Chapter 41 :Language family similarity effect: emotion term semantics in Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, and Polish

Authors : A. Ogarkova , N. Panasenko & B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk

Abstract : This chapter explores the idea that the meanings of emotion words in typologically close languages bear a higher resemblance to each other than to the corresponding words in languages from a different language group. We test this prediction in a case-study of five Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak and Polish ) and compare the meaning profiles of emotion words with US and UK varieties of English (Germanic languages). Although the results largely confirm our prediction, additionally highlighting the capacity of GRID to capture yet smaller-scale linguistic and cultural affinities within the Slavic group, the observed language family similarity effect is considerably small. This finding contributes to the universality claim in the studies on emotion conceptualization and contradicts previous claims about a remarkable cultural ‘untranslatability’ of Slavic emotion concepts.

Keywords : Slavic emotion concepts cross-cultural differences language family similarity effect