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The Bilingual Mind and Brain Book Series 3

Halszka Bąk

Emotional Prosody
Processing for
Non-Native
English Speakers
Towards An Integrative Emotion
Paradigm
The Bilingual Mind and Brain Book Series

Volume 3

Series editors
Roberto R. Heredia, Department of Psychology and Communication,
Texas A&M International University, Laredo, TX, USA
Anna B. Cieślicka, Department of Psychology and Communication,
Texas A&M International University, Laredo, TX, USA
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13841
Halszka Ba˛k

Emotional Prosody
Processing for Non-Native
English Speakers
Towards An Integrative Emotion Paradigm

13
Halszka Ba˛k
Faculty of English
Adam Mickiewicz University
Poznań
Poland

The Bilingual Mind and Brain Book Series

ISBN 978-3-319-44041-5 ISBN 978-3-319-44042-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44042-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948096

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

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To my parents, Bożena and Zenon
Acknowledgments

This work is my own, but as it consumed more and more of my attention and
my time, it was the people around me who kept me focused, inspired, and sane
enough to push it through to the end. I thank my Ph.D. supervisors, Profs. Roman
Kopytko and Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman who showed endless patience and
much-needed advice on all aspects of completing my Ph.D. dissertation upon
which this book is based. Above all I thank them for the freedom they gave me
in shaping my project and the trust they showed for my deliberate pacing of the
empirical work and the writing process. I thank Prof. Kopytko for inspiring my
mind to fly and Prof. Bromberek-Dyzman for tethering it not the stray beyond the
boundaries of social acceptability.
The integrative paradigm designed for this study would be impossible to create
without the help and cooperation from Prof. Jeanette Altarriba from the University
at Albany–SUNY. She gave me the opportunity to work at her laboratory and
offered priceless guidance through the bureaucratic, ethical, and formal thickets
of doing research in a foreign country. The most critical and demanding portion
of the empirical work for this book was concerned with developing the stimuli for
the experimental stages of the study. Described in Chap. 6, this portion of the work
would simply not become a reality without Prof. Altarriba’s collaboration. While
I appreciate her professional and committed help, I thank her in particular for her
kindness and generosity towards a girl far from home and profoundly out of her
depth. For all that I have learned and all I have gained, with fond memories of a
hot plate of cinnamon churros—thank you, Jeanette.
I am greatly indebted to my new and old friends from the University at Albany,
mainly all friends or members of Prof. Altarriba’s Cognition and Language
Laboratory. Many thanks for the great pointers and much patience with the mildly
obtuse foreigner trying to get an IRB approval to Faye Knickerbocker. Thanks to
Stephanie Kazanas for her cool professionalism and candid nature, for keeping her
doors open and giving me no limit on the number of odd/silly questions about the
how-tos and wherefores of an American University. To Kit Cho, who is secretly a
superhero, for swooping in with compatible equipment and much-needed infusions

vii
viii Acknowledgments

of Polish food and Taylor Swift music at the last moment to save my project and
me from hopeless despair. To Jenny Martin and Crystal Robins for braving Polish
food at a place that seemed to miss the memo about the invention of AC. To Kevin
Berry for introducing me to the idea that Americans can produce and indeed know
a thing or two about making a decent brew. In a professional vein, my thanks and
deep appreciation for the work of Gabrielle M. Roy for assisting me, and indeed
largely bearing the brunt of data collection for Chap. 6. Without her dedication
and commitment this study would be a poor shadow of itself. Many thanks also to
Catherine G. Payano for assisting Gabrielle with data collection. Last but not least,
many thanks to Andrew and Julia Ross for rekindling an old friendship and letting
me put them to the trouble of driving and showing me around their beautiful city.
The majority of the work for this book was carried out at the Faculty
of English, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan in the course of the
Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program: Language, Society, Technology, & Cognition. All
the members of the program were my friends and commiserates throughout the
long, long road from the first passable sentence of the first draft of my Ph.D. to
the last dot put to the manuscript of this book. No words are deep enough, strong
enough to tell each and every one of them how much our time together meant
for me as a scholar and as a human being, but I may at least try. My thanks to
my partner in crime, Rafał Jończyk for sharing the pains and the joys of making
and serving the Language and Communication Laboratory we both worked at for
most of our time in graduate school. To Marta Gruszecka for being that one friend
we all need, the one who would rather make you a better human being by taking
you down a peg rather than comforting you at every misstep you make. To Marta
Marecka for being the paragon of orderliness, professionalism, and exactitude
none of us will probably ever attain and for showing us that truly those who think
something impossible should step out of the way of those who think otherwise. To
Michał Pikusa, for challenging me to live beyond all kinds of comfort zones. Keep
running, my friend, and one day I will definitely catch up. To Paula Ogrodowicz
for breaking the limit of the sky and being more patient with me than I deserve.
All the sweat, frustrations, cups of tea, and group hugs we shared over the last four
years, I appreciate them all.
Finally, my deepest apologies and appreciation to all my family by blood and
by choice. Thanks in particular to Magda, Michał, Karolina, Łukasz, Kasia, and
Tomek for keeping me in your and your children’s lives. I apologize for putting
you on hold while I worked on my book and thank you for waiting. I am back.
Contents

1 Emotional Relativity—Argument from Nurture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Relativity of Emotions in Anthropology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 The Dawn of Relativity—Franz Boas and Salvage
Anthropology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2 The Principle of Linguistic Relativity and the Dual
System of Language—Edward Sapir. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.3 Relativity Through Habituation and the Seeds
of Confusion—Benjamin Lee Whorf. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.4 From Linguistic Relativity Principle to the Sapir–Whorf
Hypothesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.5 Relativity of Emotions in Syntactic Structures . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.2.6 Emotional Relativity in Semantics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.2.7 Nonverbal and Pragmatic Emotional Relativity. . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.3 Conclusions—Emotional Relativity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2 Emotion Universals—Argument from Nature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.1 Universalism in the Psychological Research on Emotions . . . . . . . . 27
2.1.1 The Great Pioneer—Charles Darwin’s Expression
of Emotions in Man and Animals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.1.2 The Forefathers of Psychology: Wilhelm Wundt
and William James. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.1.3 Between the Dawn and Rebirth—From the Forefathers
to Paul Ekman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.1.4 The Universalist—Paul Ekman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.1.5 Resistance and Revisionism—The Post-ekmanians. . . . . . . . 40
2.1.6 Conclusions—Emotional Universalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

ix
x Contents

2.2 Between Specificity and Universalism—Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3 Linguistics—The Great Absentee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.2 From Saussure to Chomsky—The Great Abstraction . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.3 Semiotics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.4 Semantics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.5 Pragmatics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4 A Different Look at Emotion Processing Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.1 A Different Approach to Modeling and Visualization. . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.2 The Classic Models of Emotion Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.3 Transition Stage—Discrete Emotions Versus Early
Dimensional Models of Emotion Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.4 Current Approaches—From Skeptical Resistance
to Deep Complexity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.5 Conclusions—The Cartesian See-Saw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5 The State of Emotional Prosody Research—A Meta-Analysis. . . . . . . 79
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.2 Consensus on the Nature of Emotional Prosody Processing. . . . . . . 81
5.3 Literature Review Selection Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.3.1 On the Development and Validity of Stimuli
for Emotional Prosody Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.3.2 On the Populations Involved in Emotional
Prosody Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.4 The State of Emotional Research—Evaluation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.5 Investigating Emotional Prosody in Nonnative English
Speakers—Study Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.5.1 Creating Stimuli. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.5.2 Stimuli Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.5.3 Population Sampling—Nonnative English Speakers. . . . . . . 110
5.6 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
6 The Development of Stimuli for Emotional Prosody Research:
With Contributions from Prof Dr. Jeanette Altarriba,
State University of New York, Albany, USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.2 Stimuli Creation Stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
6.2.1 Speakers Providing Emotional Speech Samples . . . . . . . . . . 118
Contents xi

