A case study: Cultural data in collocations that name emotions

In our analysis, emotional phenomena are clearly connected with images of Nature: natural elements serve as the kernel

metaphor motivating the phraseological denotation of feelings. Consider: burya/ vikhr'/volna/stikhiya/vsplesk chuvstv,

chuvstva nakhluinuli, razveyat' tosku, etc., lit. 'a storm/a whirlwind/a wave/the element/a surge of feelings'; 'a feeling

swept through someone', 'to blow away anguish'. Natural phenomena in figuratively transposed collocations occur as a

second-order reality, as a linguistic-cultural construct from which lexical collocations acquire their cultural markedness.A

number of lexical collocations imply that feelings can move. Language conceptualizes emotions as being capable of

transfer from one person or place to another. Feelings can 'enter' a person and 'come out' of him or her, and move from

one person to another. The way feelings enter the subject seems to be elaborated in greater detail:

• they can penetrate in a non-violent way: chuvstvo voshlo, (pronikio) v dushu/v serdtse; chuvstvo posefflos' v

dushe/v serdtse, lit. 'a feeling entered, (penetrated) one's soul/heart', 'a feeling settled in one's soul/heart';

• they can penetrate in a fraudulent, furtive way: chuvstvo zakralos'/ zatailos'/zapalo v dushu, lit. 'a feeling stole

into/hid in/fell into one's soul';

• they can penetrate in an aggressive way: chuvstvo (toska, gore) napalo/navalilos'/porazilo/presleduet, lit. 'a feeling

(anguish, grief) attacked/fell upon/hit/pursued someone'; the departure of an emotion is described with less

precision: chuvstvo ushlo, ischezlo, isparilos'/uletuchilos', lit. 'the feeling went away/disappeared/ evaporated'.

The transfer of emotion from one person to another is also depicted through restricted lexical collocations: zarazit'sya

unuiniem (ot kogo), lit. 'to be infected with despondency', radost' peredalas' (komu), lit. 'joy was communicated to

someone'. (kto) naveyal na (kogo) pechal', lit. 'someone blew sorrow on someone' -- examples which seem to suggest

that language depicts emotions as independent of the subject. However, the 'space' available for transfer is limited and

corresponds to the individual space of a person -- that is, his or her spiritual dimension. Language seems to hush up the

actual location of feelings when they are external to the subject. It is clear that feelings can exist apart from the subject.

We say: chuvstvo ushlo kuda-to, lit. 'the feeling has gone away somewhere'. But the 'somewhere' is not defined; one

cannot say, for example, chuvstvo ushlo daleko, lit. 'the feeling has gone far away'.

Emotions are the Other for an individual in the same way that Nature is the Other of Culture (Lotman 1992). Emotions as

represented in phraseology have much in common with Chaos (feelings are represented as shapeless, disordered, and

uncoordinated), with the Pandora's Box into which Prometheus, as the myth relates, put all people's troubles -- including

passions. Hence, in brief, some of the lexical collocations mentioned act as quasi-standards of the Other Space (compare

the idiom u cherta na kulichkakh above). Some refer to Nature as a kernel metaphor, and all of them are culturally

marked.