowly crept up on him. He was hounded by the
fear that the business would fail. The thought continued to prey on her
mind.
FEAR IS A TORMENTOR: My mother was tormented by fear.
FEAR IS A SUPERNATURAL BEING: He was haunted by fear.
FEAR IS AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE: Fear took hold of me.
FEAR IS A BURDEN: Fear weighed heavily on them.
FEAR IS A NATURAL FORCE: She was engulfed by panic.
FEAR IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: His actions were dictated by fear
THE SUBJECT OF FEAR IS A DIVIDED SELF: I was beside myself with fear.
FEAR IS AN ILLNESS: Jill was sick with fright.
FEAR IS INSANITY: Jack was insane with fear.

Fear appears to be characterized by both very general emotion metaphors, such as

FLUID IN A CONTAINER, OPPONENT, BURDEN and very specific metaphors. The group of
specific metaphors includes HIDDEN ENEMY, TORMENTOR, and SUPERNATURAL BEING.
How can we account for the fact that, unlike the general metaphors, these source
domains apply only to fear? We suggest that the fear-specificity of these metaphors
derives from the assumed typical causes of fear. Using Jungian terminology, we
could say that (the concept of) fear, at least in part, results from “archetypal” causes,
such as fear from a hidden enemy, tormentor, or supernatural being. We argue that
the emotion is first understood metonymically, and then, based on that metonymic
understanding, the concept of fear is comprehended in terms of metaphors. The
suggestion is that there is a causal metonymic relationship between the (archetypal)
causes of fear and fear itself. This causal relationship between cause and effect is in
turn reinterpreted in such a way that the effect (fear) is metaphorically understood in
terms of the cause (hidden enemy, tormentor, supernatural being). This gives us
some of the metaphorical structure of the concept of fear through such conceptual
metaphors as FEAR IS A HIDDEN ENEMY, FEAR IS A TORMENTOR, and FEAR IS A
SUPERNATURAL BEING.
By the concept of the DIVIDED SELF, I mean a source domain in which there is
a canonical person (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). The canonical person consists of a
self and a body, and they are related in such a way that the body contains the self.
The DIVIDED SELF as a metaphorical source domain suggests that the self that is
normally inside the body-container moves outside it. This happens when the person
loses control, in the present case, over his or her emotions (e.g., fear).
The FLUID IN A CONTAINER metaphor is not a central way of understanding fear
in English, as it was in the case of anger. One interesting characteristic of the
concept is that it is constituted by a large number of conceptual metonymies, such as
DROP IN BODY TEMPERATURE, PHYSICAL AGITATION, INCREASE IN HEARTBEAT, and
many others. The physiological, behavioral, and expressive aspects of the concept
are richly elaborated in language.

DROP IN BODY TEMPERATURE FOR FEAR: He got cold feet. His face was enough
to make my blood run cold.. I was chilled to the bone.
PHYSICAL AGITATION FOR FEAR: I was trembling like a leaf. Snakes give me the
shivers. He was shaking with fear.
INCREASE IN HEARTBEAT FOR FEAR: His heart pounded with fear. She gave her
speech with her heart in her mouth.
BLOOD LEAVING FACE FOR FEAR: She turned pale. His face was as white as a
sheet.
SKIN SHRINKING FOR FEAR: That man gives me the creeps. The sound made my
flesh creep.
HAIR STRAIGHTENING OUT FOR FEAR: The story made my hair stand on end.
That was a hair-raising experience.
INABILITY TO MOVE FOR FEAR: I was rooted to the spot. She was scared stiff. He
was paralyzed by fear. He has rubber legs.
INABILITY TO BREATHE FOR FEAR: She was breathless with fear.
INABILITY TO SPEAK FOR FEAR: I was speechless with fear. He was struck
dumb.
INABILITY TO THINK FOR FEAR: My mind went blank with fear. You scared me
out of my wits.
(INVOLUNTARY) RELEASE OF BOWELS or BLADDER FOR FEAR: You scared the
shit out of me. Don’t be a chicken shit. My mother was shitting bricks
waiting for me to come home. Don’t pee in your pants just because you
see a snake.
SWEATING FOR FEAR: Her palms were damp as she entered the boss’s office.
NERVOUSNESS IN THE STOMACH FOR FEAR: He got butterflies in the stomach.
DRYNESS IN THE MOUTH FOR FEAR: My mouth was dry when it was my turn.
SCREAMING FOR FEAR: She was screaming with fear.
WAYS OF LOOKING FOR FEAR: There was fear in her eyes.
 STARTLE FOR FEAR: That noise nearly made me jump out of my skin! The
touch on the shoulder made him start.
FLIGHT FOR FEAR: When he heard the police coming, the thief took to his heels.
The army sent the enemy scuttling. He fled from persecution.

A relatively complete understanding of fear is impossible without taking these

metonymies into account. However, the metonymies by themselves do not constitute
a sufficiently rich conceptual structure for the concept. That is primarily provided by
the metaphors, no matter how bland and unspecific most of them are.
The prototypical folk model that arises from these metaphoric and metonymic
expressions and the conceptual metaphors and metonymies underlying them can be
given as follows:

Stage 1: Danger
There is a dangerous situation.
It involves physical or mental pain.
S is aware of the danger.
The danger produces fear in S.

