Figurative language in anger expressions in Tunisian Arabic: An extended view of embodiment

Figurative Language in AngerExpressions in Tunisian Arabic: An

Extended View of Embodiment

Zouhair MaalejDepartment of English

University of Manouba-Tunis

The work of Lakoff (1987), Lakoff and Kövecses (1987), and Kövecses (1990,2000a, 2002) on anger situates it within the bounds of “PHYSIOLOGICALEFFECTS OF AN EMOTION STAND FOR THE EMOTION,” thus implying a uni-versal form of physiological embodiment for anger. The main contribution of this ar-ticle is that anger in Tunisian Arabic (TA) shows many more dimensions of embodi-ment than physiological embodiment. Anger in TA comes as physiologicalembodiment, culturally specific embodiment, and culturally tainted embodiment.Similar to English, physiological embodiment yields expressions of anger where thepart of the body used for conceptualization is also actually physiologically affected.Culturally specific embodiment involves parts of the body that are culturally corre-lated with the emotion of anger. Culturally tainted embodiment uses animal behav-iors and cultural ecological features to taint physiologically embodied anger expres-sions. These types of embodiment are shown to generally correlate physiology-basedanger with metonymy, and culture-based anger with metaphor.

The cognitive literature on anger is mostly dominated by the view that its concep-tualization in many languages depends on embodiment (Kövecses, 1995, 2000b;Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff & Kövecses, 1987; Yu, 1995, 1998), which is given an almostexclusively physiological bearing. The main thrust of this article is that anger inTunisian Arabic (TA), one of the dialects of Arabic, is only partly governed byphysiological embodiment. Aware of the restrictedness of a purely physiologicalview of embodiment, Kövecses, Palmer, and Dirven (2002) argue that studies ofemotions must “blend universal experiences of physiological functions with cul-

METAPHOR AND SYMBOL, 19(1), 51–75Copyright © 2004, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Zouhair Maalej, Dept of English, University ofManouba-Tunis, 2010 Manouba-Tunis, Tunisia. E-mail: [email protected]

turally specific models and interpretations” (p. 135). Such a blend becomes imper-ative, because “emotions are experienced as psychological states evoked by socialand/or physiological events, or by psychological events, but perhaps most typi-cally by social events” (Kövecses, Palmer, & Dirven, 2002, p. 135). The study ofanger in this article fully reflects this trend.

According to the “PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN EMOTION STANDFOR THE EMOTION,” emotions are actually the direct causes of their own con-ceptualization. Such a link between emotion per se and conceptualization can becaptured in the following statement: “When a cause produces an effect, it is com-mon to find the effect physically near the cause” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 218).In other words, in this particular case the conceptualization of an emotion is physi-ologically embodied because the effect talked about is a physical state produced inthe body by the emotion in question. Thus, because anger is known to cause, for in-stance, heat to mount in the body, this physiological effect of anger is likely to bethe basis for its conceptualization in many languages. However, this explains onlythe portion of the emotion whose conceptualization comes as a result of a physicalcause-effect relation. There may exist emotions for which there is no known partic-ular part of the body receiving any physiological change to it as a result of the emo-tion. To extrapolate from this, when the conceptualization of an emotion does notcome as a result of a physical cause-effect relation, the conceptualization and theemotion are not physically close, which gives room for other kinds of embodiment.

LAKOFF AND KÖVECSES’ SCENARIO OF ANGER

Anger has received ample treatment within cognitive linguistics. For a comprehen-sive account, readers are referred to Kövecses (1990, 1995, 2000b, 2002), Lakoff(1987), Lakoff and Kövecses (1987), and Lakoff and Johnson (1999). Kövecses(2002) documented languages as diverse as Chinese, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish,Tahitian, Wolof, and Zulu. His research has served to ascertain physiologicallybased embodiment as a motivation for the conceptualization of emotions.

Lakoff and Kövecses (1987) consider anger as “an extremely complex concep-tual structure ” (pp. 195–196) and argue that Americans make use of a folk modelfor the expression of anger governed by the container metaphor. Lakoff (1987)summed up the physiological effects of anger as “increased body heat, increasedinternal pressure (blood pressure, muscular pressure), agitation, and interferencewith accurate perception” (p. 381). Kövecses (1995) explained that the model de-scribes three submetaphors: “THE BODY IS A CONTAINER FOR THEEMOTIONS” (e.g., He was “filled with” anger), “ANGER IS HEAT” (e.g., He“lost his cool”), and “EMOTIONS ARE FLUIDS” (e.g., You make “my bloodboil”) (p. 184). The submetaphors are subsumed under the metonymic principle,“THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN EMOTION STAND FOR THE

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EMOTION.” Kövecses (1995) explained that “this naturalness of the containermetaphor for anger seems to arise from the embodiment of our conceptualizationsof anger” (p. 195).

Drawing on Lakoff and Kövecses (1987), Lakoff (1987) offers the followingprototypical anger scenario for American English:

• Stage 1: Offending event, where a wrongdoer offends the speaker by initiat-ing an offending event/act.

• Stage 2: Anger. S experiences physiological effects (heat, pressure, agita-tion). Anger exerts force on S to attempt an act of retribution.

• Stage 3: Attempt at control. S attempts to control his anger.• Stage 4: Loss of control. When the intensity of anger goes beyond that limit,

S can no longer control his anger.• Stage 5: Act of retribution (pp. 397–398).

The major argument behind this scenario view of anger is that the various meta-phors used to conceptualize it could be shown to pertain to the different stages ofthe scenario. Gibbs (1994) provides evidence for the reality of these stages by em-pirically testing the sequence of some idioms for anger, concluding that conjoiningreversed idioms of a prototype of anger yields pragmatically unacceptable con-structions as in: He “flipped his lid,” but it didn’t “get on his nerves” (p. 298).

Illustrations of the different parts of the scenario of anger in American Englishare as follows:

Body heatDon’t get “hot under the collar.”

Internal pressureWhen I found out, I almost “burst a blood vessel.”

Redness in the faceShe was “scarlet with rage.”

AgitationShe “was shaking with anger.”

