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A Sociolinguistic Approach to Emotion Concepts in a Senegalese Community

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Everyday Conceptions of Emotion

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASID,volume 81))

Abstract

In the cross-cultural study of emotion, language is often a crucial source of information. Many aspects of language are pertinent: emotion terminology, together with the talk that defines terms and elaborates upon them; speakers1 attributions of emotion to themselves and others; and the display of emotion during talk. Though of course linguistic evidence is not the only kind of evidence that might be relevant to a cross-cultural analysis, any or all of these linguistic behaviors potentially enter into the attempt to understand the cultural frameworks within which emotion is conceptualized. This paper explores some sociolinguistic issues relating to that attempt. Fieldwork in a rural Wolof community in Senegal provides a case at hand.

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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Irvine, J.T. (1995). A Sociolinguistic Approach to Emotion Concepts in a Senegalese Community. In: Russell, J.A., Fernández-Dols, JM., Manstead, A.S.R., Wellenkamp, J.C. (eds) Everyday Conceptions of Emotion. NATO ASI Series, vol 81. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8484-5_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8484-5_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4551-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-8484-5

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