6.2.2 Materials—Elicitation and Acting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

6.2.3 Recording Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.2.4 Results—The Recorded Material and Emotion
Elicitation Evaluation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
6.3 Stimuli Exploration Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.3.1 The Judges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.3.2 The Evaluation Procedures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.3.3 Determining “Accuracy” Across Evaluation Procedures. . . . 130
6.3.4 The Results of the Exploration Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
7 Emotional Prosody Processing in Nonnative English Speakers. . . . . . 141
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7.2 Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
7.3 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
7.4 Experimental Procedure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
7.5 Data Processing and Determining Accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
7.6 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.6.1 The Valence and Arousal Evaluation Task
(ValAr) Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.6.2 The Categorization Task (Cat.) Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7.6.3 The Free (Naming) Task Results—Statistical
Analysis Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.6.4 The Free (Naming) Task—Qualitative Results Analysis. . . . 155
7.6.5 Task Difficulty Effects Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
7.6.6 The Post-probe Questionnaire Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
7.7 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
8 Emotional Prosody Processing for Nonnative English Speakers . . . . . 171
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
8.2 On Reductionism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
8.3 On Negativity Bias. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
8.4 On Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
8.5 On Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
8.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
List of Abbreviations

* Indicates the native language of experimental subjects

(pseudo-) Indicates a pseudolanguage
A Anger
Cat. The categorization task
CHI Chinese
D Disgust
ENG English
F Fear
F Female
FC Forced choice task
FH Stimuli coming from female speakers expressing happiness
FreeCat The free naming task (Cat. level analysis)
FreeValAr The free naming task (ValAr level analysis)
FS Stimuli coming from female speakers expressing sadness
GER German
H Happiness
HIM Himba
IND Hindi
JAP Japanese
M Male
MH Stimuli coming from male speakers expressing happiness
MS Stimuli coming from male speakers expressing sadness
N Neutral (tone)
PC Propositional content
S Sadness
SPA Spanish
Sur Surprise
SYR Arabic (Syria)
TAG Tagalog
ValAr The valence/arousal evaluation task

xiii
Introduction

Emotional prosody is a collection of patterns of intonation and stress in speech

which accompany various emotional states, the “how” of things said. As an object
of emotion research it has attracted intermittent attention of various researchers.
The research on emotional prosody is, however, laden with multiple problems of
practical and ethical nature which have prevented it from becoming as popular as
the research on facial expressions of emotion. The majority of the methodological
problems come from the contradiction inherent in the nature of emotional pros-
ody as a research object and the methods routinely implemented in the research.
The methodology is one of the few points of consistency across emotional pros-
ody research and it is virtually all grounded in Paul Ekman’s universalism (Ekman
1992) and hinges on experiments based on forced choice tasks. This methodology
works very well with facial expressions of emotion which, for all their subtlety,
have prototypical and easily definable features. With emotional prosody it is very
difficult to determine a prototypical pattern which would be universal, especially
given the great variability of languages with respect to overall pronunciations and
intonation patterns. Because of its dependence on the highly variable speech pat-
terns, emotional prosody is inherently ambiguous (Scherer et al. 2003), while the
forced choice task based on universal basic emotions demands unambiguous cate-
gorizations. In other words the methods used to investigate emotional prosody and
the subject matter are incompatible.
It would hardly be an overstatement to say that within the body of research on
emotional prosody the population of native monolingual English speakers is over-
represented. Cross-linguistic studies are comparatively rare, and most research
so far has been focused on the finer details of emotion recognition from prosody
in native monolingual communities. With the preferential focus on English-
speaking communities, we therefore have a reasonable overall understanding of
how English emotional prosody is processed in native speakers of the language.
For example, we know that females appear to integrate emotional cue informa-
tion faster and are therefore better at recognizing emotions than males (Schirmer
and Kotz 2003). We also know that the gender-specific differences in processing
emotion have their onset at puberty (Fujisawa and Shinohara 2011) and offset in

xv
xvi Introduction

late adulthood, when age-specific differences take over (Paulmann et al. 2008).
We know that the prosody of sadness, anger, and fear has relatively high recogni-
tion rates, but the prosody of happiness does not (Paulmann and Pell 2011). We
also know that native English speakers can reliably recognize basic emotions in
the prosody of other languages they do not know with accuracy well above chance
(Thompson and Balkwill 2006). Conversely, speakers of other languages can rec-
ognize basic emotions in emotional prosody of English at above-chance levels of
accuracy without knowing the language (Pell et al. 2009). What we do not know
is how the large and growing population of nonnative English speakers process
English emotional prosody. This study was designed to answer that question while
systematically expanding on the reductionist paradigm prevalent in the emotional
prosody research.
In its devotion to the standard view of emotions, as the universal basic emo-
tions theory according to Paul Ekman has been called (Russell 1994), emotional
prosody research is a microcosm of emotion research in general. However, taking
a closer look at the critical literature within the field as well as at the limitations
and future directions listed typically at the end of each empirical paper, it becomes
apparent that approaches from beyond the standard view mainstream may be more
compatible with the subject matter. The literature suggests simple dimensional
approaches as viable as they include the perceived arousal component which is
strongly correlated with the fundamental frequency of the human voice (Scherer
et al. 2003). The results implicating gender- and age-specific factors also sug-
gest high-level processing along the lines of emotional appraisals (Ellsworth and
Scherer 2003). However, nothing in the basic theory or the methodological prac-
tice of emotional prosody research suggests how to approach the subject matter
using methods from outside the standard view. The latter is geared towards find-
ing universal aspects of emotion processing, and in the case of nonnative speakers
I was expecting differences. Indications that emotional prosody of basic emo-
tions is processed differently by speakers of different languages are reported in the
existing literature (Pell et al. 2009), but are never analyzed or interpreted. I there-
fore realized that to find and interpret differences in processing I would have to
find a new approach and new theoretical framework that would allow me to sys-
tematically expand both the theoretical premise and methodological approach to
emotional prosody research.
Based on the observations reported in previous literature and on an explora-
tory study reported here in Chap. 6, I postulated six hypotheses on the way non-
native English speakers would process natively English emotional prosody.
Nonnative English speakers are a nonhomogeneous group regarding proficiency.
I hypothesized that participants of higher English language proficiency would be
more accurate in their emotion recognition scores than participants of lower profi-
ciency, as the better knowledge of the language would facilitate recognition. I also
hypothesized that negative emotions (sadness) would be recognized significantly
better than positive emotions (happiness), and that all emotions would be recog-
nized better in female voices than in male voices. Based on initial reports from
Drolet et al. (2012) I also included both natural and acted expressions of emotion.
Introduction xvii