Interference with accurate perceptionShe was “blind with rage.” (Lakoff, 1987, pp. 382–383)

Apart from the “THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN EMOTIONSTAND FOR THE EMOTION,” Kövecses (2000b) added two other conceptualmetaphors that seem to govern anger in American English, namely, “AN ANGRYPERSON IS A FUNCTIONING MACHINE” and “ANGER IS A SOCIALSUPERIOR.” Reconsidering the anger scenario in light of new cross-linguistic ev-idence, Kövecses (2000a, 2000b) argued for a schematic generic-level metaphorgoverning all emotions, namely, “EMOTIONS ARE FORCES” (Kövecses, 2000b,

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p. 149). Kövecses (2000a, p. 148) pertinently isolates “cause → emotion” (That“kindled” my ire) and “emotion → response” (He was “overcome” by passion)specific-level metaphors, whose first term is said to function as the force schema.Such metaphoric framework is indeed so general and appealing that it can be usedto explain many emotions cross-culturally.

Lakoff (1987) argued that the scenario view of anger in American Englishmust have “made sense to hundreds of millions of English speakers over a pe-riod of roughly a thousand years” (p. 407), strongly suggesting a universal statusfor physiology in emotion concepts. Furthermore, Lakoff and Kövecses (1987)claimed that “if we look at the metaphors and metonymies for anger in the lan-guages of the world, we will not find any that contradict the physiological resultsthat they [the Ekman group] found” (p. 220) that amounts to a claim for the uni-versality of an anger scenario based on the nervous system and physiology.Studying a corpus of Old and Middle English for anger-related concepts,Gevaert (2001) was able to show that the heat conceptualization of anger wasonly popular between 850 and 950, almost lost ground between 950 and 1050(because of competition from the stronger swell conceptualization), and onlyre-emerged as of 1400, which corresponds to the advent of the humoral doctrine.She concluded that, although there was a noticeable change in lexical fields inthe expression of anger, the conceptual domains show relative stability aroundconcepts other than heat, which means that the (discontinuity) of the heat con-ceptualization of anger is cultural not universal.

Generalizing from the study of anger in American English, Chinese, Hungar-ian, Japanese, Tahitian, Wolof, and Zulu, Kövecses (1995) argued that anger is“strongly motivated by bodily experience,” which “can be viewed as a constrainingfactor that delimits the possible metaphorical systems of anger” (p. 191). Replyingto Geeraerts and Grondelaers’ (1995) criticisms of Lakoff and Kövecses’ scenarioof anger, Kövecses (1995) argued that “it is a mistake to identify and globally char-acterize our account of the container metaphor for anger in English as a physiol-ogy-based account” (p. 184). A look at embodiment in the following section ascer-tains the status of embodiment as used in the literature.

THE EMBODIMENT HYPOTHESIS

With the advent of the cognitive sciences, thought and reason have been found tobe embodied, which gave rise to the embodiment hypothesis. Johnson (1987) ar-gued that

the centrality of human embodiment directly influences what and how things can bemeaningful for us, the ways in which these meanings can be developed and articu-

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lated, the ways we are able to comprehend and reason about experience, and the ac-tions we take. (p. xiv)

Cognitive linguistics is one of the very few current theories of linguistics to havegiven a place to the body in the mind, thought, meaning, and reason. This concep-tion of embodiment is inherent in the fact that we have a body. Lakoff and Johnson(1999) argued that

The mind is not merely embodied, but embodied in such a way that our conceptualsystems draw largely upon the commonalities of our bodies and of the environmentswe live in. The result is that much of a person’s conceptual system is either universalor widespread across languages and cultures. (p. 6)

Conceptual embodiment is “the idea that the properties of certain categories are aconsequence of the nature of the human biological capacities and of the experienceof functioning in a physical and social environment” (Lakoff, 1987, p. 12).

As the embodiment hypothesis is still at its beginnings, there is not much writ-ten about it. For instance, Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991) gave a conceptionof embodiment using a Buddhist conception, where “body and mind have beenbrought together” (p. 27). Although this conception of embodiment unifies bodyand mind, it may not be very helpful for the researcher looking for neat typologiesof embodiment to apply to data. Some other views of embodiment are reviewed inwhat follows:

Our concept of anger is embodied via the autonomic nervous system and that the con-ceptual metaphors and metonymies used in understanding anger are by no means ar-bitrary; instead they are motivated by our physiology. (Lakoff, 1987, p. 407)

Embodiment occurs when it is really the case that my temperature and blood pressurerise. This is what makes studies of human physiology during emotional states cru-cially relevant for cognitive approaches to the study of the language and conceptualsystems of emotion. (Kövecses, 1995, pp. 191–192; 2000b, p. 159)

Here we have independently manipulable spaces for the emotion of anger and bodilystates. We also have a conventional cultural notion of their relationship, based on cor-relation: People often do get flushed and shake when they are angry. (Fauconnier &Turner, 2002, p. 300)

These three characterizations of embodiment clearly agree on embodiment asthe outcome of the relation between anger as a mental state and its direct bodily re-flection. However, Fauconnier and Turner described it also as a function of correla-tion between anger as a mental state and conventional cultural association. Such acorrelation is important in capturing what I call cultural embodiment in this article.


Lakoff and Johnson (1999) distinguished three levels of embodiment: neural,phenomenological, and the cognitive unconscious level. The neural level is thelevel of neurochemistry and cellular physiology. It is the physical interface of con-cepts and cognitive operations. It is often talked about metaphorically as “neuralcircuitry” by analogy to a computer circuitry. The phenomenological level is theconscious part of our thought. It is the experiential level of “our mental states, ourbodies, our environment, and our physical and social interactions” (p. 103). Thecognitive unconscious level includes “all aspects of linguistic processing—pho-netics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse” (p.103). These neural, phenomenological, and cognitive unconscious levels of em-bodiment do not seem to offer different types of embodiment. The neural levelseems to capture an important portion of conceptualization. However, thephenomenological and the cognitive unconscious levels seem to say very littleabout the relation between these levels and the conceptualization of experience. Inother words, although the neural level does tell us about an important type of em-bodiment (i.e., physiological embodiment), the others only tell us about how weare only conscious of a small portion of our cognitive operations.