Stage 2: Fear exists

S is passive in relation to the experience of fear.
Fear exists as a mass entity (substance) inside S.
S experiences certain physiological effects: increase in heart rate, physical
agitation, dryness in the mouth, sweating, nervousness in the stomach, blood
leaves face, (and to a smaller degree: skin shrinks, drop in body temperature,
[involuntary] release of bowels or bladder).
S exhibits certain behavioral reactions: ways of looking, (inability to breathe,
inability to speak).
The feeling is unpleasant.
The feeling dominates S’s behavior.

Stage 3: Attempt at control

S attempts to control his fear: S makes an effort not to display fear and/or not
to flee.

Stage 4: Loss of control

S loses control over fear.

Stage 5: Flight
 S flees from the danger.
S is safe and feels relieved.
Fear ceases to exist.

It is easy to see what the metonymies contribute to the concept of fear. At this point
we can also see what the metaphors contribute to it: a more precise formulation of
the properties of danger in some prototypical cases; a clearer understanding of the
nature (i.e., the ontology) of fear; the highlighting of some additional characteristics
of fear such as our passive relation to its inception and existence; the introduction of
the aspect of control into the model; and the specification of what it involves that the
danger is over.

It could be argued, however, that the model presented above is not the only
prototype for fear. This, in a sense, is true. Perhaps for many people terror is just as
good of an example, or case, of fear as the fear we saw in the model described above.
As we noted, prototypicality may arise from a variety of sources: from the fact that a
member (or case or example) of a category is common, that it is salient, that it is
ideal, that it is stereotypical, etc. Perhaps the model outlined above can be viewed as
the stereotype of fear. Another prototypical form of fear may be the one that that is
very common. This would be “dispositional” fear, as exemplified by sentences such
as He is afraid of dogs. Some people may conceive of terror as the prototype of fear
due to the salience of this case of fear. On the whole, terror, as people commonly
think of it, seems to be characterized by more intense physiological and behavioral
reactions than the stereotype of fear described above. These more intense reactions
include HAIR STRAIGHTENS OUT, SCREAMING, DROP IN BODY TEMPERATURE, INABILITY
TO MOVE, INABILITY TO BREATHE, INABILITY TO SPEAK, and INABILITY TO THINK. These
features render terror more conspicuous than the stereotype, which is accompanied
by “only” such reactions as INCREASE IN HEART RATE, PHYSICAL AGITATION, and
SWEATING. This would then enable us to view terror as the prototype of fear, or,
alternatively, to have two, or even three, prototypes simultaneously: a stereotypical
model, a typical model (which is the commonest), and a salient one.
But intensity is not the only aspect in which terror and stereotypical fear
differ. In addition to the more intense manifestations of terror, the two also differ in
the aspect of control. Specifically, in terror the dangerous situation seems to lead
immediately to a lack of control, which is a state characterized by an inability to
move, think, and so forth. This observation is borne out by evidence in linguistic
usage. Consider the following sentences:

He was struggling with his fear.

 ?He was struggling with his terror.

He managed to control his fear.

?He managed to control his terror.

The sentences with the word terror in them sound less natural than the sentences
with the word fear. This would seem to indicate that we do not think of terror as
something that we try to control. Instead, we seem to think of it as a state of
complete lack of control, this state being constituted by the most salient
manifestations mentioned above. The direct change from a state of calm to a lack of
control in all probability contributes to our impression that terror appears to be more
conspicuous than the case of fear given in the stereotypical model.
There is a third difference as well. This has to do with the causes of fear. Of
the causes we have seen are associated with fear, the one that is perhaps most closely
associated with terror is a situation in which the self’s life is in immediate danger.
We are more likely to be terrified when a fierce tiger jumps in front of us than when
we are having a tooth pulled. And this has to do with salience as well. The former is
a more conspicuous form of danger than the latter.

LUST (SEXUAL DESIRE)

Below is a list of conceptual metaphors for lust, or sexual desire, illustrated by a

linguistic example:

LUST IS HUNGER: She's sex-starved.

LUST IS A VICIOUS ANIMAL: You bring out the beast in me.
LUST IS HEAT: I've got the hots for her.
LUST IS PRESSURE INSIDE A CONTAINER: Her whole body exploded in passion.
LUST IS INSANITY: You’re driving me insane.
A LUSTFUL PERSON IS A FUNCTIONING MACHINE: She turned me on.
LUST IS A GAME: I couldn't get to first base with her.
LUST IS WAR: She was his latest conquest.
LUST IS A PHYSICAL FORCE: She knocked me off my feet.
LUST IS A NATURAL FORCE: There were waves of passion.
LUST IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: He’s completely ruled by lust.

Do people actually use these conceptual and linguistic metaphors? Do people really
talk about sex in this way? One of my students, Szilvia Csabi, did a study of this
issue, using materials collected by Tina Gummo in Las Vegas. Gummo and Csabi
read several romance novels and collected over 400 metaphoric and metonymic
linguistic examples based on these novels (see Csabi, 1999). The table below
summarizes the findings. First the source domains are given, then the approximate
number of linguistic examples found for the source concept, and finally some
linguistic examples. Only those conceptual metaphors and metonymies are presented
that manifested themselves in at least five linguistic examples in the corpus.