I hypothesized that the acted emotions, being the intentionally communicative and
transparent expressions, would be recognized more accurately than the less trans-
parent natural expressions. The exploratory study conducted to test the experimen-
tal tasks and stimuli created for the experiment proper in this study and to make
predictions about the effects suggested two additional hypotheses. The three tasks
designed for the study tapped into increasingly complex levels of emotion pro-
cessing, each demanding increasing specificity and yielding increasing processing
costs. I therefore hypothesized that the more costly the task the more the accu-
racy of emotion recognition from prosody would drop. Additionally, observing the
results from the exploratory study, I noticed a trend whereby accuracy scores for
negative emotions (sadness) were higher, but also the error patterns on positive
emotions (happiness) implied that they are misinterpreted as negative emotions
(anger, fear, sadness). I therefore additionally hypothesized that negativity bias
would manifest on all levels of processing in nonnative English speakers in their
emotional prosody recognition scores.
To fulfill the study objectives I would have to start with a thorough historical
revision of the universalism versus culture-specificity (nature vs. nurture) debate
on the nature of emotions. I would have to develop new tools using my expertise
in the fields of affective databasing and linguistics, and build my approach firmly
on a constructive critique of the existing literature. Therefore, this book consists of
two major parts. Part I, including Chaps. 1–4, is concerned with the broad theoreti-
cal background of the study. Part II, including Chaps. 5–8, comprises a four-part
report on the study conducted to investigate how emotional prosody is processed
in nonnative English speakers.
Chapter 1 comprises an overview of the anthropological theory and empirical
evidence for linguistic relativism in emotional expressions. The chapter opens with
a history of the linguistic relativity principle since its inception in Franz Boas’
(1910) works to the full vulgarization, meaning misinterpretation through over-
simplification and decontextualization (Joseph 2002), and redrafting as the Sapir–
Whorf Hypothesis (Brown 1958). Following this historical overview, selected
illustrative examples of anthropological evidence for linguistic relativism in the
expression of emotions are presented in sections devoted to syntax, semantics, and
pragmatics of language. Anthropology is presented with its evidence as one side of
the universalism versus culture-specificity of emotions debate.
Chapter 2 comprises an overview of the psychological perspective on the
nature of emotional expression and emotion processing. The chapter starts with
a historical overview of the theoretical progression of thought on emotions from
Darwin’s (1872) observations predating the emergence of psychology as a discrete
discipline to the contemporary revisionists represented by James A. Russell and
Lisa Feldman Barrett. The chapter traces the roots of the psychological perspec-
tive on emotions through the rise and fall of holistic versus reductionist thinking
and rational versus affective approaches to human psyche. Psychology is presented
as the universalism side of the universalism versus culture-specificity of emotions
debate due mainly to the lasting influence of Paul Ekman’s theory of panhuman
emotional expressions.
xviii Introduction

Chapter 3 covers the great absentee from the universalism versus culture-spec-
ificity of emotions debate, linguistics. The applied linguistics fields of semiotics,
semantics, lexicography, corpus linguistics, and experimental pragmatics are pre-
sented as potential contributors to our understanding of how emotions are pro-
cessed. The complementary potential of linguistics for emotion research is also
discussed. Chapter 4 is devoted to selected psychological models of emotion pro-
cessing based on theories presented in Chap. 2. Instead of simply reiterating the
strongly hierarchical models as described and visualized in previous literature, I
reanalyzed and reinterpreted the models to emphasize their temporal aspects
which are crucial in emotional prosody processing. The models are presented as
belonging to three crucial stages of complexity: the classic models (James–Lange,
Cannon–Bard, Schachter–Singer), the transitional stage models (Schlosberg’s
three-dimensional model, Ekman’s basic emotions model), and the advanced stage
models (appraisal models, the circumplex, the Conceptual Act Model). Logical
progression from simplicity to complexity demonstrated in the models is thus
reimagined.
Chapter 5 comprises a detailed critical meta-analysis of the existing empirical
literature on emotional prosody. The chapter first discusses the in-field consensus
regarding the nature of emotional prosody processing. What follows is an analy-
sis of the way stimuli are typically developed and validated in previous research,
and of the way population samples are drafted. I then present an evaluation of the
existing body of evidence from emotional prosody pointing out the weak points in
the methodologies implemented in previous research. The chapter concludes with
a proposed study design for the present book based on a critical analysis on previ-
ous research and with the presentation of four main hypotheses.
Chapter 6 is concerned with the process of stimuli development and the explo-
ration study conducted on the stimuli. The process of stimuli development is
described in detail, including the preparation of propositional content for the emo-
tion acting sessions, the movie clips for emotion elicitation through effect control
measures implemented, and the recording and stimuli editing procedures. The
stimuli exploration study is then described, including the materials, procedures,
results, and their implications. The chapter concludes with the presentation of two
additional hypotheses suggested by the results of the exploration study.
Chapter 7 is concerned with the experiment in which the six hypotheses pos-
tulated for this study were verified. All details of participant selection, effect con-
trol measures, materials, procedures, and results are reported in all relevant detail.
A short discussion interpreting the more important results is also included.
Detailed discussion of the results is presented in Chap. 8. There the results are
placed in the wider context of emotion research, evaluated, and their limitations
are described and addressed.
The study presented here has been conducted using an integrative research
paradigm geared towards searching for both universal aspects of emotion process-
ing and for differences between emotion processing patterns in different commu-
nities. The paradigm proved viable and yielded reliable and interesting results,
even though certain improvements will be necessary before the paradigm can
Introduction xix

work at optimal capacity. It revealed fundamental perceptual mechanisms such as

­heuristics and negativity bias and complex mechanisms such as gender stereotyp-
ing to be present and significant in emotion processing. It allowed for a compre-
hensive insight into how emotions are processed on multiple levels and revealed
the gender-specificity of many aspects of emotion processing. It is my hope that
this book, from its broad theoretical background to the novel solutions in method-
ology can be useful to anyone interested in emotional prosody research, emotion
processing in bilinguals, as well as to anyone with an interest in broadly under-
stood emotion research.