The question that the data from TA raise is the following: If physiological em-bodiment were the only conception of embodiment, would conceptualizations ofanger (or another emotion) still count as embodied if they happen to explicitly usea body part not involving physiological change? If the answer is positive, then atheory of embodiment has to embrace more than physiology. Embodiment is also afunction of cultural correlation between a given emotion and its cultural bearing.Because nonphysiological embodiment exists alongside the physiological in manycultures (Tunisian Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Zulu, etc.), the conception of em-bodiment needs to be broadened.

The data from languages that confirm the existence of embodied emotions actu-ally show them to be physiologically embodied, which will be called for the pur-poses of this article physiological embodiment. This phenomenon accounts for theconceptualization of the majority of abstract concepts in an overwhelming major-ity of languages and cultures. However, TA (together with other languages), for in-stance, includes emotion expressions where the basic-level category capitalized onis a body part that is not actually involved in any physiological change to the body.This kind of embodiment will be labeled culturally specific embodiment. TA alsoincludes emotion expressions that may exist as physiologically embodied. How-ever the basic-level category is culture specific, thus tainting the emotion with acultural flavor. This type of embodiment will be called culturally tainted embodi-ment. It should be noted that such distinctions are not meant as dichotomies, be-cause even physiological embodiment is cultural in nature, in that the way physio-logically embodied anger is conceptualized cross-culturally is a function of eachculture. It may be, for instance, exclusively specific to the Chinese culture to con-

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ceptualize agitation in the case of anger in terms of “the hair pushing up the hat”(Yu, 1998, p. 57).

ANGER EXPRESSIONS IN TUNISIAN ARABIC

As has been shown, the literature on anger is mostly dominated by the view that itsconceptualization comes as a set of physiological metonymies that can be capturedunder the conceptual metonymy, “THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ANEMOTION STAND FOR THE EMOTION” (Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff & Kövecses,1987; Kövecses, 1995, 2000b; Yu, 1995). Starting from the uniform conceptual-izations of anger in diverse languages, Kövecses (1995) convincingly argued thatsuch uniformity cannot be explained on cultural grounds only and stressed the ideaof the embodiment of anger, which “appears to constrain … the kinds of metaphorsthat can emerge as viable conceptualizations of anger” (p. 192). Although theremust be no quarrel with this dimension of anger as attested in many languages,physiological embodiment is not the only motivation for anger, as is discussedshortly.

Anger Expressions and Physiological Embodiment

As physiological embodiment, anger in TA comes partly as a set of metonymiesthat can be subsumed under “PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN EMOTIONSTAND FOR THE EMOTION.” TA conceptualizes anger according to the concep-tual metonymy, “ANGER IS THE HEAT OF A FLUID IN A CONTAINER” as inthe following examples:

(1)(a) Talla3-l-i id-damm l-raaS-i.[He] lift-PERF to me the blood to head my.He lifted blood up to my head.I was flushed with anger.

(b) rawwib-l-i damm-i[He] half-boil-PERF to me (like an egg) blood my.He made my blood half-boil like a half cooked egg.He made my blood simmer.

(c) xallaa-l-i damm-i yaRli[He] leave-PERF to me blood my boiling.He left my blood to boil.


He made my blood boil.

(d) fawwar-l-i damm-i.[He] steam-PERF to me blood my.He made my blood steam.I was fuming.

(e) Haraq-l-i damm-i.[He] burn-PERF to me blood my.He burnt my blood to me.He made my blood burn.

(f) rikkib-l-i id-damm il-faasid.[He] put-PERF on to me the blood the bad.He put on bad blood to me.He raised my blood pressure.

(g) in3al iš-šiTaan w barrid damm-ik.IMP-chase the Satan and imp-cool blood your.Chase Satan, and cool your blood down.Cool down/Chill out.

The fluid in question is blood, whose level is raised to the head as in (1a). Consis-tent with the heat in a container, anger is said to make blood simmer (1b), boil (1c),fume (1d), and even burn (1e). The quality of blood associated with anger is “stale”as in (1f). Because anger is heat, the antidote to anger is for blood to cool down asin (1g). It should be noted that simmering in (1b) does not actually capture whathappens to the blood of anger in TA. In our culture, the verb rawwib denotes a mid-dle ground between liquidity and solidity. The name raayib – a kind of buttermilk –is halfway between milk and butter or cheese. So, blood thickening couldcognitively explain the intensity of anger as moving on a scale of liquidity andhalf-solidity.

Anger as a Solid Substance in a Container

Interestingly, beside the anger-as-a-fluid-in-a-container, TA also offers “ANGERIS THE HEAT OF A SOLID IN A CONATAINER” as in the following:

(2)(a) rawwibl-i muxxi.[He] half-boil-PERF (like an egg) to me brain my.He half-boiled my brain to me like a half cooked egg.

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He caused my brain to cook like a half-boiled egg.

(b) Haraq-l-i muxx-i.[He] burn-PERF to me brain my.He burnt my brain to me.He caused my brain to burn.

The solid substance here is the brain. The brain’s solid state seems to preclude someanger expressions from occurring. For instance, the brain boiling is not a possiblemetaphor as boiling is predicated of liquid substances. The heat-of-a-solid-sub-stance only allows the brain to half-cook (2a) or to burn (2b). When heat comes intocontact with a solid substance, the result is the impossibility for that substance to goback to its initial state. When rawwib (half-cook) is used with muxx (brain) as in (2a),the intensity of anger is more marked than when anger is conceptualized in liquid(blood) terms. Experientially, when rawwib collocates with “blood,” the conse-quence is that, although the heat presupposed in rawwib is the same with blood and“brain,” blood will be said to be boiling but not to the point where all of it evaporatesor turns solid. However, when rawwib collocates with brain, the outcome is that thebrain simmers (or thickens further) under the influence of heat. More important, thebrain metaphor for anger signifies that anger is in the head.

