Slavic 426 Ways of Feeling:
Expression of Emotions
across Languages and Cultures
Winter 2016
Instructor: Katarzyna
Dziwirek Telephone: 543-7691
Office: Padelford A217 e-mail: dziwirek@uw.edu
Office Hours: Tue and Thu 1:30-2:20 and by appointment
Class website: http://faculty.washington.edu/dziwirek/slav426/slavic426.shtml
Materials:
ð
Textbook:
& Wierzbicka, Anna. 1999. Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ð
Novel:
& Haden Elgin, Suzette. 2000. Native Tongue. New York: The Feminist Press.
ð
Readings on canvas
Learning objectives/goals:
1. Learning about the diversity of cultural
attitudes to emotions
2. Learning about the diversity of linguistic
expressions of emotions
3. Learning a culture-free semantic description
4. Emotions as evolving concepts over time
Requirements:
uReadings:
This is a reading-intensive course. Do not let this scare you! The readings are
v. good! You will learn much! Start reading Native Tongue right away, so
that you are ready to discuss it in week 10. All readings are in English, and no prior specialized knowledge of Slavic
languages or linguistics is required. Reading
the texts discussed in the class prior to that class is a must.
vClass Participation: You should be prepared to discuss assigned texts in class. Don’t just read, think about what you are reading and have an opinion! This class works when people care about what they have read and want to talk about it.
w
Short research projects (no
email submissions, spacing irrelevant, citations required, good writing
encouraged, best papers will be posted on the class website/canvas)
#1
Attitudes to Emotions in your culture (January 26) Does your culture encourage emotional expression? What emotions are
appropriate to display in public by men, women, children? What physical
correlates of emotion are “allowed”: loud laughter, wailing, weeping, jumping
for joy, etc.? What do restrictions on emotional expression tell us about the
underlying cultural values? (3-4 pages) See examples on the class website.
#2
Embodied emotions/The human face There
are two parts to this project: 1) Start developing a collection of authentic
emotion expressions (no models grinning at the paparazzi). It can be on paper
or electronic (10 points). Bring your collection to class on February 2 to
discuss and test others’ ability to recognize facial correlates of emotions. 2)
Analyze what features of the face and body convey a specific emotion most clearly
and what different images of one emotion have in common. Can different emotions
have similar facial expressions? Due February 11 (2-3 pages, 20 points) See
examples on the class website.
#3 Special emotion words in your language (February 23). Does “your language” have unique emotion words? If so, discuss and define them. If not, comment on how concepts discussed in the readings in weeks 5 and 6 relate to words and concepts in your language. (3-4 pages)
#4 “Anger” in your language (March 10)
How do people talk about anger in “your
language”? What are the key words, expressions and metaphors. When is it
appropriate to display anger in your culture? Who can show anger in public?
(3-4 pages) See examples on the class website.
# 5 Emotions: Universal or
Culture-Specific? (March 15) This
is the final project, a reflection on the course themes, the readings, class
discussions, and your conclusions about them: where do you stand on the
existence of universal/basic human emotions? Do people from different cultural
and linguistic backgrounds feel anger, love, pity, sadness, etc. differently partially
due to the language they speak? their gender? Or do we all, due to our shared
heritage as human beings, experience emotions similarly? The paper should reflect
what you learned in the class and refer to the readings and class discussions.
(5-6 pages)
Honors students:
Term
paper (7-10 pages) INSTEAD OF SHORT PAPER #5: You should discuss your project
with the instructor and by February 18 email
the instructor with your topic and three references (at least 2 print) you plan to use. See the class website for hints
on How to write a research paper, consult the Selected References
file, and check out Past student paper topics. The final project
includes an oral presentation of your research with a handout on March 10 and
12. Students who receive a course grade of 3.9 or higher are encouraged to
submit their papers for consideration for the Slavic Department’s Excellence
Prize ($$$). Papers due March 15.
No email submissions, no extensions, yes incompletes.