References

Boas, F. (1910). Psychological problems in anthropology. The American Journal of Psychology,

21(3), 371–384.
Brown, Roger. (1958). Words and things. New York: Free Press.
Darwin, Charles. (1872). The expression of emotions in man and animals. New York: D. Appleton
and Company.
Drolet, M., Schubotz, R. I., & Fischer, J. (2012). Authenticity affects the recognition of emotions
in speech: behavioral and fMRI evidence. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience,
12, 140–150.
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3/4), 169–200.
Ellsworth, P. C. & Scherer, K. (2003). Appraisal processes in emotion. In: R. J. Davidson, H. Hill
Goldsmith, & K. R. Scherer (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences (pp. 572–596.). New York
and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fujisawa, T. & Shinohara, K. (2011). Sex differences in the recognition of emotional prosody in
late childhood and adolescence. Journal of Physiological Science, 61, 429–435.
Joseph, John. (2002). From Whitney to Chomsky. Essays in the history of American linguistics.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Paulmann, S. & Pell, M. D. (2011). Is there an advantage for recognizing multi-modal emotional
stimuli? Motivation and Emotion, 35, 192–201.
Paulmann, S., Pell, M. D., & Kotz, S. A. (2008). How aging affects the recognition of emotional
speech. Brain and Language, 104, 262–269.
Pell, M. D., Paulmann, S., Dara, C., Alasseri, A., & Kotz, S. A. (2009). Factors in recognition in
the recognition of vocally expressed emotions. A comparison of four languages. Journal of
Phonetics, 37, 417–435.
Russell, J. A. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review
of the cross-cultural studies. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 102–141.
Scherer, K. R., Johnstone, T., & Klasmeyer, G. (2003). Vocal expression of emotion. In R. J. Davidson,
H. Goldsmith, & K. R. Scherer (Eds.). Handbook of the Affective Sciences (pp. 433–456).
New York: Oxford University Press.
Schirmer, A., & Kotz, S. A. (2003). ERP Evidence for a sex-specific Stroop effect in emotional
speech. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(8), 1135–1148.
Thompson, W. F., & Balkwill, L. L. (2006). Decoding speech prosody in five languages.
Semiotica 158(1/4), 407–424.
Chapter 1
Emotional Relativity—Argument
from Nurture

1.1 Introduction

The history of emotion research across various disciplines that concern themselves
with the subject shows that the one inevitable aspect of the field is antagonism.
Theories, research frameworks and paradigms form in continuous opposition to
one another. The subject of emotions is as divisive as it is interesting, and because
multiple related disciplines investigate it, certain definitional problems are bound
to arise. To this day there is virtually no single, agreed-upon definition of emo-
tions and what is known as the emotion paradox frequently leads researchers to
omit operational definitions from their works. The emotion paradox, noted already
by Darwin (1872), was only clearly defined by Barrett (2011). What it boils down
to is the simple observation that everybody feels they know what they are talking
about when talking about emotions but asked to define emotions precisely they
fail. And so adherents of various theories have their own definitions, representa-
tives of various disciplines have their own, fringe researchers do too. Common
certainties are few. All researchers appear to agree that emotions have a physiolog-
ical, neural, neurochemical, linguistic, psychological, social, and cultural aspects.
Where they differ is on which of these aspects are the most important, prominent,
primal, or generally central, which determines the true nature of emotions. The
arguments surrounding this topic have formed into a number of dichotomies in the
overall scientific discourse on the subject of emotions, reviewed in great detail by
Lutz and White (1986).
However, it was the dichotomy between the universalist (psychological) and
culture-specific (anthropological) approaches to emotion that held the greatest
sway over the entire field of emotion research. From the very beginning of their
discipline, psychologists sought validation of their claims in the physical, from
observable physiological changes at the turn of the twentieth century to neu-
rochemistry in the twenty-first century. More or less overtly, they also sought

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

H. Ba˛k, Emotional Prosody Processing for Non-Native English Speakers,
The Bilingual Mind and Brain Book Series 3, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44042-2_1
2 1 Emotional Relativity—Argument from Nurture

universal principles of human psychology which would be grounded in biology

and overriding any potential cross-cultural differences. Anthropology was con-
cerned with documentation of the rich variety of human cultures with an emphasis
on the differences. Both disciplines had an interest in emotions, but each had its
own methods and its own body of evidence. The problem then became that the
evidence pointed each discipline towards different conclusions about the same
phenomenon, while none could deny the validity of the other’s observations. The
nature of emotions was clearly not easily explicable within the framework of just
one discipline. Still, the research on emotions continued in both disciplines and
developments and discoveries in one influenced the other.
In Chaps. 1 and 2 I will trace the historical roots of the debate between anthro-
pology and psychology on the subject of emotions which formed the theoretical
and methodological background for the emotional prosody research.

1.2 The Relativity of Emotions in Anthropology

Anthropological research on emotions has been by and large carried out within
the framework of linguistic relativity and through the methods of anthropologi-
cal linguistics. The notion of linguistic relativity has become arguably the most
divisive idea in the history of emotion research. It its original form, developed in
the early twentieth century by Franz Boas and two of his students—Edward Sapir
and Benjamin Lee Whorf—the principle of linguistic relativity still guides the
anthropological research on the entanglement of emotion, cognition, and language.
Outside anthropology the notion of linguistic relativity has undergone what Joseph
(2002) calls “vulgarization” that is misinterpretation through oversimplification
and decontextualization. In the second half of the twentieth century such vulgar-
ized understanding of linguistic relativity, known across multiple disciplines as the
Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis, would have an enormous impact on emotion research in
psychology (Pavlenko 2005). The ideas about the nature of emotion in psychology
would form in sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, but always strong opposi-
tion to the vulgarized understanding of relativity (Duranti 2001). The rift between
these two disciplines would continue to deepen throughout the late twentieth
century until the emergence of revisionist and integrative approaches to emotion
research in psychology. In the meantime, anthropologists instructed in the subtle-
ties of the principle of linguistic relativity in the original Boasian understanding
continued collecting a substantial body of evidence to substantiate it.
In the following sections, I will first trace the development of the principle of
linguistic relativity from Boas’ (1911) original postulate to Brown’s (1958) vul-
garization and discuss the mechanisms which led to the popularization of the
vulgarized interpretation of the principle. Following this historical overview,
I will present an illustrative selection of evidence supporting linguistic relativity
collected in anthropological linguistics.
1.2 The Relativity of Emotions in Anthropology 3

1.2.1 The Dawn of Relativity—Franz Boas and Salvage

Anthropology

Throughout the late twentieth century psychologists investigating emotions would

take a highly critical and occasionally disparaging stance towards anthropology
due to its adherence to the principle of linguistic relativity. It is therefore one of
history’s little ironies that the principle was actually first formulated by a psychol-
ogist by training and anthropologist merely by passion—Franz Boas. His is one of
the most important and most often overlooked stories in the development of lin-
guistic relativity. Franz Boas’ influence on the field of American anthropology par-
alleled, to an extent, that of Wilhelm Wundt’s on German psychology. He trained
some of the greatest anthropologists of the early twentieth century, such as
Edward Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf, or the greatly popular and then controversial
Margaret Mead.1 His remarkably progressive thinking was influenced by a number
of scientific breakthroughs of his time from Albert Einstein’s relativity to William
James’ psychological subjectivity and it directed his students’ thinking towards the
formulation of linguistic relativity principle.
Boas took a remarkably enlightened position for his times to the ­preliterate
indigenous cultures he investigated. He was both sensitive and opposed to the
ideas of racial or cultural superiority evident in the patronizing tone of the Western
scientific discourse (Pavlenko 2005). He understood very early on that ­illiteracy
did not equate with cultural, moral or intellectual paucity, and he instilled in
his followers a professional and respectful attitude toward the cultures and
peoples they investigated (Kay and Kempton 1984). This attitude, supported by
Boas’ empathy towards rapidly vanishing cultural heritage of multiple tribes in
the Americas would be the foundation of his school, often referred to as salvage
anthropology. The adherents of this school led by Boas himself would endeavor
to document the indigenous cultures on the brink of disappearing without a deci-
pherable trace due to societal, civilizational, and environmental changes. The
documentation covered, often in exquisite detail, the four major objects of anthro-
pological investigation according to Boas: the language, culture (rituals, traditions,
legends, religion etc.), material artifacts, and human remains (Duranti 2003).
Franz Boas stands not only as the father of American anthropology but also
as the father of linguistic anthropology for a good reason. As early as in 1910 he
postulated that language, with a special emphasis on linguistic variation, should
become the central area of empirical interest for anthropologists (Boas 1910).
Boas understood “language” to be the totality of means—verbal and nonverbal—
used by humans to communicate their mental and emotional states to others (Boas
1938). Combined with his egalitarian outlook on cultures, such view of language