The Heart as a Container for Anger

So far, it has been confirmed that TA considers the body as a container for anger.However, the anger that TA fills the body with is liquid and solid. This is, however,not the whole story about anger expressions in TA. Another very important way inwhich anger is conceptualized revolves around the heart as a container for anger asin the following expressions:

(3)(a) qalb-i y-TafTaf.Heart my IMPERF-slosh.My heart is sloshing.My heart is sloshing with anger.

(b) qalb-i t3abba minn-u.Heart my fill-PERF from him.My heart was full from him.I have enough of him.

(c) ma bqa 3and-i ma yitzaadNo left with me no [it] add-PASS.


There is no more room for anything to be added [into my heart].I have had enough of it.

(d) ma lqayt faaš nfarraR qalb-iNo [I] find-PERF where [I] empty heart my.There was nowhere for me to pour out my heart.There was no one for me to pour my heart out to.

(e) qalb-i maši y-taršaq.Heart my [it] go-FUT explode-IMPERF.My heart is going to explode.I’m going to explode.

In Maalej (1999), it was noted that the logic of containment does not precludethe parts of the body themselves from functioning as subcontainers within thebody-as-a-container metaphor. As part of the body, the heart in many languagesis a container for many emotions, especially love, happiness, sorrow, and so on.In TA, the heart is also used to talk about fear, generosity, hatred, love, but not aselaborately as with anger. In (3a), anger is beginning to submerge the heart ascan be understood from the noise (TafTaf: sloshing) made by liquids filling con-tainers. The heart sloshing with anger, which also indexes filling, predicts explo-sion. In (3b), the heart is already filled with anger. In (3c), the speaker describeshimself or herself as incapable of coping anymore with the amount of anger, andin (3d) the speaker is signaling that they are on the verge of retribution butwould need someone to avenge themselves in. In (3e), it seems that the heart isundergoing pressure inside it because of too much anger, which would make iton the brink of explosion. So, the heart is exactly like a mini container within thebody-as-a-container, where anger inside it is a fluid that can fill it up partially orfully and that can overflow. As the heart can be filled with anger, it can also berelieved of its contents by emptying one’s angry in someone else as in (3d).

The heart-as-a-container for anger is experientially motivated, as attested by(3a-e), by the concept of “well” in the Tunisian culture. As required by the natureof the weather, wells are vital devices for the collection of water. However, al-though water in the culture acquires an almost sacred dimension as attested bytalking about wasting water as a sin, plenty of water in a well might be damaging.Thus, if a well is full beyond a certain level, it might crack or explode. This is whymost wells are equipped with a safety pipe that is constructed to let out water if itreaches a certain level in the well. Accordingly, the heart is described as having alimited capacity for tolerance, beyond which the contents of it would make it ex-plode. It should be noted that an overflow of anger in this connection does not existin TA, as it is not part of the entailments of the mapping between well and heart.Emptying/pumping out the contents of the well from time to time is done for clean-

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ing purposes. By implication, emptying the heart of its anger as in (3d) has a reliev-ing effect on the heart.

This heart-as-a-well metaphor for anger in TA is echoed by other instances ofmetaphoric expressions where a person may be conceptualized as a bottomlesswell as in:

(4)flaan biir bla qaa3.X well without bottom.X is a well without a bottom.X is a secretive and uncomplaining person.

However, even though conceived as a well, the heart remains a heart in relation tothe more spacious body-as-a-container for emotions. It is interesting to link this toanother metaphor of generosity in TA using the heart as a target, as in “flaan qalbukbiir” (X has a big heart), which coincides with the English “big heart.” As Taylorand Mbense (1998) pointed out for Zulu, the heart as a locus for anger entails thatpersons who have a big heart are more likely to control their anger, in that theirheart is understood to be spacious enough to contain a maximum amount of anger.Lack of generosity is described by “flaan qalbu SRiir” (X has a small heart),which means that they are mean. Obviously, someone whose heart is small may beless capable of containing anger. Thus, the metaphoric bigness of the heart seemsto stand for broadening the container image schema of anger by bringing elasticityto its boundaries.

As a competitor to the body-as-a-container, the heart-as-a-container for anger iscomparatively limited in the kind of metaphors it allows. As observed earlier, al-though the former allows a combination of heat and pressure to take place withinthe body, the latter only allows the container image schema to prevail for the obvi-ous reason that the size of the heart is smaller compared to that of the body. As aconsequence, cognitively anger that is conceptualized in the heart is more impor-tant than that conceptualized in the body, because the allowable amount of anger inthe heart is definitely smaller than the amount that the body can accommodate. Asnoted earlier in connection with anger and the heart, people who are said to havebig hearts are likely to take in more anger than those who have a small one. In thissense, the two models can be seen as complementary rather than exclusive, withthe whole body as expressing less intense anger than the heart does.

The Nerves as a Container for Anger

Apart from the body and the heart as containers for anger in TA, our folk concep-tion of anger also includes nerves as in the following cases:


(5)(a) Haraq-l-i 3Saab-i.[He] burn-PERF to me nerves my.He burnt my nerves for me.He burnt my nerves.

(b) fallaq-l-i 3-Saab-i[He] destroy-PERF to me nerves my.He destroyed my nerves to me.He destroyed my nerves.

(c) wittar-l-i 3Saab-i.[He] swell-PERF to menerves my.He swelled my nerves for me.He made my nerves swell.

(d) rikkib-l-i il-3Sabb[He] put on-PERF to me the nerves.He made me have nerves.I was a bundle of nerves.

(e) 3Saab-i filtit min-ni.Nerves my escape-PERF from me.My nerves escaped from me.My nerves let me down.

(f) ma 3aadiš 3and-i 3-SaabNot anymore with me nerves.I have no more nerves.I don’t have the nerve for it anymore.

(g) 3Saab-i ma 3aadiš titHammil.Nerves my not anymore FEM-stand-IMPERF.My nerves cannot stand.My nerves cannot stand this anymore.

