article de périodique

Happiness in the Eye and the Heart:
Somatic Referencing in West African Emotion Lexica Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Journal of Black Psychology

Vol.32, n°2

Dzokoto, Vivan Afi

Okazaki, Sumie

24

2006

17-140

Fante (dialecte) Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Dagbani (langue) Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Lexicologie Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Psycholinguistique Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Linguistique comparée Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Langage et culture Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

ang

1552-4558

Although many theories about the structure of emotion have been developed, none of them seem to adequately explain the African experience. This study examined the folk emotion lexica of two indigenous West African languages. Fifty monolingual Fante speakers and 50 monolingual Dagbani speakers from rural and semirural Ghana participated in focus groups to generate words in their native language that they use to describe experiences that involve emotions. Qualitative analysis of the emotion lexica generated by the focus group participants revealed frequent somatic referencing in the emotion talk of Fante and Dagbani, although there were differences in the specific body parts mentioned in references to various emotional experiences. The ubiquity of somatic referents in the expression of African emotions suggests that future theories of emotion structure may need to incorporate the concept of embodiment.