1Margaret Mead’s Coming of age in Samoa (1928) was a widely read and appreciated book in
both popular and academic circles. The book made her name but over time garnered controversy
for both its candid descriptions of sexual practices in the Samoan community and the lack of pro-
fessional distance an impartiality in her descriptions of Samoan cultural practices.
4 1 Emotional Relativity—Argument from Nurture

and linguistic variation formed Boas’ understanding of the relationship between

language, cognition, and emotions. Boas postulated that, however idiosyncratic
they make it, every human culture and every human language can express any
concept produced by any human mind (Boas 1911). In other words, human minds
are equal in mental capacity for understanding and expression, though the forms
of expression for equivalent concepts may differ. Interestingly, he also observed
that two cultures formally using the same language but subject to different sets
of historical and social circumstances will have distinct sets of concepts, ways of
thinking and feeling (Boas 1938). It is not language alone which is the bearer of
mentality and culture, says Boas, but language within the context of culture with
all its history and associations built up over the lifetime of that culture.
On an individual level, Boas considered both emotion and cognition as thor-
oughly subjective phenomena, each expressed in a specific way in language,
though bound by the cultural and situational contexts. Thought was expressed
mainly through the verbal channel, while emotions were most naturally conveyed
through the nonverbal channel, particularly through vocalizations and body lan-
guage. However, Boas also acknowledged the ubiquity of emotions in the verbal
channel. He observed that an emotional load will often be attached to words of
particular cultural significance for a given population, and that there always exists
a collection of vocabulary specialized for emotional expression (Boas 1938). In
other words, Boas implies that every culture has its own culturally defined and lin-
guistically idiosyncratic manner of expressing emotions.
Boas’ main focus was on the primary mission of salvage anthropology—the
documentation and preservation of the disappearing cultures for the future genera-
tions. Therefore his ideas about the nature of language, cognition, emotions, and
reality never crystallized into a coherent theory of relativity. They were more of
a by-product of his thinking, albeit a significant by-product. The significance of
Boas’ ideas on these subjects would come into fruition to the greatest extent in the
writings of his student Edward Sapir. Boas’ central focus on language and linguis-
tic variability, the implied idea of inherent connection between thought, language
and cultural context, as well as the broad definition of language all played a role.
Though still somewhat mired in Cartesian dualism, Boasian thought was excep-
tionally forward and subtly complex. But it would be up to his students, Edward
Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, to develop the nascent idea of relativity present in
Boas’ work into a formal principle of linguistic relativity.

1.2.2 The Principle of Linguistic Relativity and the Dual

System of Language—Edward Sapir

As for his mentor, anthropology was not Edward Sapir’s first calling. He was a lin-
guist first and his linguistic training would color much of his anthropological
work. Sapir’s linguistic background and anthropological training under Franz Boas
made him the perfect man to flesh out the basics of the linguistic relativity
1.2 The Relativity of Emotions in Anthropology 5

principle. He focused mainly on the relationship between language and thought

but acknowledged the importance of emotions for human communication and
anthropological studies alike. His works elucidating the linguistic relativity princi-
ple are a mixture of anthropological and linguistic influences. On the one hand lin-
guistic relativity principle was developed from the fundamentals proposed by Boas
for anthropological research. On the other hand, the principles of Saussurean2
structuralism, one of the leading theories of language at the time, determined
Sapir’s systematic analysis of language itself. Sapir’s work focused on the struc-
ture of language within cultural context and how that relationship was reflected in
thought processes.
Sapir considered language on two fundamental aspects of structure and func-
tion, distantly echoing Saussure’s division of linguistic competence into langue
and parole. Structurally, Sapir saw language as a dual system of formal code and
its mental representation. The code was a conventionalized system of primarily
verbal signs used voluntarily to convey thoughts, emotions, and desires. The men-
tal representations encompassed the concepts, meanings, and the grammar gov-
erning language on both levels (Sapir 1921). Sapir postulated that our processing
of the objective reality is filtered through the dual system of language. We sub-
jectively perceive the world and consciously process reality in a logical fashion
guided by our language (Sapir 1924). What the critics of the vulgarized determin-
istic interpretation of linguistic relativity seem to focus on is what seems like an
implication of certain finality to this arrangement. However, for Sapir the dual
nature of the language system and the communicative purposes it is put to made
for a very dynamic system. Language on the level of mental representations can
develop new concepts and meanings, create new words which can become widely
adopted on the level of the conventional code of language. On the level of the con-
ventional code we can encounter new words denoting novel concepts—these can
be understood and adopted enriching language on the level of mental representa-
tions. As Sapir succinctly put it: “the word, as we know, in not only a key; it may
also be a fetter” (Sapir 1921). In other words, language limits our thinking but as
language can endlessly change and grow there is no real limit on our capacity for
perceiving reality in new ways.
Much like Boas, Sapir considered emotions as expressive phenomena of mainly
the nonverbal channel of communication. Functionally, he saw language in a way
very similar to his mentor, as the totality of means used for interpersonal com-
munication, and he distinguished between verbal and nonverbal channels of com-
munication (Sapir 1921). Any means of communication that are physiologically
defined, such as body language, facial expressions, or speech tone he categorized

2Ferdinand de Saussure—a Swiss scholar mostly honored for his major contributions to linguis-

tics and semiotics. The basic tenet of Saussurean theory of language was that it has two principal
forms. The first was la langue, that is the abstract, inherent, and perfect system of meanings and
grammar retained in the mind. The second was la parole, that is the actual manifestation of la
langue in speech and interpersonal communication, which was imperfect but the only means of
accessing and analyzing la langue (Saussure 1959).
6 1 Emotional Relativity—Argument from Nurture