Slavic
426 and CHID 498B students may
choose to write a final term paper instead of short project #5. If they elect
to do so, they should follow the guidelines above.
Honors students are encouraged to archive
items from this course in their Honors learning portfolios. Readings, lecture
notes, visual materials, music, poems, syllabi, tests, papers, etc., are
examples of items that might assist with reflection on experiential learning
and ways of thinking within and across disciplines. The Honors electronic
learning portfolios span students’ undergraduate years and are best used as an
ongoing, dynamic forum for the integration of knowledge. In addition to
archiving items, students are also asked to take a few minutes to write-up a
paragraph or two describing the significance of the archived items and how what
they learned in the course contributed to their larger experiences, goals, and
thoughts about education and learning.
Grading:
Final grade based on the number of points achieved and class participation. Total points = 160: short research projects #1-4 = 120 (4 x 30), short research project #5= 40. Honors students: Total points 200: short research projects #1-4 = 120 (4 x 30), term paper = 80 (paper =50, presentation = 15, handout = 15). Slav 426 students who chose to do the final paper instead of short research project #5 = 200 points.
Slavic 426:
Course Outline and Reading List
T = textbook
WEEK 1: What
are emotions? How do people talk about them?
January 5
Introduction to the course themes and topics
January 7
T Chapters 1, 2 (Introduction, Defining emotional concepts)
WEEK
2: Introduction to Metaphor,
Cultural Attitudes to Emotion
January
12
Zoltan Kovecses, Metaphor and Emotion Chapters 1-2
Eric G. Wilson,
Against Happiness: Introduction and Conclusion
Anna Wierzbicka, “Happiness” in cross-linguistic & cross-cultural perspective
Ruth Whippman, America the Anxious (NYT)
January 14
T Chapter 6 (Emotional norms across languages and cultures: Polish vs. Anglo-American)
Dmitrij Dobrvol’skij and Elisabeth Piirainen, Idioms of FEAR: A Cognitive Approach
WEEK
3: Cultural Attitudes to Emotion
January
19
Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama, The Cultural Construction of Self and Emotion: Implications for Social Behavior
Rie Hasada, Cultural Scripts: glimpses into the Japanese emotion world
Ake Daun, Swedishness as an Obstacle in Cross-Cultural Interaction
January 21
Wendy
Langford, Bunnikins, I love you snuggly
in your warren
Richard Wilkins and Elisabeth Gareis, Emotion expression and the locution ‘‘I love
you’’: A cross-cultural study
Catherine, Caldwell-Harris, et al. Do more say less: Saying “I love you” in
Chinese and American
cultures
WEEK
4: Physical Correlates of Emotions
January
26
· Part of Human Language video
T Chapter 5 (Russian emotional expression)
T Chapter 4 (Reading Human Faces)
Lisa Feldman Barrett, What faces can’t tell us (NYT)
!
Short research project #1 due
January
28
Cenita
Kupperbusch, et al. Cultural
Influences on Nonverbal Expressions of Emotion
Zhengdao Ye, Why the “inscrutable” Chinese face? Emotionality and facial expression in Chinese
Ning Yu, Metaphor,
Body and Culture: The Chinese understanding of gallbladder and courage
Iwona Kraska-Szlenk, Metaphor and metonymy in the semantics of body parts
· Videos
on body language and gesture
WEEK
5: Emotional Diversity? Culture-Specific Conceptualizations of Emotions
February 2
$ Discussion of image collections
Anna Wierzbicka, Semantics, Culture, and Cognition, Chapter 3 (Are emotions universal or culture specific?)