METAPHORS No Linguistic examples:

: of
ex’s:

FIRE/HEAT 65 She yielded to his fiery passion. She felt that her very
being would demolish in the heat. He kindled her body
into savage excitement.
HUNGER/EATIN 50 He prepared to satisfy their sexual hunger. He fell to her
G like a starved man might fall to food. Her appetites were
hot and uninhibited.
ANIMAL 25 She was a tigress. He moved with animal ferocity. He
BEHAVIOR / hadn’t been able to hold back.
WILDNESS
WAR 21 She lost the battle. He took her mouth in a preliminary
conquest.
INSANITY 20 She had turned him into a raving maniac. He enticed
them both in the direction of madness.
NATURAL 19 She felt the flood. He was drowning in his own desire.
FORCE
RAPTURE 18 He gave her a drugging kiss. His presence made her
dizzy with pleasure.
OPPONENT 17 He struggled against his lust. Her body joined forces
with his, demolishing her control.
PAIN / 16 He devoured her lips with the insatiable hunger that had
TORMENTOR been torturing him. His touch tormented her.
CONTAINER 15 She depleted him, exhausted every secret reserve of
passion. Her passion exploded.
UNITY / BOND 12 Their bodies collided and merged into one fiery entity.
They united in the end.
POSSESSED 10 She wanted him to let him have her. He possessed her
 OBJECT body. She took him.
PHYSICAL 10 The brush of his fingers sent amazing jolts of electricity
FORCE shooting up her leg. There was no denying the power of
his sexual magnetism.
GAME / PLAY 9 “I’m not playing your games,” she said. He played with
her body.
MAGICIAN 7 Their lovemaking had been magic. She broke the spell
he weaved around her.
TRICKSTER 5 She wanted to lure him into her bed. She bewitches men.
SOCIAL 5 He was an overpoweringly male. She was driven by lust.
SUPERIOR

METONYMIE
S:
BODY HEAT 25 His masculinity made her body go hot. He went hot all
over just to think about it.
PHYSICAL 17 A hot shiver went through her. His body shook from the
AGITATION fever.
INTERFERENCE 6 She lost her ability to think. He was rendered senseless
WITH by his uncontrollable, fiery desire for her.
ACCURATE
PERCEPTION

A remarkable feature of the above metaphors for lust is, as the table tells us, that all
of them can be found in the conceptualization of one or several other emotions. FIRE,
INSANITY, NATURAL FORCE, OPPONENT, SOCIAL SUPERIOR are general source domains
that occur with many intense emotional states. The emotion that appears to share the
most source domains with lust is love. This is not surprising in light of the close
connection between romantic love and sex in the Western world. Both love and sex
are viewed as UNITIY, WAR, GAME (PLAY), TRICKSTER, MAGICIAN, and the object of
both is viewed as a POSSESSED OBJECT. What is perhaps more surprising is the fact
that lust shares a metaphor with anger and rage as well; both angry and sexual
behaviors are viewed as AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR.
As the table also tells us, not all conceptual metaphors for lust are equally
common. The ones that seem to be most pervasive are (HEAT OF) FIRE, HUNGER
(EATING), ANIMAL BEHAVIOR, WAR, and INSANITY. Let us take a closer look at these.
First, here is the LUST IS (HEAT OF) FIRE metaphor with some additional
examples:
 LUST IS (HEAT OF) FIRE
He was on fire for her.
She was burning.
He inflamed her.
Sweet fire rushed through her.
Her ardor threw him off balance.
Heat suffused her.

The main meaning focus of FIRE as a source domain in general is intensity, but
other aspects of lust may also be highlighted, such as cause (inflame), the
pleasantness of lust (sweet fire), and the consequences of intense sexual desire
(heat suffused her).
Second, the LUST IS HUNGER (EATING) metaphor can also capture the intensity
of lust, but it is primarily dedicated to a different aspect of the concept: the
gratification of sexual desire, as well as the sexual act itself. Let us see some
examples again:

LUST IS HUNGER (EATING)

He devoured her lips with insatiable hunger.
He could not get enough of her.
He fell to her like a starved man might fall to food.
Her appetites were hot and inhibited.
He prepared to satisfy their sexual hunger.

According to this metaphor, the hunger of a person is the sexual desire, (eager)
eating is the sexual act, and the gratification of hunger is the gratification of lust.
The metaphor depicts a hungry person who gratifies his or her hunger by means of
eager eating. This corresponds to a lustful person who gratifies his or her sexual
desire by means of intense sexual activity.
In light of the prevalence of this metaphor and the many metaphorical
entailments it can give rise to, it is not surprising that psychologists and therapists
designed entire sexual therapies around it. One example of this can be found on the
Internet. The author of “Spicing up your sex life: A tasteful guide to ordinary
people” writes this:

Using a metaphor of food and cooking, couples can learn to communicate

about sex in ways that are clear, playful, and non-threatening. For example,
women usually want appetizers and men often are happy to start with the
entree. Within this conceptual framework, there is room to negotiate
 different tastes and appetites (http;//www.spicedupsex.com/home.html; p.
1).

Third, let us take the LUSTFUL BEHAVIOR IS WILD ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

metaphor. In the LUST IS HUNGER metaphor, eager eating in the source domain is
metaphorically expressed as devouring, that is, a form of animal behavior.
Similarly, the LUSTFUL BEHAVIOR IS WILD ANIMAL BEHAVIOR metaphor portrays the
sexual acts of both partners as animal behavior:

LUSTFUL BEHAVIOR IS (WILD) ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

He moved with animal ferocity.
She had been an animal.
She bucked like a wild animal.
She tossed and turned like a wild animal.
She was a tigress.
He mounted her.
He hadn’t been able to hold back.

