Hărăbor, Alina (2012). An inquiry into Romanian anger-like and happiness-like emotions. Master’s thesis, Australian National University.
Abstract:
This thesis seeks to shed light on the inner lives of Romanian people via the language they use to communicate about their emotions. It is the first detailed study analysing these emotions by examining vocabulary, in particular the anger-related emotion words mânie and supărare and the happiness-related words fericire and veselie, as well as the syntactic constructions in which they occur. The thesis also highlights beliefs and cultural values that influence emotional experience.
By using NSM and drawing on instances of natural language (mainly extracted from the Romanian Corpus Linguistic), as well as proverbs, sayings, poems and songs, this study shows that Romanian emotions are very intense and that Romanians have a highly responsive behaviour: they feel and think socially rather than individually. For example, people’s ability to feel something good is intensified when they share a good feeling with someone else. Furthermore, the thesis shows that labels such as anger or happiness cannot be applied to Romanian because the emotional reality expressed in Romanian does not match the Anglo concepts described by these English labels.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
