METAPHOR AND SYMBOL, 19(1), 5175

Copyright 2004, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Figurative Language in Anger

Expressions in Tunisian Arabic: An
Extended View of Embodiment
Zouhair Maalej
Department of English
University of Manouba-Tunis

The work of Lakoff (1987), Lakoff and Kvecses (1987), and Kvecses (1990,
2000a, 2002) on anger situates it within the bounds of PHYSIOLOGICAL
EFFECTS OF AN EMOTION STAND FOR THE EMOTION, thus implying a universal form of physiological embodiment for anger. The main contribution of this article is that anger in Tunisian Arabic (TA) shows many more dimensions of embodiment than physiological embodiment. Anger in TA comes as physiological
embodiment, culturally specific embodiment, and culturally tainted embodiment.
Similar to English, physiological embodiment yields expressions of anger where the
part of the body used for conceptualization is also actually physiologically affected.
Culturally specific embodiment involves parts of the body that are culturally correlated with the emotion of anger. Culturally tainted embodiment uses animal behaviors and cultural ecological features to taint physiologically embodied anger expressions. These types of embodiment are shown to generally correlate physiology-based
anger with metonymy, and culture-based anger with metaphor.

The cognitive literature on anger is mostly dominated by the view that its conceptualization in many languages depends on embodiment (Kvecses, 1995, 2000b;
Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff & Kvecses, 1987; Yu, 1995, 1998), which is given an almost
exclusively physiological bearing. The main thrust of this article is that anger in
Tunisian Arabic (TA), one of the dialects of Arabic, is only partly governed by
physiological embodiment. Aware of the restrictedness of a purely physiological
view of embodiment, Kvecses, Palmer, and Dirven (2002) argue that studies of
emotions must blend universal experiences of physiological functions with culRequests for reprints should be sent to Zouhair Maalej, Dept of English, University of
Manouba-Tunis, 2010 Manouba-Tunis, Tunisia. E-mail: zmaalej@gnet.tn

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turally specific models and interpretations (p. 135). Such a blend becomes imperative, because emotions are experienced as psychological states evoked by social
and/or physiological events, or by psychological events, but perhaps most typically by social events (Kvecses, Palmer, & Dirven, 2002, p. 135). The study of
anger in this article fully reflects this trend.
According to the PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN EMOTION STAND
FOR THE EMOTION, emotions are actually the direct causes of their own conceptualization. Such a link between emotion per se and conceptualization can be
captured in the following statement: When a cause produces an effect, it is common 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 physiologically embodied because the effect talked about is a physical state produced in
the body by the emotion in question. Thus, because anger is known to cause, for instance, heat to mount in the body, this physiological effect of anger is likely to be
the basis for its conceptualization in many languages. However, this explains only
the portion of the emotion whose conceptualization comes as a result of a physical
cause-effect relation. There may exist emotions for which there is no known particular part of the body receiving any physiological change to it as a result of the emotion. To extrapolate from this, when the conceptualization of an emotion does not
come as a result of a physical cause-effect relation, the conceptualization and the
emotion are not physically close, which gives room for other kinds of embodiment.

LAKOFF AND KVECSES SCENARIO OF ANGER

Anger has received ample treatment within cognitive linguistics. For a comprehensive account, readers are referred to Kvecses (1990, 1995, 2000b, 2002), Lakoff
(1987), Lakoff and Kvecses (1987), and Lakoff and Johnson (1999). Kvecses
(2002) documented languages as diverse as Chinese, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish,
Tahitian, Wolof, and Zulu. His research has served to ascertain physiologically
based embodiment as a motivation for the conceptualization of emotions.
Lakoff and Kvecses (1987) consider anger as an extremely complex conceptual structure (pp. 195196) and argue that Americans make use of a folk model
for the expression of anger governed by the container metaphor. Lakoff (1987)
summed up the physiological effects of anger as increased body heat, increased
internal pressure (blood pressure, muscular pressure), agitation, and interference
with accurate perception (p. 381). Kvecses (1995) explained that the model describes three submetaphors: THE BODY IS A CONTAINER FOR THE
EMOTIONS (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 blood
boil) (p. 184). The submetaphors are subsumed under the metonymic principle,
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN EMOTION STAND FOR THE

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53

EMOTION. Kvecses (1995) explained that this naturalness of the container

metaphor for anger seems to arise from the embodiment of our conceptualizations
of anger (p. 195).
Drawing on Lakoff and Kvecses (1987), Lakoff (1987) offers the following
prototypical 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, agitation). 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. 397398).