The importance of this metaphor comes from what it leaves out of consideration in
sex; namely, human feelings toward the other. If we conceptualize sexual behavior
as wild animal behavior, we exclude human sex from the human realm and relegate
it to the realm of animal behavior.
Fourth, the sexual acts can also be conceptualized as acts of human
aggression, that is, as acts of war. This is the job of the LUST IS WAR metaphor:

LUST IS WAR
She was conquered.
They engaged in a methodical battle for hours.
Fierce, fevered battles w/raged between them.
She had no desire to be rescued from his embrace.

In this metaphor, the belligerents are the sexual partners and their battles
correspond to the sexual activity. The goal of the battle is victory over the enemy,
which corresponds to gaining dominance over the other in sexual behavior. The
metaphor makes the person who uses it see sex and sexual behavior as an issue of
dominance over the other.
So far we have seen that sexual activity can be metaphorically
conceptualized as eager eating, wild animal behavior, and fighting in a battle. Our
fifth metaphor, LUST IS INSANITY, portrays the sexual activity in yet another way.
 LUST IS INSANITY
He was insane for her.
She tried to hold on to her fleeing sanity.
She went wild beneath him.

According to this metaphor, intense sexual activity is metaphorically understood in

terms of insane behavior. Furthermore, if we are insane, we cannot and do not
control what we are doing. This yields the idea that certain forms of sexual
behavior are characterized by a complete lack of control. The uncontrolled nature
of insane behavior corresponds to a lack of control in sexual behavior.

The kinds of behaviors in eager eating, animal behavior, fighting in a battle, and
insane behavior all involve the notion of control. They highlight a major way of
understanding sexual activity, in which it is an activity that lacks control or in
which the goal is to make the other lose control.

SADNESS (DEPRESSION)

Metaphors for sadness were analyzed from a cognitive linguistic perspective by

Barcelona Sanchez (1986). He identified the following source domains, which we
present here with some modifications:

SADNESS IS AN OPPONENT: He was seized by a fit of depression.

SADNESS IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: She was ruled by sorrow.
SADNESS IS A LACK OF HEAT: Losing his father put his fire out; he’s been
depressed for two years.
SADNESS IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: I am filled with sorrow.
SADNESS IS A PHYSICAL FORCE: That was a terrible blow.
SADNESS IS A NATURAL FORCE: Waves of depression came over him.
SADNESS IS A LIVING ORGANISM: He drowned his sorrow in drink.
SADNESS IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL: His feelings of misery got out of hand.
SAD IS DOWN: He brought me down with his remarks.
SAD IS DARK: He is in a dark mood.
SADNESS IS A LACK OF VITALITY: This was disheartening news.
SADNESS IS AN ILLNESS: She was heart-sick. Time heals all sorrows.
SADNESS IS INSANITY: He was insane with grief.
. SADNESS IS A BURDEN: He staggered under the pain
In addition to some more specific metaphorical source domains, we find the usual
general ones. The specific source domains mostly have to do with negative
evaluation of the concept of sadness, and as such are the opposites of several of the
source domains for happiness.
Several of these conceptual metaphors have a clear experiential basis. In
particular the DOWN, DARK, LACK OF HEAT, and LACK OF VITALITY metaphors are
motivated by certain correlations in experience. People who are sad often exhibit a
slouching posture, drooping shoulders, corners of the mouth turning down, etc. This
correlation between the state of sadness and expressive and behavioral responses
motivates the metaphor SADNESS IS DOWN. In the case of the SAD IS DARK metaphor,
motivation is provided by the tendency of people who feel sad to prefer dark to light
places. In sadness, one’s level of vitality commonly goes down, the sad person
becoming inactive. This gives rise to the metaphorical connection according to
which SADNESS IS LACK OF VITALITY. Vitality produces an increase of body heat, but
when the level of vitality goes down in sadness, people commonly report a decrease
in felt body heat. This explains the naturalness of the SADNESS IS LACK OF HEAT
metaphor.
This kind of experiential basis leads to the emergence of conceptual
metaphors. Conversely, conceptual metaphors can be seen as giving rise to the
responses that people produce when sad. An 11-year-old child with occasional
episodes of depression reported that he prefers to be where it is cold and dark, as
opposed to where it is warm and light. Thus, the experiential basis of metaphor and
the behaviors produced by metaphor are two sides of the same coin.