The nerves domain does not constitute as elaborate a domain for anger as thebody or heart. In (5a), anger is conceptualized as the result of heat/fire onnerves, which brings about burning to the nerves. In (5b–d), anger is conceptual-ized more or less like a disease, which destroys and makes the nerves swellwhen we get angry. An alternative or complementary analysis might be that thedestruction and swelling occur under pressure exerted on nerves from the rest of

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the body. It could be that blood exerts pressure on the body’s arteries, which getswollen as a result. The rest of the examples (5e–g) conceptualize anger as lossof control. Thus, anger in this case seems to be the outcome of pressure exertedby the body on nerves.

Anger as Internal Pressure in a Container

Anger in TA is not only the heat of a fluid/liquid in the body, the heart, and nerves,but also internal pressure in a container as in the following expressions:

(6)(a) ma-bqaaš 3and-i wayn ydur ir-riiH.No exist with me where circulate-IMPERF the wind.There is no more room for air to circulate inside me.I could barely keep it in anymore.

(b) xalla-ni maaši n-taršaqt.[He] leave-PERF me about go-FUT [I] explode-IMPERF.He left me about to explode.I nearly exploded because of him.

(c) lqayt-u kšakš-u xaarja.[I] find-PERF him foams his out.I found his foams coming out.He was foaming at the mouth.

(d) taršaq-l-u 3irq.[It] explode-PERF to him vein.A vein exploded in him.He blew a blood vessel.

(e) flaq-l-i/fqa3-l-i murr-ti.[He] explode-PERF to me bile my.He exploded my bile to me.He made my bile explode.

(f) Talla3-l-i iT-Tabbu.[He] lift-PERF to me the lid.He lifted the lid to me.He made me explode.

(c) muxx-i tla33 min raaS-i.


Brain my leave-PERF from head my.My brain left my head.

Because anger is conceptualized as pressure in the body, (6a) talks about the con-tainer being so full that even air has no room to move freely. This signals that theangry person is about to explode as in (6b). In (6f), we have a bottle container as in-dicated by iT-Tabbu (the lid of the bottle), where the image-schematic structure(UP) apparent in verb “Talla3” signals the beginning of an explosion. Experien-tially, the body is conceived of as a closed bottle where heat exerts pressure on thelid, making the whole container explode. Examples (6d) and (6e) witness the samekind of explosion. However, such miniexplosions internal to the body conceptual-ize less intense anger because they are not visible. Obviously, when the containerexplodes, the contents come out as in (6c): foaming at the mouth.

Anger as Behavioral Changes

In TA, anger is not only a substance in the body heated and pressurized but also acause for behavioral occurrences, physical and psychological/mental. The follow-ing examples conceptualize anger as bodily agitation:

(7)(a) xallaa-ni nTiir w ningiz.[He] make-PERF me [I] fly-IMPERF and [I] hop-IMPERF.He made me fly and hop.He made me hopping mad.

(b) xallaa-ni nTir ki farx l-Hamaam.[He] make-PERF me [I] fly-IMPERF like youth [of] the pigeon.He made me fly like the small pigeon.He made me hop like mad.

(c) xallaa-ni nfarfit.[He] make-PERF me [I] flatter-IMPERF.He made me flutter like an injured butterfly.He made me so mad I could barely move.

(d) Tayyar-li n3iim-i.[he] fly-PERF to me happiness my.He made my happiness fly away.He turned my happiness into anger.

(e) lqayt-u yišTaH b zawz mHaarim.[I] find-PERF him [he] dance-IMPERF with two handkerchiefs.

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I found him dancing with two scarves.He went into a trance from anger.

(f) lqayt-u yithazz w yitHaTT.[I] find-PERF him [he] lift-IMPERF. and [he] put-IMPERF.I found him lifting and landing.He was hopping mad.

Almost all TA expressions of agitation involve an UP image schema as is clear in“Taar” (to fly), “naggiz” (to hop), “farfit” (to flutter), “šTaHH” (to dance), and so on.

The behavioral changes that anger causes to the body are not only physical butcan also be mental, occasioning interference with accurate perception as in the fol-lowing examples:

(8)(a) xrajj min 3aql-u.[He] go-PERF from mind his.He went out of his mind.He went mad.

(b) xarraj-ni min millit MuHammad.[He] oust-PERF me from faith MuHammad.He made me leave Muhammad’s faith.He made me lose my wits.

(c) Huwa qal-l-i haaki il-kilma, kint na3qal.He say-PERF to me that the word copula-PERF [I] reason- IMPERF.Before he told me that word, I was reasoning.I went mad as after he told me that.

(d) Huwa qal-l-i haaki il-kilma, w-ana ma 3aadš nšuf.He say-PERF to me that the word and I no [I] see-IMPERF.When he told me that word, I stopped seeing.I was blind with anger when he told me that.

(e) Huwa qal-l-i haaki il-kilma, w-id-dinya Dlaamit fi 3aynayy-a.Hesay-PERFtomethat thewordandtheworlddarken-PERF ineyesmy.When he told me that word, the world darkened in my eyes.Everything went black when he told me that.

In (8a–b), accurate perception or sanity, the state in which the experiencer wasbefore anger, is conceptualized as a container that the experiencer leaves be-cause of anger. This kind of conceptualization of anger in terms of leaving a


container is in compliance with the primary metaphor, “STATES ARELOCATIONS.” In (8c), anger is captured in a presupposition triggered by kintna3qal (I was in possession of my senses), whereby the past tense presupposesthat the experiencer is no longer in possession of his or her senses, which sug-gests the conceptual metaphor, “BEING ANGRY IS NOT BEING ABLE TOTHINK.” In (8d), the presupposition that the experiencer stopped seeing clearlymeans that she or he is no more in control of her or his own perception, whichyields the conceptual metaphor, “BEING ANGRY IS NOT BEING ABLE TOSEE.” In (8e), the presupposition is that before anger the world was bright(er)in the experiencer’s eyes, which suggests the conceptual metaphor, “BEINGANGRY IS SEEING DARK.”