The major argument behind this scenario view of anger is that the various metaphors used to conceptualize it could be shown to pertain to the different stages of
the scenario. Gibbs (1994) provides evidence for the reality of these stages by empirically testing the sequence of some idioms for anger, concluding that conjoining
reversed idioms of a prototype of anger yields pragmatically unacceptable constructions as in: He flipped his lid, but it didnt get on his nerves (p. 298).
Illustrations of the different parts of the scenario of anger in American English
are as follows:
Body heat
Dont get hot under the collar.
Internal pressure
When I found out, I almost burst a blood vessel.
Redness in the face
She was scarlet with rage.
Agitation
She was shaking with anger.
Interference with accurate perception
She was blind with rage. (Lakoff, 1987, pp. 382383)
Apart from the THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN EMOTION
STAND FOR THE EMOTION, Kvecses (2000b) added two other conceptual
metaphors that seem to govern anger in American English, namely, AN ANGRY
PERSON IS A FUNCTIONING MACHINE and ANGER IS A SOCIAL
SUPERIOR. Reconsidering the anger scenario in light of new cross-linguistic evidence, Kvecses (2000a, 2000b) argued for a schematic generic-level metaphor
governing all emotions, namely, EMOTIONS ARE FORCES (Kvecses, 2000b,

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p. 149). Kvecses (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 used
to explain many emotions cross-culturally.
Lakoff (1987) argued that the scenario view of anger in American English
must have made sense to hundreds of millions of English speakers over a period of roughly a thousand years (p. 407), strongly suggesting a universal status
for physiology in emotion concepts. Furthermore, Lakoff and Kvecses (1987)
claimed that if we look at the metaphors and metonymies for anger in the languages of the world, we will not find any that contradict the physiological results
that they [the Ekman group] found (p. 220) that amounts to a claim for the universality 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 was
only popular between 850 and 950, almost lost ground between 950 and 1050
(because of competition from the stronger swell conceptualization), and only
re-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 in
the expression of anger, the conceptual domains show relative stability around
concepts other than heat, which means that the (discontinuity) of the heat conceptualization of anger is cultural not universal.
Generalizing from the study of anger in American English, Chinese, Hungarian, Japanese, Tahitian, Wolof, and Zulu, Kvecses (1995) argued that anger is
strongly motivated by bodily experience, which can be viewed as a constraining
factor that delimits the possible metaphorical systems of anger (p. 191). Replying
to Geeraerts and Grondelaers (1995) criticisms of Lakoff and Kvecses scenario
of anger, Kvecses (1995) argued that it is a mistake to identify and globally characterize our account of the container metaphor for anger in English as a physiology-based account (p. 184). A look at embodiment in the following section ascertains 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 to
be embodied, which gave rise to the embodiment hypothesis. Johnson (1987) argued that
the centrality of human embodiment directly influences what and how things can be
meaningful for us, the ways in which these meanings can be developed and articu-

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55

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

Cognitive linguistics is one of the very few current theories of linguistics to have
given a place to the body in the mind, thought, meaning, and reason. This conception 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 conceptual
systems draw largely upon the commonalities of our bodies and of the environments
we live in. The result is that much of a persons conceptual system is either universal
or widespread across languages and cultures. (p. 6)

Conceptual embodiment is the idea that the properties of certain categories are a
consequence of the nature of the human biological capacities and of the experience
of functioning in a physical and social environment (Lakoff, 1987, p. 12).
As the embodiment hypothesis is still at its beginnings, there is not much written about it. For instance, Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (1991) gave a conception
of embodiment using a Buddhist conception, where body and mind have been
brought together (p. 27). Although this conception of embodiment unifies body
and mind, it may not be very helpful for the researcher looking for neat typologies
of embodiment to apply to data. Some other views of embodiment are reviewed in
what follows:
Our concept of anger is embodied via the autonomic nervous system and that the conceptual metaphors and metonymies used in understanding anger are by no means arbitrary; instead they are motivated by our physiology. (Lakoff, 1987, p. 407)
Embodiment occurs when it is really the case that my temperature and blood pressure
rise. This is what makes studies of human physiology during emotional states crucially relevant for cognitive approaches to the study of the language and conceptual
systems of emotion. (Kvecses, 1995, pp. 191192; 2000b, p. 159)
Here we have independently manipulable spaces for the emotion of anger and bodily
states. We also have a conventional cultural notion of their relationship, based on correlation: 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 as

the outcome of the relation between anger as a mental state and its direct bodily reflection. However, Fauconnier and Turner described it also as a function of correlation between anger as a mental state and conventional cultural association. Such a
correlation is important in capturing what I call cultural embodiment in this article.

