Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Linguistics, Language & Linguistics, heart, mood, anger, cognition, emotion, volition, onomasiology, literal meaning

Abstract:

© 2008 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All Rights Reserved. On the basis of heart expressions in Old English, we argue that an onomasiological analysis is indispensable to get a good insight into the (relative) importance of embodied imagery of the mind and the soul. As a first step, an analysis of heart and mood compounds in Old English reveals three things. First, mood represents an integrated conception of mental life, in which cognition, emotion, and volition occur side by side. Second, the heart is seen as an embodied seat of the mind and the soul. Third, however, the importance of this second recognition is severely mitigated by the fact that heart imagery constitutes a minority in comparison with literal mood denominations. In a second step, the dominance of literal concepts is further corroborated by an analysis of the concept 'anger'. We will identify ten different motifs that shape the Old English expressions for anger; applying two indirect criteria for distinguishing between literal and figurative denominations, we will then be able to show that figurative imagery occupies a minor role. On a methodological level, this leads to the conclusion that an onomasiological analysis is indispensable to get a good insight into the importance of embodied imagery. On the theoretical level, we will have a look at recent discussions in conceptual metaphor theory about the universality of metaphors. In recent work, Kövecses (2005) has radically changed his earlier position and accepted the point voiced by Geeraerts and Grondelaers (1995): metaphors are not necessarily universal, and variation in metaphorical conceptualization may be sensitive to cultural influences. Our results further support this view.