How Language Influences our Emotion

It is widely known that emotions exist independent of language, and that language is only a medium through which emotions can be communicated and expressed. In other words, language is used to describe emotions that have been already felt. It is commonly understood that these are the limitations of the correlation between language and emotion.

However, psychological constructionist studies reveal that language is fundamentally in charge of the conceptualization of emotions and feelings.

In contrast to the previous view of the natural kind of emotion, recent literature on the Conceptual Act Theory (CAT) suggests that language-supported concept knowledge is crucial in shaping our emotional experiences such as anger, disgust, fear, and sadness (Barrett et al., 2007; Lindquist and Gendron, 2013).

CAT suggests that language is essential in experiencing emotions because language supports the conceptual knowledge used to make sensations from the body and world in a given context meaningful. Language also helps individuals to use concepts to make meaning of sensory perceptions.

Once the knowledge about the connotations and associations of a certain emotion has been acquired, one can use that rich knowledge to form an emotion that then goes through the body to be experienced.

Psychological compounds, like emotions, are more than just physical representations, exteroceptive sensations, and concept knowledge. Psychological constructionists agree that a person experiences an emotion when concept knowledge, for instance, knowledge about “fear” and exteroceptive sensations (the occurrence of sound in a dark alley) are used to make meaning of body states in a given instance (rapid heartbeats and sweaty palms in the example mentioned above.)

The CAT predicts a role for language in this process as the language supports the acquisition and use of concept knowledge, such as the concept of “fear”, which is used to create sensations as meaningful as emotions (Barrett, 2006, 2009, 2012; Wilson-Mendenhall, 2011; Lindquist and Barrett, 2012; Lindquist, 2013).

Concept knowledge refers to the plethora of instances that populate what someone “knows” about different categories. For instance, people may know that the category of fear involves rapid heartbeats, sweaty palms, a knot in the stomach, and/or an urge to flee in threatening contexts related to various objects, like snakes, predators, intruders, etc.

People may also have several representations of fear, independent of the stereotypical ones mentioned above. These representations may vary on an ideographic basis. For instance, a person may conceptualize fear in the idea of attacking someone else, while another person might conceptualize that fear involves smiling. Different people may know fear differently, like involving natural disasters, existential concerns, clowns, public humiliation, etc. (Barrett, 2012; Vigliocco, 2009.)

The lexicon hypothesis in psychology indicates that personality traits that are common in certain cultures are reflected in that culture's language (John et al., 1988; Russell, 1991.) Therefore, intersubjective emotional constructs that are common in cultures are reflected within that language; making it important to base any analysis on local-language understandings of emotional concepts rather than relying on English or another lingua franca (Bamberg, 1997.)

We conclude that through the CAT, it can be predicted that language, indeed, has a role in emotion.