Everyday Conceptions of Emotion

In this text, anthropologists, linguists and psychologists discuss how emotions are conceptualized by people of different cultures and ages, speaking different languages. Anger, fear, jealousy and emotion itself are concepts that are bound up with the English language, embedded in a way of thinking, acting and speaking. At the same time, the metaphors underlying such concepts are often similar across languages, and children of different cultures follow common developmental pathways. The book thus discusses the interplay of social and cultural factors that humans share in their development of an understanding of the affective side of their lives. This text should be useful reading for researchers interested in emotion, the development of concepts and language, and the cultural and linguistic influences on psychological processes.