Anger Expressions and Culturally Specific Embodiment

As has been demonstrated so far, physiological embodiment accounts for an im-portant portion of the conceptualization of anger in TA. This kind of embodi-ment capitalizes on the body as a whole, the heart, and the nerves as containersfor anger, exerting pressure on them, and combining heat with fluid and solid.However, it is not infrequent for anger in TA to associate with one part of thebody that does not receive any physiological change as a result of anger. It couldbe claimed that this kind of embodiment is motivated by a conventional culturalcorrelation between a given emotion and a certain bodily state and will not beunderstood by nonnatives of TA as expressing anger. This goes counter Lakoff’s(1987) claim that “emotional concepts are embodied, in that the physiology cor-responding to each emotion has a great deal to do with how the emotion is con-ceptualized” (pp. 38–39). In terms of physiological embodiment, the followingexpressions would be unacceptable conceptualizations of anger, because the partof the body involved does not actually show any physiological change when an-ger occurs:

(9)(a) digdig-l-i 3Daam-i/kraim-i.[He] break-PERF into pieces to me bones my/joints my.He broke my bones into small bits/joints.

(b) farrik-l-i laHm-i.[He] reduce-PERF into crumbs to me flesh my.He reduced my flesh into crumbs.

(c) Talla3-l-i ruH-i.[He] lift-PERF to me soul my.He caused my soul to leave me.

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(d) fqa3-l-i ma3it-ti.[He] burst-PERF to mestomach my.He burst open my stomach.

(e) nfaxx-im-l-i.[He] inflate-PERF them to me.He inflated my testicles.

All the foregoing expressions are unequivocally anger-specific expressions in TA,conceptualizing it in the bones, flesh, soul, stomach, and testicles. No attempt hasbeen made to give them an English gloss because of their culture specificity. How-ever before analyzing them, there is need to offer a cultural background for them.

In general, Muslim children are exposed to a painful experience right from theirearly age. It is customary for Muslims to sacrifice a sheep every year at the occa-sion of pilgrims visiting Mecca (Saudi Arabia), known as 3iid l-?iDHa (the feast ofsacrifice). This event can be divided into several subevents: buying the sheep(which is such a sight in Tunisia), playing with the sheep (which creates a sort ofemotional relation between child and animal), slaughtering the sheep (by the fatheror a butcher), and butchering it (by the father or a butcher). One of the painful (psy-chological) sides of the event is when children build a sort of “friendship” with theanimal, and yet the animal has to be slaughtered. The other painful (physical) sideof the event is when things come to slaughtering and butchering the sheep. Al-though this is exceptional, many children may sob their heart out at the sight of theslaughter, and some may even refuse to eat the sheep’s meat. What I am calling thebutchering (i.e., cutting the animal into pieces) is the experiential domain that liesat the heart of the foregoing conceptualizations of anger. Therefore, this event issurrounded by feelings of psychological pain at the separation between child andanimal. More important, as a result of this exposure to butchering makes the childinternalize physical pain.

The only occasion we see bones broken into pieces is at the butcher’s or whenwe witness the butchering of a sheep at home, which grounds the anger metaphorin (9a) in a cultural ritual. Conceptualizing anger in broken-bone terms suggeststhat we feel as a result of anger the same as a sheep cut into pieces. As having one’sbones broken into pieces is painful, anger conceptualized in broken-bone terms isalso a sort of pain in the body. The most likely conceptual metaphor here is“ANGER IS PHYSICAL PAIN.” The entailment of this metaphor posits that theexperiencer is a victim of a painful event. It should be noted, however, that no suchactual breaking of the bones or the joints occurs as a result of the offending event.Rather, this is a cultural correlation between a physical state (having one’s bonesbroken into little pieces) and an emotional state (being angry).

Equally evocative of violence against the body is (9b), which conceptualizesanger as cutting the flesh into pieces or crumbs. This sensation is experientially


grounded in the Tunisian culinary culture. The crumbs talked about here are notthe ones that come from slicing bread with a knife but come as bigger pieces delib-erately cut from a whole bread either by hand or with a knife for special meals inTunisia. So, cutting bread into pieces for some meals suggests the deliberate frag-mentation caused to the experiencer by the offender, which is not devoid of painand suffering. The conceptual metaphor governing (9b) is “ANGER IS PHYSICALPAIN.” This example is another case of the lack of fit between the physical state de-picted (namely being fragmented) and the actual physiological change that is at-tested to the body in anger situations (as attested in cases described by Lakoff &Kövecses).

Another piece of evidence for the cultural basis of metaphor arises with whatmight be called the folk religious culture. Although ir-ruH (the soul) is not a part ofthe body in the physical sense, it is counted as one in our culture. When people die,their soul is said to leave their body to ascend to Her creator. The same idea is ex-ploited in (9c) to talk about anger. When we die, our soul leaves our body foreverbecause it is intended by Allah (God) to be so. Consistent with the conception ofanger as pain and disease, this expression suggests the conceptual metaphor,“BEING ANGRY IS LEAVING LIFE.” The soul metaphor for anger is an exemplarof an exaggerated lack of fit between the physical state depicted here (i.e., death)and the actual physiological change that is not attested in research about anger. It isalso evidence that in this case the metaphor is culturally but not physiologicallyembodied.

Real bursting of the stomach talked about in (9d) is witnessed when, in cleaningthe sheep’s tripe, our mothers have to use a knife to burst the stomach open. Thebursting with the knife causes air to be released, thus reducing considerably thesize of the stomach. This description of anger is related to “ANGER IS PHYSICALPAIN,” where the sensation of anger exerts pressure against the stomach and makesit burst out in the same way our mothers burst open tripe with a knife. Such a con-ceptualization of anger is not corroborated by evidence showing that the stomachundergoes such a physiological change as a result of anger. Cross-cultural evi-dence from Japanese suggests that the stomach, though offering a far more elabo-rate system of metaphors for Japanese than in TA, can be the site for anger(Matsuki, 1995; Matsunaka & Shinohara, 2001).