February 4
Anna Wierzbicka, Semantics, Culture, and Cognition, Chapter 4 (Describing the Indescribable)
WEEK
6: Culture-Specific Conceptualizations of Emotions continued
February 9
Catherine Travis, Omoiyari
as a core Japanese value: Japanese style empathy?[1]
Rie Hasada, Two
“virtuous emotions” in Japanese: Nasake/joo and jihi
Irina B. Levontina and Anna A. Zalizniak: Human Emotions
viewed through the Russian language
Monika Bednarek and Wolfram Bublitz, Enjoy!: The (phraseological) culture of having fun
February 11
T Chapter 3 (German Angst)
Cliff Goddard, ‘Hati’: a key word in the Malay vocabulary
Ning Yu, The Chinese conceptualization of the heart and its cultural context
Anna Wierzbicka, A culturally salient Polish emotion:
‘przykro’
Ethan Watters, Suffering Differently (NYT)
! Short research project #
2 due
WEEK 7: The Linguistics of Emotions: Do Parts of Speech Matter?
Universal Human Emotions? The Case of “Anger”
February
16
Anna Wierzbicka, Adjectives vs. verbs: the iconicity of
part-of-speech membership
Anna D. Mostovaja, On emotions that one can “immerse into”, “fall into”, and “come to”: the semantics of a few Russian prepositional constructions
Meredith Osmond, The prepositions we use in the construal of emotion: Why do we say fed up with but sick and tired of? (p. 111-134)
Marika Kalyuga, On syntactic patterns of verbs for surprise and delight
February
18
Anna Wierzbicka, “Sadness” and “anger” in Russian: The non-universality of the so-called “basic human emotions”
George Lakoff and Zoltán Kövecses,
The cognitive model of anger inherent in
American English
Uwe Durst, Why Germans don’t feel “anger”
!
Email instructor with term paper
topic and 3 references (at least 2 print)
WEEK
8 Universal Human Emotions? The Case of “Anger”
Emotions across Time
February
23
Agnieszka Mikołajczuk, The metonymic and metaphorical
conceptualization of anger in Polish
John R. Taylor and Thandi G. Mbense, Red dogs and rotten mealies: How Zulus talk about anger
Keiko Matsuki, Metaphors
of anger in Japanese
Pawel Kornacki, Concepts of anger in Chinese
! Short research project #3 due
February
25
Rom Harre and Robert Finlay-Jones, Emotion Talk across Times
Dirk Geeraerts and Stefan Grondelaers, Looking back at anger. Cultural traditions and metaphorical patterns
Carol Stearns, ‘Lord
help me walk humbly’: Anger and Sadness in England and America 1570-1750
Marika Kalyuga, Antonina Harbus, Expressing Love in English and Russian: Common and Language-Specific
Features
WEEK 9 Emotions across Time
Are There Gender-Specific Emotions?
March
3
From Peter Stearns, American Cool: Constructing a Twentieth-Century Emotional Style
Chapter 7 “Impersonal but Friendly”: Causes of the New Emotional Style
Chapter 8 The Impact of the New Standards: Controlling Intensity in Real Life
Chapter 9 The Need for Outlets:
Reshaping American Leisure
March
5
Stephanie Shields, Doing emotion/doing gender: practicing in
order to get it right
Michelle C. Alexander and Wendy Wood, Women, men and positive emotions: A social role interpretation
Robyn Fivush and Janine F. Buckner, Gender, sadness, and depression: The development of emotional focus through gendered discourse
Marianne LaFrance and Marvin A. Hecht, Option or Obligation to Smile: The Effects of Power and Gender on
Facial Expression
WEEK
10: Native Tongue and summary
of course themes
Presentations of term research
papers with handouts
March
10
Discussion of Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue
Elisabeth Mahoney, Claiming the speakwrite: linguistic subversion in the feminist distopia
T Chapter 7 (Emotional Universals)
Presentations of term papers
! Short research project #
4 due
March
12
Presentations of term papers
Course evaluations
FINALS
WEEK:
March
15
Research
project #5 and term papers due by noon in Padelford A210
No
email submissions, no extensions, yes incompletes.
[1] Those interested in Japanese emotion words should see Wierzbicka’s Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words, Chapter 6 (Japanese Key Words and Core Cultural Values).