Cultural universals: measuring the semantic structure of emotion terms in English and Japanese

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997 May 13;94(10):5489-94. doi: 10.1073/pnas.94.10.5489.

Abstract

Research is presented on the semantic structure of 15 emotion terms as measured by judged-similarity tasks for monolingual English-speaking and monolingual and bilingual Japanese subjects. A major question is the relative explanatory power of a single shared model for English and Japanese versus culture-specific models for each language. The data support a shared model for the semantic structure of emotion terms even though some robust and significant differences are found between English and Japanese structures. The Japanese bilingual subjects use a model more like English when performing tasks in English than when performing the same task in Japanese.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Confidence Intervals
  • Emotions*
  • England
  • Humans
  • Japan
  • Models, Psychological
  • Multilingualism*
  • Semantics*
  • United States