The meaning of ‘frustration’ across languages
Semantic equivalence in the affective domain is always a matter of degree, even for the words that may seem uncontroversial. For example, a word may be quoted in dictionaries as the semantic equivalent of another word and be used in practice as its most frequent translation equivalent, and yet those...
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Cambridge University Press
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Language and Cognition |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980824000504/type/journal_article |
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| author | Cristina Soriano Anna Ogarkova |
| author_facet | Cristina Soriano Anna Ogarkova |
| author_sort | Cristina Soriano |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Semantic equivalence in the affective domain is always a matter of degree, even for the words that may seem uncontroversial. For example, a word may be quoted in dictionaries as the semantic equivalent of another word and be used in practice as its most frequent translation equivalent, and yet those two words may significantly differ in meaning. This study focuses on one such case – that of the English term frustration and its cognates in Spanish (frustración), French (frustration) and German (Frustration). Using data from corpora and self-report, we find that, while frustration terms in Spanish, French and German reflect a cross-culturally stable type of low-power anger, or can denote affective experiences other than anger, English frustration refers to a prototypical anger experience characterized by high power. Converging evidence is presented from two psycholinguistic and two linguistic studies employing elicited and observational data. We offer a possible explanation for the observed semantic differences based on psychological appraisal theory and cross-cultural psychology. The novelties and limitations of our findings are discussed, along with their implications for researchers in the affective sciences. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-2b9da4cbab4f4e2a9de52628fbff9462 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1866-9808 1866-9859 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Language and Cognition |
| spelling | doaj-art-2b9da4cbab4f4e2a9de52628fbff94622025-01-16T21:48:09ZengCambridge University PressLanguage and Cognition1866-98081866-98592025-01-011710.1017/langcog.2024.50The meaning of ‘frustration’ across languagesCristina Soriano0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9274-8574Anna Ogarkova1Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, SwitzerlandSwiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, SwitzerlandSemantic equivalence in the affective domain is always a matter of degree, even for the words that may seem uncontroversial. For example, a word may be quoted in dictionaries as the semantic equivalent of another word and be used in practice as its most frequent translation equivalent, and yet those two words may significantly differ in meaning. This study focuses on one such case – that of the English term frustration and its cognates in Spanish (frustración), French (frustration) and German (Frustration). Using data from corpora and self-report, we find that, while frustration terms in Spanish, French and German reflect a cross-culturally stable type of low-power anger, or can denote affective experiences other than anger, English frustration refers to a prototypical anger experience characterized by high power. Converging evidence is presented from two psycholinguistic and two linguistic studies employing elicited and observational data. We offer a possible explanation for the observed semantic differences based on psychological appraisal theory and cross-cultural psychology. The novelties and limitations of our findings are discussed, along with their implications for researchers in the affective sciences.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980824000504/type/journal_articleemotion termssemantic equivalencecorpusmetaphorfrustration |
| spellingShingle | Cristina Soriano Anna Ogarkova The meaning of ‘frustration’ across languages Language and Cognition emotion terms semantic equivalence corpus metaphor frustration |
| title | The meaning of ‘frustration’ across languages |
| title_full | The meaning of ‘frustration’ across languages |
| title_fullStr | The meaning of ‘frustration’ across languages |
| title_full_unstemmed | The meaning of ‘frustration’ across languages |
| title_short | The meaning of ‘frustration’ across languages |
| title_sort | meaning of frustration across languages |
| topic | emotion terms semantic equivalence corpus metaphor frustration |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980824000504/type/journal_article |
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