Open AccessImages of fear in language communities and cultures: the case of Slavic, Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages
Author(s) -
Pavel Dronov,
E. R. Ioanesyan,
М.Л. Ковшова
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
przegląd wschodnioeuropejski
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2450-0828
pISSN - 2081-1128
DOI - 10.31648/pw.6522
Subject(s) - slavic languages , celtic languages , linguistics , polysemy , phraseology , lexicalization , romance languages , germanic languages , romance , neuroscience of multilingualism , literal and figurative language , irish , psychology , history , literature , art , german , philosophy
Being a case study of lexical and figurative units in Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages, as well as Irish, the paper deals with the means of naming fear, revealing its connection to other concepts. The paper covers models of naming this emotion represented in the underlying metaphors, synchronous polysemy and phraseology. As the analysis shows, different languages have different primary associations with fear, e.g. darkness, uncertainty, insecurity, loneliness, high altitude, etc. To investigate underlying images and metaphors found in the naïve worldview, the authors use the corpus-based approach, as well as (for the Russian data) the technique of modified semantic differential. The technique, based on an experiment involving Russianspeaking respondents, allowed for distinguishing and detailing criteria of perceiving names and predicates denoting fear.