Speaking of pain in Greek: Implications for the cognitive permeation of emotions

Abstract

A distinction between “emotions”, as an English-specific notion explicitly containing a cognitive component, and “feelings” as its universal counterpart underspecified for a cognitive component has been proposed by Wierzbicka (1991, 1999). We focus on the level of application of this distinction using evidence from the linguistic expression of physical and emotional pain in Greek. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of a database of 900 expressions from spoken and written discourse shows that the two types of pain make use of the same linguistic resources in syntax (same argument structures) and semantics/pragmatics (localisation to a part of the body, metaphorical expression). Based on our findings, we propose that the difference between “feelings” and “emotions” is a difference in sense within the English system, rather than in reference. Referentially, the two terms are co-extensive, referring to a continuum from bodily based to cognitively based feelings, all of which are cognitively permeated to different degrees.

Acknowledgements

The first author would like to thank the A. G. Leventis Foundation for financially supporting the initial stages of this research through a postdoctoral fellowship held at the British School at Athens.

We would like to thank Athanassios Protopapas and Dionysis Goutsos for helping us with access to the HNC and GCT corpora respectively, and Chris Connor for commenting on a previous draft and for providing references of a more medical nature.

Notes

¹Other distinctions between “feelings” and “emotions” have been proposed—see, e.g., Damasio's distinction between feelings as “the private, mental experience of an emotion” and emotions as “the collection of responses, many of which are publicly observable” (1999, p. 42), or Ortony, Norman, and Revelle's orthogonal distinction, according to which feelings are “readouts of the brain's registration of bodily conditions and changes”, while emotions are “interpreted feelings” (2005, p. 174, original emphasis)—but we will not be concerned with these at present.

²These differences are not unrelated to the etymological origins of the two words. Following a well-established pattern in the history of English, whereby the Latinate member of a Latinate–Germanic synonym pair typically carries scholarly connotations that its Germanic counterpart lacks, the verb “feel” is inherited from Old English felan meaning “to touch”, going back to Germanic *folijanan and ultimately to a Proto-Indo-European base *(s)pol-/*(s)pal-. “Feeling” as a noun is first recorded in 1369. “Emotion”, on the other hand, was introduced in 1579 from Middle French emotion [=a (physical) moving, stirring, agitation] descending from Latin emovere. Originally meaning “strong feeling”, its meaning was extended to “any feeling” in 1808. The verb emote is a 1917 back-formation.

³Neuroscientific evidence suggests that incoming stimuli are simultaneously sent to two types of brain mechanisms (LeDoux, 1998, pp. 67–71, reported in Theodoropoulou, 2004, pp. 110–111). Evaluation mechanisms are fast and coarse. Their purpose is to evaluate whether something is good or bad, prompting a predeterminate and limited suite of actions in each case. Identification mechanisms are slower and more flexible. They identify incoming stimuli as particular kinds of stimuli, opening up a range of possible reactions from which to choose.

⁴In taking this stance, we think there is nothing wrong with accepting the distinction between cognitively based and bodily based feelings as part of everyday usage and rejecting this same distinction at a theoretical level (pace Wierzbicka, 1999, p. 27). More specifically, we believe that one cannot argue backwards from the emphasis on “thoughts” found in the everyday use of “emotion” to the exclusion of a cognitive component from “sensations” at the theoretical (and perhaps even the folk) level, especially when such exclusion is not supported experimentally (see Some experimental evidence on pain responsivity).

⁵Greek examples are followed by an English gloss in brackets, which preserves, as much as possible, the literal meaning of the original. The source of the example is cited in parentheses. Ellipses before or after the example indicate omitted text. Underlining indicates the part of the example discussed in the text.

⁶ etymologically denotes carrying a burden, which can be either physical or psychological. Consequently, like , it can express both physical and emotional pain. In both cases, its use is underlain by the conceptual metaphor pain is a burden. When lexicalising physical pain, occurs either as a single verb lexeme, or with the PP (see The expression of physical pain).

⁷Several of these metaphors have been proposed by Lascaratou (2003, pp. 155–185) for physical pain in Greek. Although informed by her proposal, our analysis diverges from it in several respects. First, there are differences in the actual expressions classified under particular metaphors. An example is (i) below:

1. [Then the pain stopped, but after some years again bit by bit.]

Lascaratou classifies this under pain is an event but we think it more properly belongs under pain is a moving entity. In general, we place under pain is a moving entity occurrences of , “I-stop”, , “I-continue”, , “I-stop”, , “I-arrive”, , “I-climb/I-rise”, , “I-go”, , “I-spread”, while we reserve pain is an event for occurrences of (intransitive), “I-seize”, , “I-begin”, (intransitive), “I-last”, , “I-begin again”, , “I-start”. Also, contrary to Lascaratou, who identifies pain is an intruder with pain is an unwelcome visitor (2003, p. 167), we reserve instances of the former to explicit references to a sharp object entering the body (“piercing”, “stabbing”, etc.). Second, there are differences in the specific metaphors proposed. To handle expressions quantifying over pain (verbs such as “increase”, “grow”, and modifiers such as “more”), we introduce a metaphor intensity of pain is amount/growth (cf. Kövecses, 2000, p. 42). Other metaphors we adapt from the general emotion domain are pain is a burden (cf. Kövecses, 2000, pp. 38, 82–83) and pain is pressure in a container (cf. Kövecses, 2000, pp. 65–68). Last, but not least, we trace underlying conceptual metaphors in modifiers (“unbearable” pain > pain is a burden; “horrible” pain > pain is an opponent) and verbs (“suffer” > pain is a burden), and extend the analysis to instances of emotional pain.

⁸We thank Zoltan Kövecses for bringing this point to our attention.