Emotion-Related Words in Persian Dictionaries: Culture, Meaning and Emotion Theory

Abstract

Aimes: Vocabulary, written or oral, may potentially mirror the attitudes, emotionality, thinking styles, mentality and cultural tendencies among people. This research aimed to scrutinise the emotion-related words (ERWs) vs. the cognition-related words (CRWs) of three Persian dictionaries (namely, Moeen, Amid and Moaser), exploring cultural differences in terms of positive/negative and somatic/non-somatic aspects. Method: All entries in these three dictionaries were scrutinised by three independent judges all of whom were psychologists. The final judgments incorporated feedback which included descriptive and qualitative comments provided by a cognitive linguist. Non-parametric data (frequencies and ratios) on somatic/non-somatic, positive/negative and common/uncommon components of the target words were analysed by SPSS for Windows v19. Results: The results show that the ratio of negative ERWs is higher than positive ERWs, compared to both positive and negative CRWs. Moreover, 30-45% of ERWs were somatic (contained body-related component/s). Conclusion: The findings appear to be in line with theories suggesting that people with Eastern cultural backgrounds are more likely to express their feelings through body-related words; a fact that may be correlated with the high level of somatisation symptoms in Eastern countries.