Sadness and depression

The concept of sadness is a key concept in psychotherapy because of its “close

relative” in clinical and analytic practice—depression. Given these metaphors for
sadness, we can ask whether all them are equally common and important in
therapeutic discourse, or whether one or some them stand out in importance. This
issue was taken up by Linda McMullen and John Conway (2002). They studied
interviews with 21 patients who were previously diagnosed as having depression.
Based on their study, they found four main conceptual metaphors for depression:
DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS (It’s really like a black cloud), DEPRESSION IS WEIGHT (I felt
just so - so heavy), DEPRESSION IS CAPTOR (I want to break out of this), and
DEPRESSION IS DESCENT (I just was down). As we can see, three out of the four source
domains can be found among the metaphorical source domains identified by
Barcelona for sadness in English on the basis of ordinary language use; DEPRESSION
IS DARKNESS corresponds to SADNESS IS DARK, DEPRESSION IS WEIGHT to SADNESS IS A
BURDEN, and DEPRESSION IS DESCENT to SADNESS IS DOWN. We suspect that Barcelona
did not identify the CAPTOR metaphor because most “healthy” people do not
normally talk about being trapped by, wanting to be free of, or wanting to break out
of sadness, although these are ways of talking and thinking about depression in a
clinical context. The study by McMullan and Conway lends support to the claim that
most of the conceptual metaphors that are used in ordinary language also occur in
the language of therapeutic discourse, that is, at the individual level of metaphor use.
If this is the case, the efficiency of work by therapists could be increased
considerably if they were aware of conceptual metaphors uncovered by linguists in
nontherapeutic contexts.
But, to return to our original question, are all the metaphors equally significant
in this kind of discourse? McMullen and Conway’s study clearly shows that they are
not. They found that 90% of the metaphorical expressions related to depression were
instances of the conceptual metaphor DEPRESSION IS DESCENT. This was the metaphor
patients used most extensively to conceptualize their condition. Why should this be
the case? McMullen and Conway argue that this because the metaphorical appraisal
of depression as a place that is down resonates readily with certain themes in
Western cultures. While happiness is conceptualized as UP together with such
notions as power, high status, morality, rationality, health, etc. (see Lakoff and
Johnson, 1980), sadness and depression are viewed in opposition to these highly
valued states in an extremely negative light, together with lack of power, inferior
social position, being immoral and sick. Since depression is evaluated in this way,
the depressed person can easily be considered a “failure” in all these ways. While I
am in agreement with this argument, I wish to suggest that the “success” of the
metaphorical source domain of DESCENT, or DOWN, for depression is also due to
another factor; namely, that it enables depressed patients to make coherent a large
number of their experiences related to the illness. As McMullen and Conway
themselves note, the metaphor of DESCENT gives rise to a number of metaphorical
entailments. These include the ideas that once we start the slip (or fall) into the
downward place (that is, depression), it is not easy to stop the process; that while it is
easy to slip (or fall) into a downward place, it is very difficult to come back out of it;
that once we are in it, other things might “crumble on top of us,” too; that once we
are in it, we become “unreachable” to others, etc. These are the experiences that are
made coherent by a single metaphorical source domain, that of DESCENT, or DOWN.
Alternatively, and in the spirit of the founder of linguistic relativity, Benjamin Lee
Whorf (1956), it can also be suggested that the source domain creates the possibility
for these experiences. Be this as it may, my point here is that in addition to the ready
social acceptance of the metaphor the cognitive potential of the source domain is
such that it can organize (and can perhaps create) a number of experiences shared by
depressed patients, and this is what accounts in part for the heavy use of the
metaphor in therapeutic discourse.

PRIDE

The word pride is used to denote a wide variety of experiences, including justified
pride, self-esteem, conceit, vanity, etc. The question arises: Which case, or form, of
pride is the prototype of pride? When people think of pride, what kind of pride do
they typically have in mind? Obviously, pride is a concept that has undergone many
changes throughout the ages. For example, in the Bible it is usually associated with
haughtiness and arrogance. On the basis of linguistic evidence (see Kovecses,
1990), I suggest that when people use the word proud, they have something like the
following model in mind:

Stage 1:
S does X.
S is directly involved in X.
S values X on a social value scale; X’s value is high.
S perceives X as an achievement.

Stage 2:
S is proud of X.
The pride is intense (but not inappropriately so).
The pride scale is the same height as the value scale.
There is a sense of enhancement.
S experiences physiological effects: Redness of the face, increased heart rate.
S exhibits behavioral reactions: Erect posture, chest out, brightness of the
eyes, smiling, telling people about the achievement.
Inherent concepts: satisfaction, joy.

Most of the features of this cultural, or folk, model are not metaphorical but literal.
However, what is metaphorical is crucial in understanding pride. There are two such
features in the model. One has to do with the issue of value and the other with the
notion of enhancement.
Causes of pride involve actions, states, and properties, that is, various states of
affairs. When we think and talk about states of affairs as having a “value,” this is
couched in metaphor. States of affairs are not commodities, they don’t have values
literally. Conceptualizing various states of affairs as having a value is based on the
conceptual metaphor:

STATES OF AFFAIRS ARE COMMODITIES

That was a valuable victory.
His paper isn’t worth looking at.
He had to pay a high price for his dishonesty.
The value of his work is tremendous.
Give her something in return for her kindness.

