Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture, and Body in Human Feeling

Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture, and Body in Human Feeling
ISBN-10
0521541468
ISBN-13
9780521541466
Category
Family & Relationships
Pages
236
Language
English
Published
2003-09
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Author
Zoltan Kovecses

Description

Are human emotions best characterized as biological, psychological, or cultural entities? Many researchers claim that emotions arise either from human biology (i.e., biological reductionism) or as products of culture (i.e., social constructionism). This book challenges this simplistic division between the body and culture by showing how human emotions are to a large extent "constructed" from individuals' embodied experiences in different cultural settings. The view proposed here demonstrates how cultural aspects of emotions, metaphorical language about the emotions, and human physiology in emotion are all part of an intergrated system and shows how this system points to the reconciliation of the seemingly contradictory views of biological reductionism and social constructionism in contemporary debates about human emotion.

Similar books