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Part of
Emotion in Discourse
Edited by J. Lachlan Mackenzie and Laura Alba-Juez
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 302] 2019
► pp. 113–138

Chapter 5
Expressing emotions without emotional lexis

A crosslinguistic approach to the phraseology of the emotions in Spanish and English

| University of Navarra (Spain)
| University of Navarra (Spain)
Cross-linguistic studies of phraseology enable us to draw increasingly accurate maps of the specific ways different languages express emotions. This chapter focuses on the phraseology used to express emotions in Spanish, taking English as its point of comparison. We situate the topic within the broad perspective of the presence, absence and control of the emotions, centering exclusively on expressions consisting of non-emotional lexis. First, we investigate phrases indicating presence and absence of emotions in Spanish and English. Second, we examine emotional control and lack of control, finding different patterns in the use of the underlying container metaphor. Finally, we explore linguistic affordances for expressing uncomfortable but vague emotions. We conclude with some comparisons between Spanish and English phraseology.
Keywords: phraseology, emotions, emotional control, conceptual metaphor, vagueness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A preliminary issue: Absence and presence of feeling
  • 3.The presence of strong emotion: The inability to speak
  • 4.Expressing emotional impact without emotional lexis
  • 5.Expressing vague emotions without emotional lexis
  • 6.Conceptualizing emotional control
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.302.05bre
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