Now when people think of their actions as having a value, they make use of this
metaphor. In pride there is a “value scale” for actions, states, etc. The scale is
oriented upwards and has a threshold associated with it. States of affairs that are
judged to be higher than the threshold are proper causes of pride. The idea of the
scale explains the expression justified pride. One’s pride is justified if the cause of
the pride is above the threshold on the value scale.
Now consider the sentence: “He’s more proud of it than he should be.” This
sentence implies not just one, but two scales. The two scales are a value scale and a
pride scale. The speaker of this sentence says that S has more pride (on the pride
scale) than is justified by X, the cause of pride (corresponding to the value scale).
The speaker says that X occupies a certain position above the threshold on the value
scale and S’s pride is at a point on the pride scale that is higher than the point that
would correspond to the height of the value scale. This is not the same case as
justified pride. In justified pride, the issue is whether the cause of pride is above or
below the threshold on the value scale. If it is above, the pride is justified. However,
in the case under discussion, the issue is whether S has or does not have the amount
of pride that he or she is entitled to, given the value on the value scale.
We can distinguish between built-in social values and assigned individual
values. The distinction can be illustrated by a simple example. Under “normal”
circumstances, it is not an achievement to lift an ordinary pen. In other words, lifting
a pen does not have a built-in social value. If, however, S is, say, paralytic and can
hardly move his arm and after a long period of exercise he is eventually able to lift a
pen, he can be justifiably proud of lifting the pen. For S, lifting the pen can be
assigned a value on the scale of individual values, and thus S will consider lifting the
pen as an achievement that forms a proper basis for his pride. In general, it can be
maintained that individual value scales are accepted to base one’s pride on when
there are socially accepted extenuating circumstances for ignoring social value
scales. One such extenuating circumstance that is accepted in our culture is illness.
 The other feature of pride where metaphor plays an important role is the sense
of enhancement that is commonly experienced by people who are proud. This notion
is based on the CONTAINER metaphor as it applies to pride.

PRIDE IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER

His good performance filled him with pride.
Pride welled up inside him at the sight of his gardent.
She was swelling with pride.
The boxer was full of pride after defeating the former champion.
Her pride rose as she watched her children perform.

In this metaphor, the substance filling the container corresponds to a high intensity
of pride (based on the metaphor INTENSITY IS AMOUNT, as in “I like you a lot”) and
the container swelling corresponds to a person’s sense of enhancement felt in a state
of pride. (Incidentally, the word enhancement etymologically derives from
“becoming big in size.”) Davitz (1969) considers enhancement a major part of pride.
In his study, enhancement was the component in pride that received the most
emphasis as measured by the number of descriptive statements in the cluster and the
number of subjects who checked each of these statements. The notion of
enhancement covers a variety of experiences, including strength, power, and
confidence. Among the statements that people checked in connection with pride in
the Davitz study are: “I feel taller, stronger, bigger, strong inside”; “I have a sense of
sureness, a sense of being important and worthwhile”; and “I have a sense of being
superior, a sense of power.” The concepts of (emotional or psychological) strength,
importance, power, and confidence are all related to the bigness of the container in
the CONTAINER metaphor. Psychological strength is something that is understood
metaphorically in terms of PHYSICAL STRENGTH and LARGE SIZE via the metonymy
LARGE SIZE FOR STRENGTH (as in “Who is that big guy?,” meaning “strong” guy).
Importance is commonly conceptualized as large size, as in “He is the big man in the
fashion industry.” The notion of power is comprehended metaphorically as PHYSICAL
STRENGTH (as in “a strong man in politics”) that is associated with large size. And
confidence is often viewed as a heavy object (e.g., “His confidence was shaken”),
where heaviness is part of the literal belief that big things are heavy. Thus, the
concepts of strength, importance, power, and confidence are all associated with pride
and are metaphorically comprehended, in one way or another, as LARGE SIZE that is
an aspect of the CONTAINER metaphor for pride as well. This notion of “larger than
normal size” forms the metaphorical basis of the notion of enhancement that is a key
component of what people experience when they feel proud and connects pride with
a variety of concepts that can be found in the experience of pride, such as
psychological strength, importance, power, and confidence.
The case of pride represented in the folk model of pride above is one that
comes about as an immediate response to a state of affairs that S perceives as an
achievement. This can be seen in examples like “Winning the race filled him with
pride,” where winning the race is perceived as an achievement which produces an
immediate response in S; the immediate response is justified pride in a particular
situation involving an achievement. However, not all forms of pride are like this.
One such case is where pride is metaphorically conceptualized as a person:

PRIDE IS A PERSON
His criticism hurt her pride.
They humbled his pride.
His pride revolted against the treatment he received.
Don’t say anything that may wound his pride.
Her pride was deeply injured.

The pride as portrayed in this metaphor is not an immediate response to a state of

affairs. Rather, it is something that S has had for some time and that, on a given
occasion, can revolt, can be humbled, hurt, or wounded. This seems to be the kind of
pride that one takes in one’s possessions, one’s country, one’s success in a field (but
not in just one achievement, which is the pride as an immediate response), and so on.
By and large, the word self-esteem is a synonym of pride. Most of the examples in
the PERSON metaphor could be used with the word self-esteem in place of pride (e.g.,
“His self-esteem was injured.”). This indicates that within the broad category of
pride the metaphor captures the more specific concept of self-esteem.
Self-esteem has a different social-cognitive function than pride as an
immediate response. This function can be identified by another metaphor for general
pride:

PRIDE IS A SUPERIOR
His pride prevented him from doing anything dishonorable.
Pride did not let her do what she wanted to do the most.
His pride did not allow him to accept the air.