as nonverbal (Sapir 1927a). The verbal channel, meaning the actual speech with
its propositional content was not, however, immune to the influence of emotions
according to Sapir. He saw emotions as pervasive and highly significant for every-
day social life and consequently for culture. In his anthropological and linguistic
research he observed that there are two fundamental types of verbal expressions
of emotion. On the one hand there is always a trove of emotionally loaded words
and words denoting specific emotions (Sapir 1927–32). These words are usually
considered important, even constitutive of a culture and the basis of national iden-
tity. On the other hand, there are the propositionally neutral, nonemotive verbal
expressions which can be imbued with emotional meaning given appropriate inter-
personal or situational context (Sapir 1927b). To put it another way, emotions are
ubiquitous, potentially omnipresent in everyday interpersonal communication.
Emotional expressions are thus highly variable in terms of how they are expressed
in language. However, Sapir also observed that things get even more complicated
when the cultural contexts are factored in. Display rules, that is what a given com-
munity considers acceptable or not in terms of explicit expression and manifested
through taboos and rituals also increase the variability of emotional expressions
between different languages and cultures (Sapir 1930). Sapir believed that emo-
tions, much like any aspect of mentality governed by language under his definition
of language, are subject to relativistic effects.
Linguistic relativity, according to Sapir, is a principle which explains the mech-
anism of variability of various languages and cultures. Language on the level of
codified convention and flexible mental representation constitutes a perceptual
filter between our conscious thought and objective reality. Language guides the
way think subconsciously and pervasively. Language limits the number of ways
our cognition can spontaneously develop but does not limit our cognitive capac-
ity. The way we express ourselves and process the expressions of others is highly
variable and subject to contextual and conventional influences from situational
issues to display rules. Sapir emphasized that given this model of language and
human communication, the only way a given culturally specific or language-
specific concept can be understood is within the context of that culture and that
language (Sapir 1926). In this respect his was a thoroughly anthropological view
of linguistic relativity in that he would always consider linguistic artifacts in their
native context. Sapir’s version of linguistic relativity was thus already a coherent
proposition. Far from a deterministic law, it was a principle explaining the general
mechanics of linguistic variability in cultural contexts. The details of the mechan-
ics of the principle would be worked out by Sapir’s student, Benjamin Lee Whorf.

1.2.3 Relativity Through Habituation and the Seeds

of Confusion—Benjamin Lee Whorf

Much like his teachers, Boas and Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf did not start his pro-
fessional career as an anthropologist. His first job was as a chemical and fire
1.2 The Relativity of Emotions in Anthropology 7

prevention engineer. However, he was probably among the firsts to be formally

trained as an anthropological linguist. The majority of his field work in anthropol-
ogy was directed, likely by Franz Boas, to preliterate Mesoamerican cultures and
all of his work leaned heavily on linguistic analyses, following the teachings of
Edward Sapir. Although Sapir and Whorf are usually both credited for the devel-
opment of linguistic relativity, Whorf’s name would bear the brunt of the criticism.
Some critical works would refer to the principle of linguistic relativity disparag-
ingly as “Whorfianism.” However, even though his most often cited formulation of
the linguistic relativity principle sounds very strong when considered out of con-
text, Whorf’s position was much closer to Sapir’s moderation than to the
Nietzschean “prisonhouse of language.”3 Whorf’s original contribution to the
development of the linguistic relativity principle was working out the mechanism
driving the phenomenon of linguistic relativity.
Whorf adopted Sapir’s definition of language as a dual system of code and rep-
resentation but investigated it as a Boasian anthropological object. Where Sapir
dwelled on the nature of the language system, Whorf focused on how the nature of
the system would influence the anthropological investigation of languages. As an
anthropologist, Whorf considered language as a collective phenomenon, impossi-
ble to investigate on the level of an individual but only as a cross-section of indi-
viduals fulfilling all kinds of roles in a given community. In this respect Whorf’s
writings show some influences of the fundamental principles of immersion and
participant observation postulated by the father of social anthropology Bronislaw
Malinowski.4 Thus language on the level of codified convention was an outward
manifestation of culture, which in turn was the collective mental representation of
the world. In other words, for Whorf language was a “mass mind” expressing
itself (Whorf 1939a). The “mass mind,” the collective representations common
and specific to any linguistic community, was a dynamic system where new repre-
sentations, concepts and elements of code could appear and be conventionalized.
In this respect Whorf’s understanding of the dual system of language remained the
same as Sapir’s.
Habit was the key mechanism Whorf believed to be the driving force behind
linguistic relativity. He famously illustrated his idea of how language triggered
certain habituated behavior with an example from his fire prevention practice
(Whorf 1939a). In this example, employees of a gasoline drum storage take a
smoke break next to a store filled with drums labeled “empty.” The label “empty”

3Even Nietzshe was not quite so radical. David Lovekin traced the origins of the “prison-house”

metaphor to a poetic mistranslation of Nietzshe’s words by Erich Heller. The original wording
from Nietzshe implied that the logical thought is “constrained” rather than “imprisoned” by lan-
guage (Lovekin 1991).
4Bronislaw Malinowski—a Polish anthropologist and ethnographer most famous for his works

on the Trobriand Island cultures, largely covered by his seminal works Argonauts of the Western
Pacific: An account of native enterprise and adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New
Guinea (1922) and The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929). His greatest
methodological contribution to anthropology ws the participant observation method.
8 1 Emotional Relativity—Argument from Nurture

makes them believe open flame in proximity to those particular gasoline drums
is harmless, as only “full” drums have gasoline which burns and explodes upon
contact with open flame. In fact, explains Whorf, gasoline vapor rising from
­emptied drums is far more explosive than liquid gasoline, making the e­ mployees’
behavior fatally reckless. For the employees the labels “empty” and “full” are
elements of a conventionalized code which in habituated mental representation for
this ­situational context denoted “safe” and “dangerous,” respectively. For him, as a
fire prevention engineer, both “empty” and “full” denoted “dangerous” in the very
same situation. The observation in the objective reality, wrote Whorf, is the same,
but the habit of using one denotation of code over another causes a fundamental
difference in the subjective perception of the world (Whorf 1939b). For him the
dual system of language was acquired as a means of understanding and commu-
nication, hence certain limits that the system might impose on perception are not
consciously felt.
In Whorf’s understanding the language convention, that is the historically moti-
vated consensus on what mental representation each element of the code of lan-
guage denotes, is a type of habit. Language forms patterns expressed not only in
its semantics, but also in its syntax, morphology, phonology, and pragmatics. He
predicted that given strict and systematic approach relativistic effects would be
found on every level of language complexity from phonemes to sentence struc-
ture and even proposed a plan of such systematic description (Whorf 1938). He
predicted those patterns would be found both in the code and in mental represen-
tations. A novel representation can give birth to a new code element, a new code
element can help develop a novel representation, but convention, patterns or habit
guide the dual system of language on the whole. Each culture forms its own habits
of language use and its own mappings of meaning between the code and repre-
sentation (Whorf 1939a). However, like Sapir, Whorf did not see this as a process
with a set end point. Rather he believed that through interaction with the objective
reality and other cultures and languages, other subjective visions of the world our
own subjective views of reality can undergo an “intellectual adjustment” (Whorf
1941a). Habits, after all, can be broken.
The locus classicus of what is usually understood as the Whorfian definition of
linguistic relativity goes as follows:
users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars towards different
types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation,
and hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different views of
the world (Whorf 1940b).

