À flor da pele: a emergência de significados de conceitos de emoção

Abstract

The present work discusses the construction of a metatheoretical interface that aims at describing and explaining the cognitive processes underlying the conceptualization of emotions. In order to achieve such a goal, it is assumed that theories related to Cognitive Linguistics, such as Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and Conceptual Integration Theory (FAUCONNIER; TURNER, 2002), and Relevance Theory (SPERBER; WILSON, 1995) are able to explain how concepts emerge, though this process is understood in a myriad of distinct ways as to their foundations. However, this is not just a theoretical approach; it is through the elaboration of an intricate construal which originates from an interface perspective that the object of study, emotion concepts, assumes a complex side, that is, its meaning is understood from the interface point of view. Assuming as a principle that emotion concepts are built from conceptual metaphors and metonymies, which are elaborated in accordance with embodied realism, it is investigated how such an interface deals with the cognitive processes underlying (ad hoc) conceptualization of emotions during communication. In order to illustrate the structure and the running of this construal, five (5) texts extracted from electronic media are analyzed, in which the emphasis is in an event that would have triggered certain emotion or in which the theme is the emotion itself.