The main focus of this metaphor seems to be how pride has an influence on what we
should or should not do. The issue of how pride can determine our actions shows up
in other metaphorical expressions as well: swallow one’s pride, pocket one’s pride,
and set one’s pride aside. These are expressions that are not instances of the PRIDE IS
A SUPERIOR metaphor, but the diversity of metaphorical expressions that have this
particular meaning focus indicates that this is an important aspect of pride.
Self-esteem is different from pride in that it has to do with one’s overall
evaluation of oneself. Unlike the kind of pride exemplified by the CONTAINER
metaphor (which have their particular causes), the kind of pride represented by the
following metaphor does not have particular causes:

SELF-ESTEEM IS A(N ECONOMIC) VALUE

He has low self-esteem.
She values herself highly.
Her achievements boosted her self-esteem.
Don’t overestimate yourself.
She underestimates herself.
Don’t let him lower your self-esteem.

According to this metaphor, self-esteem (pride) is a certain value which the self
estimates himself or herself to have. A person’s self-esteem may be low, can be
boosted, and can be high; that is, there is a scale that attaches to self-esteem.
As we saw, balanced pride as an immediate response serves as the prototype of the
general category of pride. Self-esteem differs from this in that it is not an immediate
response to a particular cause, but has to do with the general evaluation of a person.
Further deviations from the prototype are conceit and vanity. These latter are
comprehended through some further highly specific source domains, such as THE
CONCEITED PERSON IS UP/HIGH and BIG (e.g., “Get off your high horse”) for conceit
and VANITY IS AN INDULGENT PERSON (e.g., “He was basking in the praises”) for the
concept of vanity.

SHAME

Metaphors for shame were uncovered by Holland and Kipnis (1995) and Pape
(1995). In listing the metaphors, I will not distinguish between the related concepts
of shame and embarrassment, though the two are clearly distinct. The concept of
shame will be used throughout. The source domains that these authors identified
include:

A SHAMEFUL PERSON IS A PERSON HAVING NO CLOTHES ON: I felt so naked; so

exposed. I was caught with my pants down.
SHAME IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: The memory filled him with shame.
 SHAME IS AN ILLNESS: He suffered much embarrassment in his youth.
SHAME IS A DECREASE IN SIZE: I felt this big.
SHAME IS HIDING AWAY FROM THE WORLD: I wanted to bury my head in the
sand. I wished the ground would just swallow me up.
A SHAMEFUL PERSON IS A DIVIDED SELF: I tried to regain my composure.
A SHAMEFUL PERSON IS A WORTHLESS OBJECT: I felt like two cents waiting for
change.
SHAME IS PHYSICAL DAMAGE: I was shattered.
SHAME IS A BURDEN: Guilt was weighing down on him.

As can be seen, the conceptualization of “unbalanced” forms of pride contrast with

those of shame: UP/HIGH and BIG contrast with DECREASE IN SIZE and INDULGENT
PERSON with BLOCKING OUT THE WORLD. There is also a difference in the self’s value
of himself. Although pride and shame share the source domain of PHYSICAL
DAMAGE, this source domain applies differentially in the two cases: to the emotion in
pride and to the person in shame.
Kovecses and Palmer (1999) observe that, according to the Bible, shame may
be the first or one of the first emotions to emerge in human behavior. In the Biblical
Genesis, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, a physical object, which can be
interpreted as a metaphor for acquiring consciousness. It is a striking feature of the
story that the first experience to accompany consciousness is a simultaneously both
metonymically and metaphorically conceived and expressed emotion – the emotion
of shame, resulting from the physical experience of nakedness (cf. the metaphor A
SHAMEFUL PERSON IS A PERSON HAVING NO CLOTHES ON). (On the metonymy-based
emergence of this metaphor, see Kövecses 2000: 48-49) Thus, the narrators of the
Old Testament must have regarded consciousness as a precondition for the
emotions, or perhaps just for those with moral consequences. As Holland and
Kipnis (1995) argue, the HAVING NO CLOTHES ON metaphor (or more precisely,
source domain) is the central one for shame.

GUILT

Guilt is not commonly categorized as an emotion in everyday thought—let alone

as a prototypical one, a passsion. It is more commonly thought of as a moral
attitude that is conceptualized very differently from anger, fear, joy, grief, etc. And
yet, guilt has a considerable affective (or emotive) component. This is shown by
many of the conceptual metaphors that it shares with the passions. These include:
 GUILT IS FIRE
GUILT IS A NATURAL FORCE
GUILT IS A BURDEN

In addition to these general emotion metaphors, it seems to share several

conceptual metaphors with some emotions such as fear:

GUILT IS A SUPERNATURAL FORCE.

GUILT IS PAIN.

What mappings between the source and the target constitute these metaphors? In
other words, what aspects of the concept of guilt do the metaphors focus on? We
can find out if we examine typical linguistic manifestations (i.e., words and
phrases) of the conceptual metaphors. One good source that enables us to do this is
the Oxford Collocations Dictionary, which provides the words and phrases that co-
occur with a particular word (such as guilt) on a regular basis. What “regular” and
“typical” usage and co-occurrence mean here is based on the one-hundred-million-
word British National Corpus. Here are the words that commonly co-occur with
the word guilt according to this Dictionary:

GUILT IS FIRE: be consumed with guilt (“I know that the next day I would be
consumed with guilt”), guilt sears someone.
GUILT IS A NATURAL FORCE: be overwhelmed with guilt, sweep over
someone (“Guilt swept over her”), guilt washes over someone
GUILT IS A BURDEN: a burden of guilt (“a burden of guilt that she carried
with her”)

In the FIRE metaphor, the physical damage caused by fire (be consumed with)
corresponds to the emotional disfunctionality caused by the guilt. Secondly, if an
object is seared, it loses its ability to react normally. Similarly, if guilt sears a
person, the person loses his ability to respond emotionally.
The examples of the NATURAL FORCE metaphor suggest that in the same way
as a natural force covers something or someone as a result of which the thing or
person is physically affected in large measure and in an adverse way, a person is
greatly affected in an adverse way and against his will by guilt.
The BURDEN metaphor draws attention to the conceptualization of guilt as
something that is difficult to handle. This follows from the mapping in the Burden
metaphor: the difficulty of a person in handling a burden corresponds to the
difficulty in managing one’s guilt.
 The conceptual metaphors that guilt shares with emotions such as fear are:

GUILT IS A SUPERNATURAL FORCE: be haunted by guilt.

