Anatomy of Emotional Meaning
Anatomy of Emotional Meaning
Emotional Meaning: Eight Spheres
Emotions derive their meaning from the co-occurrence of changes in multiple spheres of human experience. These could be considered as the components of an emotion's anatomy. The philosophers Andrea Scarantino and Ronald de Sousa clearly outline many of the dimensions of emotions in their article within the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2021). Consider the exhilarating excitement fans experience when watching an athlete score the winning point of a match with seconds left on the clock (adapted from Scarantino and de Sousa 2021):
- Their excitement occurs for a specific duration, which may vary widely from other instances of excitement and other types of emotion.
- Their excitement occurs from a triggering event that involved a conscious understanding, whereas others, such as fear, may arise from instinctual processes.
- Their excitement involves an appraisal component in that they have concluded their team has won.
- Their excitement also involves a bodily symptoms component in that their heart rate and blood pressure increase.
- Their excitement additionally includes a conscious feeling of the experience.
- Their excitement includes an expression through specific actions, such as jumping and cheering.
- Their excitement also has other behavioral components, such as the tendency for fans to hug one another.
- Finally their excitement includes specific thought components, such as mentally replaying the scene and the words of the announcer.
One Sphere Often Dominates
Extensive cross-cultural research conducted by Klaus Scherer and his associates revealed that cultures often focus primarily on just one of the various categories above when defining emotions in their context (Fontaine et al. 2013). They found that charting variables such as the ones above can more accurately measure the overlap between the emotion categories of cultures than only using a standard dictionary approach (cf. Littlewood 2014).
Understanding which category of the eight a culture prototypically focuses on shines light on how they might communicate the emotion in literature (cf. Nuessel 2022, 266-268). Some cultures, such as ancient Israel, focus upon the bodily symptoms experienced during the emotion. For example, the most prominent word for anger in Hebrew, (אַף),
“refers literally to the nose as a physical facial feature but more commonly designates anger, either divine or human” (West, 2014).
Other cultures, such as contemporary America, focus more upon the conscious feeling of the emotion. In order to think within the culture’s emotional categories, we should investigate these eight variables for each of their major emotion concepts. Doing so will shed significant light upon how the culture may choose to represent the emotion in communication.
Challenge for You
Try charting out the eight spheres above for a key biblical emotionally laden word, such as love or joy. See what the spheres would be in your own language(s), and, if you can, in the biblical languages!
Sources
- Fontaine, Johnny J. R., Klaus R. Scherer, and Cristina Soriano, eds. 2013. Components of Emotional Meaning: A Sourcebook. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199592746.001.0001.
- Littlewood, Roland. 2014. “Components of Emotional Meaning: A Sourcebook.” The British Journal of Psychiatry, September. https://www.academia.edu/31575187/Components_of_Emotional_Meaning_A_Sourcebook.
- Nuessel, Frank. 2022. “Language, Pragmatics, and Emotions: The Case of Impoliteness.” In Exploring the Translatability of Emotions: Cross-Cultural and Transdisciplinary Encounters, edited by Susan Petrilli and Meng Ji, 255–77. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91748-7_10.
- Scarantino, Andrea, and Ronald de Sousa. 2021. “Emotion.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2021. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/emotion/.
- West, Jim. “Divine Wrath.” In Lexham Theological Wordbook, edited by Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, and Rebekah Hurst. Lexham Bible Reference Series. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014.