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Language is Powerful

Department of Psychology, Boston College, USA, lindqukr{at}bc.edu

As Wierzbicka suggests in her recent review, language is powerful in emotion. Wierzbicka's solution is to remove the linguistically relative aspects of emotion concepts, like icing from a cake, to reveal the universal meanings below. In the present commentary, I suggest that language is a more fundamental ingredient in emotion than Wierzbicka's solution assumes; language can be no more removed from emotion, than flour can be removed from an already baked cake. As an alternate solution, I present a constructionist view of emotion, which not only recognizes the role of language in emotion, but also predicts and models its impact as language constitutes emotion experience.

Key Words: culture • emotion construction • emotion experience • linguistic relativity

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Emotion Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 16-18 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1754073908097177


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This Article Abstract Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Lindquist, K. A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?