Comments  65
wow captures any real psychological regularity between speak-
ers. Asserting it is not enough: evidence is needed. The fact that
we may sometimes use an interjection in similar situations is no
argument that it is supported by an identical conceptual state:
conceptual identity, not use identity, is exactly the question at
issue—and there just are no perceptible criteria by which we
can verify that the states concerned are invariant from one
instance to another.
If concepts must be invariant to play their standard explana-
tory role, if invariance derives from relations with the external
environment, and if there is no reason to think that any invariant
relation exists between interjections and the external environ-
ment, the conclusion can only be that interjections are not con-
ceptual, but expressive. This certainly does not mean that they
cannot be studied; just that regularities about them cannot be
captured in the theoretical language of conceptualization.
Correctly differentiating conceptual (descriptive) and
expressive content is crucial for semantics. On the present
argument, any concept-based approach to immediate uses of
interjections is problematized, not just NSM’s. Semanticists
have assumed that there are not many expressives in the
Comment: Evidence for Basicness from Noise-like Interjections
of Emotions
Disa A. Sauter
Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Abstract
Goddard (2014) proposes a three-partite division of emotive interjections,
which is helpful in delineating this heterogeneous set of phenomena. The
distinction also explains inconsistencies between Goddard’s and previous
findings: While his study demonstrates variability across languages in
word-like primary interjections, previous work investigating noise-like
interjections has found evidence for universality. Such cross-culturally
consistent, categorical perception of emotional signals can be explained
as emerging from bottom–up information without the need for top–down
learning via language or interjections.
Keywords
categorical perception, emotion, language, noise-like interjections,
nonverbal vocalisations of emotions, voice
Emotional interjections have not received a great deal of atten-
tion from psychology and linguistics, and the focus on emotive
interjections in the current issue of Emotion Review thus marks a
welcome development. In the existing literature, generalisation
Author note: The author is funded by NWO Veni grant 275-70-033.
Corresponding author: Disa A. Sauter, Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Weesperplein 4, 1018 XA Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Email: D.A.Sauter@uva.nl
lexicon. This is probably a mistake. If semantics moved away
from conceptualization towards expressivity in its explanations
of meaning, it would only be following much of the rest of
cognitive science in a “situated” and “embodied” direction.
References
Barsalou, L. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology,
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uniqueness. Language Sciences, 35, 1–19.
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across studies has been complicated by the fact that researchers
have conflated different kinds of interjections, resulting in excla-
mations like “good lord!” sometimes being considered part of
the same class of signals as nonverbal sounds like laughter and
sighs. To remedy this, Goddard (2014) makes a helpful proposal
of a three-partite division of emotive interjections, located at dif-
ferent distances from language (see also Ameka, 1992, for an
alternative typology of interjections). These range from noise-
like sounds, via word-like interjections, to word interjections.
Importantly, the classes of emotive interjections differ consider-
ably, in terms of both linguistic and emotional features.
The proposed distinctions should be of considerable use to
researchers of interjections, as they help to delineate this hetero-
geneous set of phenomena. In addition, although he does not
explicitly position his own analysis within the three-partite frame-
work, the division also helps to explain some inconsistencies
between Goddard’s analysis and previous findings. Goddard’s
study (2014) suggests variability in the emotional interjections of
disgust and surprise across languages, while other work has found
considerable cross-cultural consistency in these interjections
across groups with vastly different languages and cultures (Sauter,
66  Emotion Review Vol. 6 No. 1
Eisner, Ekman, & Scott, 2010). This discrepancy is likely due to
the fact that Goddard’s analysis focuses on word-like interjec-
tions closer to language, while research that has found cross-lin-
guistic and cross-cultural consistency has examined noise-like
interjections (sometimes referred to as nonverbal vocalisations).
The finding of cross-cultural consistency also speaks to
Goddard’s call for empirical study of whether emotive interjec-
tions provide evidence for basicness. Certainly, the criteria for
basicness in emotion research is a complex and contested issue.
