When motion becomes emotion: a study of emotion metaphors derived from motion verbs

Abstract: The work presented in this D-extended essay has been carried out as part of
the project “Linguistics in the Midnight Sun” at the Department of
Languages and Culture, Luleå University of Technology. The aim of this
essay was to investigate into the use of verbs of motion in emotion
metaphors.

The sixteen verbs studied are: climb, crawl, dive, float, fly,
go, hop, jump, leap, plunge, roll, run, stagger, swim, tiptoe and walk.
Verbs of motion are used because they are essential for the construal of
the emotion following the human tradition of expressing the abstract, the
emotion, in terms of the concrete, the motion. Furthermore, verbs of motion
are often used because the behavioural response to emotional impact is used
as source domain for the metaphor. Climb, fly, go, hop, jump & run are used
in metaphors for ANGER/FURY. Crawl, leap, run, stagger, tiptoe & walk are
used in metaphors for FEAR. Float, jump, leap, roll & walk are used for
JOY/HAPPINESS and go & walk are used for SADNESS. The connections with
specific emotions seem to arise out of the semantic parameters of each
verb. The majority of the emotion metaphors in this study express basic
negative emotions such as ANGER and FEAR. The human mind uses concrete
experience to express the abstract. The human being visualizes the emotion
as being inside a person, as surrounding the person or as making the person
perform a movement.

In this study, the majority of the studied verbs visualize a movement
associated with an emotion. Understanding a metaphor is an advanced
cognitive process based on pre-understanding, ability for abstract thinking
and ability for sorting out one single cognitive model of the verb knowing
that each verb has several possibilities, obviously the human mind is able
to perform a very advanced process within a fraction of a second.