Metaphor, emotion, and intralinguistic cultural variation: metaphors of anger in European and Brazilian Portuguese

Assuming that emotions are socially and culturally constructed, this article compares the metaphorical conceptualization of anger in European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Individualistic versus collectivistic cultural influences determining the conceptual variation of anger in pluricentric Portuguese are examined. Adopting a sociocognitive view of language and developing a corpus-based and profile-based methodology, this study analyzes 610 examples of anger emotion as lexicalized in the nouns raiva anger, fria fury, ira anger/wrath, clera anger/wrath, and irritao irritation from a corpus of personal-experiential blogs. Cohering with insights from cross-cultural psychological research as well as with the findings of prior linguistic studies on anger, the study identifies the conceptual and cultural metaphorical profiles for anger in EP and BP national varieties. The qualitative and quantitative corpus- based analysis shows both the strong similarities as well as the subtle but relevant differences in the metaphorical conceptualization of anger in EP and BP. The two national varieties have the same metaphorical conceptual structuring of the anger emotion, but there are conceptual differences, and these differences are influenced by culture. EP appears to be more associated with the metaphorically construed attempted regulation and a more internalized expression of anger, which is in line with the more collectivistic and restrained culture of Portugal. In contrast, BP is more connected with the metaphorically unrestrained and open manifestation of anger as affirmation of the self. This correlation is in line with the more individualistic, indulgent, and emotionally expressive culture of Brazil. Accordingly, BP appears to be more akin to metaphorically construed high intensity of anger, while the somatization of anger is more fitting in EP.