Nevertheless, there is little disagreement that basic emotions have
recognisable signals that are cross-culturally consistent (e.g.,
Ekman, 1992). The finding that noise-like interjections constitute
cross-culturally consistent, recognisable signals of emotional
states (Sauter et al., 2010) suggests that noise-like interjections
may provide evidence for the basicness of emotions in a way
similar to that of facial expressions. In contrast, word-like inter-
jections—and almost certainly also word interjections—would
not, as they vary across languages, as Goddard demonstrates.
Goddard (2014) also makes the intriguing suggestion that
interjections may support the emergence of categorical percep-
tion of emotions. This is an adapted version of accounts arguing
that categorical perception of emotional facial expressions
requires verbal categorisation (e.g., Roberson, Damjanovic, &
Kikutani, 2010). Goddard’s proposal is compatible with some
findings that have questioned the verbal labelling account:
Speakers of Yucatec Maya, a language that does not distinguish
disgust from anger on a lexical level, show categorical percep-
tion of anger/disgust facial expression morphs (Sauter, Le Guen,
& Haun, 2011). This result is incompatible with lexical catego-
ries underlying categorical perception, but the Yucatec Maya
Author Reply
Cliff Goddard
School of Languages and Linguistics, Griffith University, Australia
Abstract
Sauter raises interesting points about expressive vocalisations, such as
laughing, crying, gasping, etcetera. This reply discusses an expanded
research agenda incorporating these. Riemer’s commentary is based on
his opposition to nonreferentialist approaches to meaning. My reply
seeks to clarify the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) position on the
conceptual status of semantic primes, while urging researchers to consider
independently the merits of reductive paraphrase as a heuristic and a
corrective to terminological Anglocentrism.
Keywords
Anglocentrism, concepts, expressive vocalisation, laughing and crying
Corresponding author: Cliff Goddard, School of Languages and Linguistics, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland 4111, Australia. Email: c.goddard@griffith.edu.au
speakers may nevertheless have had the opportunity to learn
from noise-like interjections. However, computational models
of emotion perception have lent support to non-language-based
accounts of emotional face processing: Neural network models
that use only perceptual information also show categorical per-
ception of emotional faces (Dailey, Cottrell, Padgett, & Adolphs,
2002). This result indicates that perceptual factors, rather than
top–down learning through language or interjections, may drive
the categorical perception of emotional facial expressions.
References
Ameka, F. (1992). Interjections: The universal yet neglected part of
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A neural network that categorizes facial expressions. Journal of Cogni-
tive Neuroscience, 14, 1158–1173. doi: 10.1162/089892902760807177
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition & Emotion,
6, 169–200. doi: 10.1080/02699939208411068
Goddard, C. (2014). Interjections and emotion (with special reference to
“surprise” and “disgust”). Emotion Review, 6, 53–63.
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role of language in categorizing facial expression of emotion. Emotion
Review, 2, 255–260. doi: 10.1177/1754073910361979
Sauter, D. A., Eisner, F., Ekman, P., & Scott, S. K. (2010). Cross-cultural
recognition of basic emotions through nonverbal emotional vocaliza-
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2408–2412. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0908239106
Sauter, D. A., Le Guen, O., & Haun, D. B. M. (2011). Categorical percep-
tion of emotional facial expressions does not require lexical categories.
Emotion, 11, 1479–1483. doi:10.1037/a0025336
Sauter (2014) focuses on the possibility that noise-like inter-
jections may be semantically more similar across languages
than word-like or word-based interjections, consistent with
evidence that emotive vocalisations can be reliably inter-
preted across a wide cultural gulf. To my mind, this is a viable
hypothesis but one could not expect the alignment to be
100%. As the target article shows, there are significant differ-
ences between English Ugh! and Polish Fu!, for example (and
Polish has no “guttural” interjection closer to Ugh!). To inves-
tigate such hypotheses with precision, improved methods are
needed for coming to grips with expressive meanings, such as
those developed by natural semantic metalanguage (NSM)
linguists.