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Lakoff and Johnson (1999) distinguished three levels of embodiment: neural,

phenomenological, and the cognitive unconscious level. The neural level is the
level of neurochemistry and cellular physiology. It is the physical interface of concepts and cognitive operations. It is often talked about metaphorically as neural
circuitry by analogy to a computer circuitry. The phenomenological level is the
conscious part of our thought. It is the experiential level of our mental states, our
bodies, our environment, and our physical and social interactions (p. 103). The
cognitive unconscious level includes all aspects of linguistic processingphonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse (p.
103). These neural, phenomenological, and cognitive unconscious levels of embodiment do not seem to offer different types of embodiment. The neural level
seems to capture an important portion of conceptualization. However, the
phenomenological and the cognitive unconscious levels seem to say very little
about the relation between these levels and the conceptualization of experience. In
other words, although the neural level does tell us about an important type of embodiment (i.e., physiological embodiment), the others only tell us about how we
are only conscious of a small portion of our cognitive operations.
The question that the data from TA raise is the following: If physiological embodiment were the only conception of embodiment, would conceptualizations of
anger (or another emotion) still count as embodied if they happen to explicitly use
a body part not involving physiological change? If the answer is positive, then a
theory of embodiment has to embrace more than physiology. Embodiment is also a
function of cultural correlation between a given emotion and its cultural bearing.
Because nonphysiological embodiment exists alongside the physiological in many
cultures (Tunisian Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Zulu, etc.), the conception of embodiment needs to be broadened.
The data from languages that confirm the existence of embodied emotions actually show them to be physiologically embodied, which will be called for the purposes of this article physiological embodiment. This phenomenon accounts for the
conceptualization of the majority of abstract concepts in an overwhelming majority of languages and cultures. However, TA (together with other languages), for instance, includes emotion expressions where the basic-level category capitalized on
is 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 also
includes emotion expressions that may exist as physiologically embodied. However the basic-level category is culture specific, thus tainting the emotion with a
cultural flavor. This type of embodiment will be called culturally tainted embodiment. It should be noted that such distinctions are not meant as dichotomies, because even physiological embodiment is cultural in nature, in that the way physiologically embodied anger is conceptualized cross-culturally is a function of each
culture. It may be, for instance, exclusively specific to the Chinese culture to con-

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57

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 its
conceptualization comes as a set of physiological metonymies that can be captured
under the conceptual metonymy, THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN
EMOTION STAND FOR THE EMOTION (Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff & Kvecses,
1987; Kvecses, 1995, 2000b; Yu, 1995). Starting from the uniform conceptualizations of anger in diverse languages, Kvecses (1995) convincingly argued that
such uniformity cannot be explained on cultural grounds only and stressed the idea
of the embodiment of anger, which appears to constrain the kinds of metaphors
that can emerge as viable conceptualizations of anger (p. 192). Although there
must be no quarrel with this dimension of anger as attested in many languages,
physiological embodiment is not the only motivation for anger, as is discussed
shortly.
Anger Expressions and Physiological Embodiment
As physiological embodiment, anger in TA comes partly as a set of metonymies
that can be subsumed under PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF AN EMOTION
STAND FOR THE EMOTION. TA conceptualizes anger according to the conceptual metonymy, ANGER IS THE HEAT OF A FLUID IN A CONTAINER as in
the 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.