While the passage itself has been quoted endlessly in the critical literature, its
context is rarely—if at all—mentioned. The passage comes from a paper enti-
tled “Linguistics as an exact science,” which was one of three published in MIT
Technological Review, a journal with a dedicated audience of hard scientists
of varied specializations from applied mathematics to engineering. The other
two papers in this series were “Science and linguistics” (Whorf 1940a), and
“Languages and logic” (Whorf 1941a). In all three, Whorf addressed the intended
1.2 The Relativity of Emotions in Anthropology 9

audience of hard scientists, sensitizing them to the fact that linguistic relativity
could compromise their scientific objectivity. At that time English was already ris-
ing to the status of the lingua franca of science. Whorf warned his audience that
the habituated thinking cultivated in a monolingual English environment could
turn their coveted scientific objectivity into an English-centric subjectivity (Whorf
1941a). To prevent ossification of scientific thinking within the framework of a
single language, Whorf proposed including multilingual linguists to provide “cor-
rective” perspectives from other languages on various problems. In other words,
Whorf’s strongest formulation of linguistic relativity was made not on language in
general, but on language as a medium of communication of science.
Like his predecessors, Whorf was much less radical in his ideas about linguistic
relativity than the later critics would make him out to be. While he did express
concern over the potential of relativistic effects to arrest the development of sci-
ence, he followed Boas and Sapir in considering linguistic relativity primarily as
a principle applicable in anthropological research. He followed Sapir’s nuanced
definition of language and Boasian framework of language being but one of four
anthropological objects of interest in research. Whorf explained the mechanism of
habit by which the linguistic relativity principle operated in everyday life and how
those habits did not constitute an insurmountable barrier for thought. Staying true
to the teachings of both Boas and Sapir he believed that the mental capacity of
human beings exceeds any expressive limits the conventional codes we call human
languages. Neither Sapir nor Whorf were the determinists the later critical litera-
ture on the “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis” called them. The deterministic interpreta-
tion of their works on linguistic relativity were a product of an inevitable process
of vulgarization which started soon after their deaths.

1.2.4 From Linguistic Relativity Principle

to the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis

For Boas, Sapir, and Whorf linguistic relativity never became what psychologists
would call a testable hypothesis. For them it was rather a principle observable in
their subjects and applicable to anthropological research, which included more than
just language, however, it might be defined. Sapir and Whorf developed the prin-
ciple of linguistic relativity within the context of anthropological research of lan-
guage as one of four Boasian anthropological objects. The dual system of language
in their understanding was always motivated by its social, cultural, and histori-
cal contexts and reflected in part in material artifacts. Language was to be inter-
preted within its broad anthropological context, not as a simple record of words
and grammar. The relativity of languages was not between language and thought,
the relativity operated with respect to the cultural, social, and historical contexts of
linguistic development. The greater the differences of contexts the greater the dif-
ferences between languages. Linguistic relativity was an anthropological research
framework, and applied with all the sensitivity and conditions stressed by Boas,
10 1 Emotional Relativity—Argument from Nurture

Sapir, and Whorf, it was a valid and consistent one, over time yielding an impres-
sive body of evidence.
Given all of the above, it is natural to wonder who, if not Sapir and Whorf, pos-
tulated the “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis.” Edward Sapir died in 1939 and Benjamin
Lee Whorf in 1941. Franz Boas outlived both his students, and died in 1942. They
could neither develop nor defend their principle as originally conceived against the
vulgarization processes started by their successors. Those processes started almost
immediately after Boas’ death in 1942 and were facilitated by the global social and
political events at the time (Joseph 2002). The United States was on the brink of
entering another World War, this one even more than the previous one driven by
unprecedented technological and scientific progress. Both the front and the home
front needed more efficient ways to kill, supply, medicate, transport, and feed the
global population engaged in total war. This was a time when the works of Freud
on the subconscious entered public consciousness and the word “propaganda”
began acquiring the devious connotations it has today. A time when the anti-semitic
Nazi propaganda compared the unwanted individuals and ethnicities to insects and
rats. A time the Soviet propaganda-based legal death row sentences on ill-will inter-
pretations of the most innocent expressions regarding the enemy, the motherland, or
the party line (Solzhenitsyn 1973). The world was in the midst of the greatest cul-
tural, political, and ideological turmoil in its history, and any idea which suggested
that certain words could subconsciously determine what and how we think, feel, or
do would fall on willing ears and under heavy criticism all at the same time.
One of the books which captured the public mood of this period was Samuel
Ichiye Hayakawa’s Language in action. Published for the first time in 1941,
it included in its appendix one of Whorf’s MIT Technological Review papers,
“Science and Linguistics” (Whorf 1940a). Hayakawa was a linguist, specifically
a semanticist, and he appeared to have arrived at conclusions regarding language
and thought somewhat akin to those of Whorf. His avowed aim in Language in
action, however, was far more immediately practical. The book is part textbook
on semantics, part analysis of the language-thought codependency, part a guide-
book to breaking out of linguistically motivated perceptual habits (Hayakawa
1947). The book played a significant role in the popularization of principle of lin-
guistic relativity as it appeared among the choices for 1941 Book of the Month
Club, prompting sales in the thousands (Joseph 2002). This was the first time
Whorf’s writings became available to a large and widely varied audiences. Whorf
was dead, and the book his paper was appended to appeared to lean on the side
of deterministic influences of language on thought. The paper was given no com-
mentary and no interpretation. In other words, upon being presented to the wider
world, linguistic relativity principle appeared out of its intended scientific dis-
course context and inserted into a textual context of casual determinism. The stage
was set for the vulgarization process and the transformation of an idea from an
anthropological linguistic relativity principle into the “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis.”
What Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf devoted their careers to was the
anthropological principle of linguistic relativity. The “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis”
1.2 The Relativity of Emotions in Anthropology 11

was not developed or even named by either of them. Should we name the
Hypothesis after those who actually operationalized the principle into a testable
hypothesis, it would have to be known as the “Brown-Lenneberg Hypothesis”
(Pavlenko 2013). Roger W. Brown was a psychologist of vastly diverse interests
and a substantially influential publication record. Eric Lenneberg was a man of
varied scientific interests, trained in linguistics, neurology, and psychology, and
the pioneer of the idea of language innateness. Working together they conducted
one of the first empirical trials of what they themselves understood as the “Whorf
hypothesis” using a simple color-naming task (Brown and Lenneberg 1954).
Brown’s later works (Brown 1957, 1958) also mentioned linguistic relativity as an
idea proposed by Whorf alone, without references to his teachers and predeces-
sors, Sapir and Boas. His and Lenneberg’s was the first recorded attempt to adapt
the linguistic relativity principle for experimental research. Brown also reformu-
lated “The Whorf Thesis” (Brown and Lenneberg 1954) into weak and strong ver-
sions. In his 1958, book Words and things, he defined the weak version along the
original moderate position of Sapir, and the strong version along highly restrictive
deterministic lines (Brown 1958, as cited in Pavlenko 2013).
While Brown and Lenneberg operationalized linguistic relativity and made
attempts at investigating it experimentally, they still believed it to be Whorf’s idea
alone. The idea behind the “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis” may have been popular-
ized riding on the back of Hayakawa’s publishing success, but in true relativistic
fashion the idea needed to be named to be fixed in the academic mass mind. The
term “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis” was likely first mentioned during a 1954 confer-
ence commemorating the lives and works of the two scholars in a paper read by a
linguist-anthropologist Harry Hoijer (Koerner 2003). However, what would truly
cement the term and much of the deterministic bent in its interpretation would
be the 1956 publication of the selected works of Benjamin Lee Whorf under the
title Language, Thought, and Reality edited by the psychologist John B. Carroll.
Carroll’s Introduction to the collection framed the interpretation of the whole
along the lines of “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis” rather than the linguistic relativity
principle (Carroll 1956). He traced the roots of Whorf’s thoughts on the subject
back to Sapir, credited both the teacher and the student with the development of
the principle, called it a hypothesis and implied a deterministic bent in his inter-
pretation of Whorf’s works. His argumentation was in this respect much akin to
Hayakawa’s rhetoric, though here it served as an introductory comment to a col-
lection of Whorf’s work framing the readers’ perception of the whole. This is all
the more significant as the grand majority of later publications would use Carroll’s
(1956) selection as the go-to source for Whorf’s works and as the major literature
source for the “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis.”
To summarize, neither Sapir nor Whorf developed the hypothesis that bears
their name. Their domain was anthropology, and they observed that given particu-
lar contextual (social, cultural, historical, environmental) configurations different
cultures will develop different languages (under their definition of “language”).
Linguistic relativity for them was an anthropological principle deduced from
observation and material evidence. The hypothesis under the definition used in
12 1 Emotional Relativity—Argument from Nurture