GUILT IS PAIN: be racked with guilt, suffer guilt, assuage one’s guilt
(“Talking to her helped to assuage my guilt”)

In the SUPERNATURAL FORCE metaphor, the repeated nature and the unpleasantness
of being haunted by a ghost corresponds to a constant preoccupation with the
unpleasant experience of one’s guilt.
In the GUILT IS PAIN conceptual metaphor, the cause and experience of
physical pain (be racked, suffer) corresponds to the cause and experience of
emotional pain and the lessening of physical pain (assuage) to the lessening of
emotional pain.

In sum, an examination of the typical collocations of the word guilt reveals several
aspects of the concept. The conceptual metaphors underlying these usages show
that speakers of English, at least in part, conceptualize guilt as an emotion

 that produces disfunctionality in the person;

 that affects a person in adverse ways against his will;
 that is difficult to manage;
 with which the person is constantly preoccupied;
 that causes nonphysical pain in the person;
 that can be made less intense.

Most of these metaphorically-constituted aspects of guilt are shared by most

intense emotions, or passions. Obviously, guilt is more than any one of these
features in isolation or than a combination of the features taken together. In
addition to being conceptualized as an intense emotion, it also has a strong
appraisal, or evaluative, component. Guilt arises when someone thinks that he did
something bad and wishes that he had not done it. This thought and this wish are
accompanied by a variety of feelings. It is these feelings that the analysis of the
conceptual metaphors above brought to light.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

In this chapter, I have discussed some specific emotion concepts by making use of
the conceptual tools of cognitive linguistics. It was shown that emotion concepts
are characterized by metaphors, metonymies, and inherent concepts that converge
on and create our cultural models of emotions. These models are mental
representations of emotions. However, there are at least three important limitations
to what has been presented.
First, the data on which the analysis was based all came from the English
language. How would the picture outlined above change if we studied languages
and cultures other than English using the same methodology? How would the
metaphors, metonymies, and inherent concepts change from culture to culture, and
consequently, how would the cultural models change? New work that is aimed at
answering such questions is just beginning (see, for example, Kovecses, 2005).
Second, I only discussed a few emotions in terms of their cognitive
structure, but I am aware that there are additional and psychoanalytically very
important emotions that would need to be discussed in a more comprehensive
study. For example, I have not talked about the feelings of pleasure and pain,
though both of them are extremely important to understand why and how human
beings act the way they do. Living creatures seem to do everything to avoid pain
and seek pleasure. This has been generally accepted since Darwin. They seem to be
“super-concepts” with perhaps all the other emotion concepts falling under them,
or at least relating to them in some meaningful way. Pleasure is a superordinate
concept, and all other positive feelings fall under it, including happiness, joy,
satisfaction, love, and the like. These are all derivatives of pleasure, or grow out of
it.
Third, as has been seen, many of the prototypical cultural models of emotion
we have described portray the emotions as exceedingly intense episodes of feeling
and behavior. This is because prototypical cultural models are often based on the
most salient examples—examples that are highly noticeable. The salience of such
examples often comes from their intensity. This should not be taken to mean that
all prototypes are such. As a matter of fact, a category may have not just one but
two or three prototypes, one salient but the others not. In general, prototypicality
may arise for several cognitive reasons, of which salience is just one (see Lakoff,
1987). Now if we apply these ideas to pleasure, we may note that we do not
necessarily have to think of it as something that carries us away or sweeps us off
our feet, as is the case for many intense emotions. It is possible to have pleasure in
a peaceful, quiet sort of way. This is true of all the examples of cultural models
that were provided.
Interestingly, several of the prototypical cultural models I have presented
above look like exaggerated versions of emotions that we can call manic. They
seem to express an exaggerated mental state. Although many of the metaphors
suggest brimming over, or fear of losing control, and other overflowing and
intense metaphors, most emotions can also be a peaceful and quiet sort of feeling.
The exaggerated versions that seem to define the cultural norm (often noticeable in
movies, cartoons, and the like) can be regarded as and called manic versions of a
feeling. In psychoanalysis a manic feeling indicates an escape, a defense against
something else. We can overdo a feeling for the sake of avoiding some other
unpleasant feeling. If, for example, a patient talks to a therapist about happiness in
highly intense terms, we can be sure he or she is very unhappy. It is strange that the
language-based cultural models of many emotions appear to be manic versions of
emotions from a psychoanalytic point of view. What we deem to be
psychoanalytically deviant became the linguistically-expressed cultural norm. This
is a cultural aberration that could be fruitfully studied further by making use of the
paradigm on which the analyses above are based.

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