In (9e), anger is said to be located at the level of the testicles. When a sheep isslaughtered, the first thing to do is inflate it for air to come between the skin and therest of the body, thus facilitating the skinning of it. Inflating makes everything big-ger, including the sheep testicles. What is noticeable here is that under air pressurethe testicles burst out or literally explode, which is a sign that the skin of the sheepis ready to come out. Apart from its ugliness, this operation must be very painfulfor a sensitive organ such as testicles. The sensitivity of the organs and the pain thatis inflicted on them is mapped on anger, creating the conceptual metaphor,“ANGER IS PHYSICAL PAIN.”

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Because physiological embodiment generally translates an actual change in thephysiology of the body part involved in anger, the expression of anger is thought tocorrespond to physiological reality. However, because in culturally specific em-bodiment the conceptualization of anger is a function of conventional/motivatedcorrelation between anger itself and a body that is not the seat of this emotion, con-ceptualization combines metaphor with hyperbole as in all the examples in (9). In-deed, no bones are broken, no flesh is cut, no soul has left the body, no stomach hasbeen burst open, nor are testicles inflated as a result of anger. These are hyperboles,implying an intensity of feeling and a sensational thrust about anger. The hyperbo-les can be detected as a result of the discrepancy between the emotion of anger andits form of expression.

Anger Expressions and Culturally Tainted Embodiment

So far, it has been demonstrated that anger expressions in TA come as physiologi-cal embodiment or culturally specific embodiment. In this section, it is demon-strated that TA also includes metaphoric and metonymic anger expressions thatcan be subsumed under culturally tainted embodiment.

However, before investigating culturally tainted embodiment in TA, a look atwhat Kövecses (2002) calls “cultural variation” is in good order. Kövecses charac-terized the cultural variations for metaphor and metonymy as follows:

1. Variation in the range of conceptual metaphors and metonymies for a giventarget;

2. Variation in the particular elaborations of conceptual metaphors andmetonymies for a given target;

3. Variation in the emphasis on metaphor versus metonymy associated with agiven target, or the other way around.

These are indeed crucial variations that no cross-cultural study of metaphor andmetonymy can dispense with. However, they do not seem to exhaust all the types ofcultural variations. For instance, TA and Zulu (Taylor & Mbense, 1998) may use inthe conceptualization of anger words that pertain to what Nida (1964) called “eco-logical” (such as dust storm or other culture-specific ecological phenomena) or“material” (such as culture-specific names for utensils or animals) culture. Forthat, the list offered by Kövecses is in need of being extended by offering anothercategory to accommodate these culture-specific items:

4. Variation in the culture specificity of the basic-level category realizing con-ceptual metaphors and metonymies for a given target across cultures.


This addition would render account of many anger expressions that use cul-ture-specific names of animals and utensils and other cultural phenomena in TAand other languages and cultures.

There is evidence in TA for anger expressions that neither describe physiologi-cal change to the body (i.e., physiological embodiment) nor use any part of thebody (culturally specific embodiment). Instead, these expressions capitalize onculture-specific items, such as animals or cultural practices, and associate themconventionally with a given emotion. The difference between culturally specificembodiment and what I wish to call culturally tainted embodiment is that the for-mer uses parts of the body that are not physiologically involved in anger, whereasthe latter uses instances of emotion that can be traced back to physiological em-bodiment that it taints culturally by using culture-specific lexical items. In thissense, culturally tainted embodiment may be said to be a subclass of physiologicalembodiment. However, culturally tainted embodiment will be studied as a separateclass for the purposes of the present article.

Anger in the following expressions is described as animal (behavior):

(10)(a) Tal3-it-lu il-kalba bint il-kalb.Go up-PERF [it] to him the bitch daughter-GEN the dog.The bitch, daughter the dog, went up [to his head].

(b) lqayt-u yahdar ki-j-jmall.[I] find-PERF him [he] growl-IMPERF like the camel.I found him growling like a camel.

The anger expression in (10a) can be subsumed under “AN ANGRY PERSON IS AFEROCIOUS ANIMAL.” The expression is built on a metaphtonymy, where angeris conceptualized metaphorically as a bitch, which stands metonymically for lossof control or near rabies. In this relation of transitivity, because anger is a bitch, anda bitch stands for rabies, therefore anger is rabies, translating into violent behavior.Bitches are known to become ferocious in defending their puppies immediately af-ter their birth, or believed to be so when they are in heat. When “bitch” combineswith the image schema UP in “Tal3it” (went up), the combination evokes “rabies”going to the head, that is, becoming violent. This example is evocative of (1a),where anger is conceptualized as blood going up to the head. However, what (10a)adds to the picture is tainting (1a) with the lexical item “bitch,” which in the Tuni-sian context acquires an anger dimension.

In (10b), an angry person is said to have animal behavior. In the Arab culture,camels are known for their endurance, but also for their anger and spiteful charac-ter. Camels are known to remember any humiliation directed against them. When acamel is angry, it makes a particular awesome noise accompanied by foaming at

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the mouth. As part of our cultural knowledge of camels, the most important thingnot to do when a camel is angry is get near it; it might charge like a bull or evenworse. All this knowledge is mapped onto an angry person, which gives rise to“AN ANGRY PERSON IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL.” In this particular case, anangry person is likely to show foaming at the mouth and to be violent in retaliating.What (10b) does is taint the expressions (1d), where instead of having blood fum-ing, the experiencer is letting out foam from the mouth like a camel.

Apart from animal behavior, TA conceptualizes anger as violent behavior as inthe following expressions:

(11)(a) Txall fi 3ajaaja.[He] enter-PERF in a dust storm.He entered in a dust storm.

(b) xallayt-u ya3faS fiT-Taajin yig3r-u.[I] leave-PERF him [he] steps in the pan break it.I left him in a state where he would step in a pan and break it.

(c) Lqayt-u yiDrab il-maa yTayyr-u.[I] find-PERF him [he] kick-IMPERF the water [he] fly- IMPERF it.I found him kicking water and making it fly.

(d) xallayt-u ?iDrab-u b-qamHa yitšaqq.[I] leave-PERF him IMP-beat him by grain of wheat [he] split-IMPERF.I left him in a state where if you throw him with a grain of wheat he would

split up into two halves.