experimental psychology—a radical logical statement which is testable and falsi-

fiable—was a later creation. Developed, named, and even tested to an extent by
specialists from other fields—linguists and psychologists in the main, the hypoth-
esis became something entirely new, a vulgarized version of the original principle.
Simplified to fit the logical rigors of experimental methods and torn out of its dis-
ciplinary context, the linguistic relativity principle was replaced in the public and
academic imaginations with the “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis.” And though plentiful
criticism was rained down upon the “Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis” in its vulgarized
form, the linguistic relativity principle with all its subtleties continued to be a use-
ful research framing device in anthropology. An impressive body of evidence was
collected to illustrate the linguistic relativity principle in many areas of life for a
great variety of cultures. A substantial portion of the evidence covers the linguis-
tic relativity phenomena in the expression of emotions. As emotions are the main
focus of this book, I will go over some of the more interesting findings which
reveal the great variability the linguistic and cultural construction of emotions doc-
umented by anthropology in recent decades.

1.2.5 Relativity of Emotions in Syntactic Structures

Both Boas and Sapir believed emotions to be both pervasive and important anthro-
pological phenomena. Whorf largely omitted the subject of emotions in his works
but believed relativistic effects could and would be found on every level of lin-
guistic complexity. Sapir shared Boas’ belief that the natural channel for emotion
expression was nonverbal, but thought also that emotions could manifest them-
selves in the verbal channel and have a multitude of mental representations. Thus,
in accordance with the original linguistic relativity principle anthropologists could
reasonably expect to find relativistic effects across all functional levels of language
according to Morris’ trichotomy (Nöth 1995): syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
Of the three, syntax has been the most elusive vehicle for emotional expression
to investigate within the framework of linguistic relativity. Since the late 1950s
syntax has become almost exclusively the domain of Chomskyan linguistics which
did not encourage empirical field research into the relationship between emotions
and Universal Grammar (see Chap. 3 for further details). Anthropologists, due to
the nature of the conditions and situations they would normally work with, had
more interest in semantics and pragmatics. Therefore, what evidence there is for
relativistic effects in the emotional expression in syntactic structures is rather inci-
dental and fragmentary.
Tuvaluan is a language classified by UNESCO as a definitively endangered
(11,000 speakers in the year 2000). It is a Polynesian language spoken on the
island of Tuvalu and in a few locations on New Zealand. Besnier (1986) found
that in this language marking nouns ergatively or pseudo-ergatively expresses
extremely negative emotional attitude toward the object/person spoken of. Ergative
marking is an increasingly rare syntactic structure, whereby both the direct object
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781

Veratrum, use, in tumors of spinal sclerosis,

905

Verbigeration, in katatonia,

166

ERTIGO

416

Definition,

416

Diagnosis,
417

Etiology,

418

Blood-poisoning, influence of,

419

Excessive venery, influence of,

420

Mechanical causes,

426

of aural form,

421

of essential form,

426
 of gastric and senile form,

420

of laryngeal form,

425

of neurasthenic, hysteric, and anæmic forms,

425

of ocular form,

424

Prognosis and duration,

418

Symptoms,

416

420-426
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421

of essential form,

426

of gastric and senile form,

420

of laryngeal form,

425

of neurasthenic, hysteric, and anæmic forms,

425

of ocular form,

424

of status vertiginosus,

421
 Treatment,

426

Bromides and hydrobromic acid,

426-428

Cauterization, use of,

427

Diet,

427

428

Morphia, use,

426

427
 Nitrite of amyl and nitro-glycerin, use,

426

of aural form,

427

of gastric and senile form,

426

of optic form,

427

of status vertiginosus,

428

Quinia, use,

427

Vertigo, in abscess of the brain,

796

in cerebral anæmia,

777

783

in tumors of the brain,

1035

Vessels of cerebrum, changes in, in chronic alcoholism,

617

state of, in cerebral abscess,

793

Violence, significance of, in nervous diseases,

24
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511

Virchow on origin of progressive unilateral facial atrophy,

700

Visceral derangements of chronic alcoholism,

599

disturbances in diffuse sclerosis,

889

neuralgias,

1215

1237
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783

786

in diseases of the cervical sympathetic,

1264

in disseminated spinal sclerosis,

878

in epilepsy,

476

in neuralgias,

1214

in tabes dorsalis,
830-833

hallucinations of, in migraine,

1231

Vitreous degeneration of cerebral cortex in disseminated sclerosis,

882

Vomiting, hysterical,

254

in acute simple meningitis,

718

in anæmia of the brain,

777

783
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935

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713

in chronic hydrocephalus,

743

in chronic lead-poisoning,

684

in concussion of the brain,

908

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1117

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in the opium habit,

653

657-659

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725

729

in tumors of the brain,

1030

1034
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Wallerian degeneration,

1266

Washerwomen's anæsthesia,

1199

1201

Wasting diseases, influence on causation of copodyscinesia,

514

Water, hypodermically, in neuralgia,

1229

influence on causation of chronic lead-poisoning,

680

Wax-like flexibility in catalepsy,

321

337

Welsh fasting girl,

352

Westphal-Erb symptom of tabes dorsalis,

830

Wet pack, use, in neuralgia,

1223
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1038

and intellect, state of, in alcoholism,

625

Wines, character of intoxication from,

591

Wire brush, faradic, in spinal sclerosis,

904

Witchcraft, hysterical nature of,

226
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1016

Word-blindness, in hemiplegia,

959

in nervous diseases,

31

Word-deafness, in nervous diseases,

31

Worms, influence on causation of epilepsy,

471

Wrist-drop,
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504

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521
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526

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524

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522

523

from progressive muscular atrophy,

523

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526

Duration and course,

521
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505

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508

Action of muscles used in writing,

505

Age and sex, influence of,

512

513

Cigarette-smoking as a cause of,

512

Hereditary influence and nervous temperament,

513
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506

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511

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507-511

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514

Pathology and morbid anatomy,

526-530

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530

531