The association between being angry and some violent behavior has been noted byLakoff and Kövecses (1987), who argue that “people who can neither control norrelieve the pressure of anger engage in violent frustrated behavior” (p. 204). All ofthe expressions are specialized, cultural metaphors.

The expression in (11a) is ambiguous between two readings. However, no na-tive could tell me for sure what it actually means. The expression could mean (a) hewent into a dust storm, where anger is conceptualized as a stormy state (“STATEAS A CONTAINER IN SPACE”), or (b) he came in accompanied by a dust storm. Inboth cases, “ANGER IS A NATURAL FORCE.” What makes this expression of an-ger so cultural is the selection of “3ajaaja,” a dusty and violent storm typical of theecological culture of many of the Arab countries. It is not unlikely that the appella-tion Desert Storm adopted during the 1991 Gulf War capitalized on this very mean-ing. One of the characteristics of a desert storm is its violence and blinding effect(interference with accurate perception in the physical sense). So, when someone is


described as entering in a dust storm, they tend to be violent and to have no controlover themselves. What makes the expression in (11a) a case of culturally taintedembodiment is that it is very similar, for instance, to (7a) where the experiencer isin a state of agitation, hopping mad. The expression taints this agitation with theculture-specific lexical item “3ajaaja” or dust storm. A similar cultural metaphorwas noted by Taylor and Mbense (1998) in Zulu, where anger is conceptualized asWa-bhenguza (“Why did he blow a gale?”; p. 213).

Expressions (11b) and (11c) are much similar in meaning; they actually tend tobe used interchangeably. If someone is described as doing either of (11b) or (11c),they are unable to control themselves. This violent behavior is conceptualized witha cultural utensil Taajin (a pan) in (11b) and the behavior of animals as in (11c).Both (9b) and (9c) involve violence and can be captured under the conceptual met-aphor, “ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS AGGRESSIVE (ANIMAL) BEHAVIOR.”

The last anger expression in (11d) depicts an angry person as on edge and on thebrink of explosion. This is captured in the fact that a grain of wheat is enough tosplit him or her up into two halves. A grain of wheat has two sharp ends and can beincisive, but not to the extent that it causes what it is described to do. It is interest-ing to note that if ever this would-be angry person externalizes his or her anger itwill not be directed against others but against his or her own self.

Similar to culturally specific cases of embodiment, culturally tainted embodi-ment uses hyperbolic reasoning to exaggerate the extent of anger. The hyperbolicdimension in both types of embodiment is best seen as an overstatement, suggest-ing the “as-if” nature of their conceptualization. Interestingly, even those concep-tualizations of anger classed as physiological embodiment include an element ofexaggeration, which stresses the interpenetration of body and culture in the expres-sion of anger.

CONCLUSION

This study confirms embodiment as an important grounding for the metaphoricconceptualization of anger in TA. Although it is not unique in showing this, TAhas been demonstrated to offer, apart from physiological embodiment, two im-portant types of embodiment, which are thought to contribute to a broader con-ception of embodiment. The two types of embodiment have been called cultur-ally specific embodiment, where the emotion establishes a conventional culturalcorrelation between a body part and a certain conceptualization of anger, andculturally tainted embodiment, where an essentially physiology-based anger ex-pression is tainted with a culture-specific lexical item, fusing together physiol-ogy and culture. The two types of embodiment have been demonstrated to com-bine metaphor and hyperbole as a way of highlighting the discrepancies betweenwhat is felt and its conceptualization.

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As a result of this typology of embodiment, there arises the tendency of a givenlanguage either to use metaphor or metonymy. I believe that owing to the predomi-nance of physiological embodiment in American English, for instance,metonymies are more common than metaphors whereas metaphors are more com-mon than metonymies in TA, owing to the existence of culturally specific embodi-ment and culturally tainted embodiment. Because metonymy seems to correlatewith more physiological embodiment, and metaphor with culturally specific em-bodiment and culturally tainted embodiment, metaphors of anger are more domi-nant than metonymies of anger in TA.

In culturally specific embodiment, what is described as happening to thepart of the body used in the conceptualization of anger is not the part of thebody known to actually show physiological change. In this connection, the con-ceptualization of anger in TA approximates conclusions reached by Lutz(1987) about Ifaluk’s emotion concepts, where “definitions of emotion terms… relatively rarely contain reference to the physiological feeling tone associ-ated with a particular emotion” (p. 292). Such a distribution of anger descrip-tions across parts of the body has imposed in TA an alternation betweenmetonymy as supported by a physiological change as in the sets of examples(1–8), and metaphor as supported by absence of actual physiological change asin (9). Deriving from these examples, the expression of anger in TA is physiol-ogy and culture bound. With very few exceptions, the anger expressions classi-fied as cultural embodiment support Kövecses’ (2000b) insight that “socialconstructions are given bodily basis and bodily motivation is given social-cul-tural substance” (p. 14).

What transpires from culturally tainted expressions of anger is that cul-ture-specific categories such as bitch, camel, snake, hen, goat, storm, pan, grainof wheat, and so on, are used. This type of embodiment confirms Kövecses’(1995) claim that “the conceptualization of anger is influenced by both cultureand physiology” (p. 195). The significance of this kind of embodiment is that itdoes not consist in “a reduction of our bodily interactions with environing condi-tions to the merely physiological” (Fesmire, 1994, p. 32). It is embodimentwhere the body as a physiology and the body as a cultural dimension interactand even merge.

There is need to study languages and cultures other than the ones customarilystudied for this typology of embodiment to be ascertained as pervasive ordisconfirmed as specific to a few cultures. In other words, there is need for studieslike those of Yu (1998) for Chinese, Matsuki (1995) and Matsunaka and Shinohara(2001) for Japanese, Kövecses (2002) for Hungarian, Taylor & Mbense (1998) forZulu, and so on. This contribution is an addition to this thrust for a theory of em-bodiment in a cross-cultural perspective. If similar studies to this one confirmedthe existence of this typology of embodiment across cultures, they would openmore windows in the structure of human cognition.


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Figurative language in anger expressions in Tunisian Arabic: An extended view of embodiment

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