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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 i-iTaan 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). Consistent 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 as
in (1g). It should be noted that simmering in (1b) does not actually capture what
happens to the blood of anger in TA. In our culture, the verb rawwib denotes a middle ground between liquidity and solidity. The name raayib a kind of buttermilk
is halfway between milk and butter or cheese. So, blood thickening could
cognitively explain the intensity of anger as moving on a scale of liquidity and
half-solidity.
Anger as a Solid Substance in a Container
Interestingly, beside the anger-as-a-fluid-in-a-container, TA also offers ANGER
IS 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 brains solid state seems to preclude some
anger expressions from occurring. For instance, the brain boiling is not a possible
metaphor as boiling is predicated of liquid substances. The heat-of-a-solid-substance only allows the brain to half-cook (2a) or to burn (2b). When heat comes into
contact with a solid substance, the result is the impossibility for that substance to go
back 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 consequence 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 evaporates
or turns solid. However, when rawwib collocates with brain, the outcome is that the
brain simmers (or thickens further) under the influence of heat. More important, the
brain 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 in
which anger is conceptualized revolves around the heart as a container for anger as
in 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 yitzaad
No left with me no [it] add-PASS.

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There is no more room for anything to be added [into my heart].

I have had enough of it.
(d) ma lqayt faa nfarraR qalb-i
No [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 mai y-taraq.
Heart my [it] go-FUT explode-IMPERF.
My heart is going to explode.
Im going to explode.
In Maalej (1999), it was noted that the logic of containment does not preclude
the parts of the body themselves from functioning as subcontainers within the
body-as-a-container metaphor. As part of the body, the heart in many languages
is 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 as
elaborately as with anger. In (3a), anger is beginning to submerge the heart as
can be understood from the noise (TafTaf: sloshing) made by liquids filling containers. The heart sloshing with anger, which also indexes filling, predicts explosion. In (3b), the heart is already filled with anger. In (3c), the speaker describes
himself or herself as incapable of coping anymore with the amount of anger, and
in (3d) the speaker is signaling that they are on the verge of retribution but
would need someone to avenge themselves in. In (3e), it seems that the heart is
undergoing pressure inside it because of too much anger, which would make it
on the brink of explosion. So, the heart is exactly like a mini container within the
body-as-a-container, where anger inside it is a fluid that can fill it up partially or
fully and that can overflow. As the heart can be filled with anger, it can also be
relieved of its contents by emptying ones 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 nature
of the weather, wells are vital devices for the collection of water. However, although water in the culture acquires an almost sacred dimension as attested by
talking 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 why
most wells are equipped with a safety pipe that is constructed to let out water if it
reaches a certain level in the well. Accordingly, the heart is described as having a
limited capacity for tolerance, beyond which the contents of it would make it explode. It should be noted that an overflow of anger in this connection does not exist
in 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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61

ing purposes. By implication, emptying the heart of its anger as in (3d) has a relieving effect on the heart.
This heart-as-a-well metaphor for anger in TA is echoed by other instances of
metaphoric expressions where a person may be conceptualized as a bottomless
well 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 to
the more spacious body-as-a-container for emotions. It is interesting to link this to
another metaphor of generosity in TA using the heart as a target, as in flaan qalbu
kbiir (X has a big heart), which coincides with the English big heart. As Taylor
and Mbense (1998) pointed out for Zulu, the heart as a locus for anger entails that
persons who have a big heart are more likely to control their anger, in that their
heart 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 be
less capable of containing anger. Thus, the metaphoric bigness of the heart seems
to stand for broadening the container image schema of anger by bringing elasticity
to its boundaries.
As a competitor to the body-as-a-container, the heart-as-a-container for anger is
comparatively limited in the kind of metaphors it allows. As observed earlier, although the former allows a combination of heat and pressure to take place within
the body, the latter only allows the container image schema to prevail for the obvious reason that the size of the heart is smaller compared to that of the body. As a
consequence, cognitively anger that is conceptualized in the heart is more important than that conceptualized in the body, because the allowable amount of anger in
the heart is definitely smaller than the amount that the body can accommodate. As
noted earlier in connection with anger and the heart, people who are said to have
big hearts are likely to take in more anger than those who have a small one. In this
sense, the two models can be seen as complementary rather than exclusive, with
the 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 conception of anger also includes nerves as in the following cases:

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(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 3aadi 3and-i 3-Saab
Not anymore with me nerves.
I have no more nerves.
I dont have the nerve for it anymore.
(g) 3Saab-i ma 3aadi 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 the
body or heart. In (5a), anger is conceptualized as the result of heat/fire on
nerves, which brings about burning to the nerves. In (5bd), anger is conceptualized more or less like a disease, which destroys and makes the nerves swell
when we get angry. An alternative or complementary analysis might be that the
destruction and swelling occur under pressure exerted on nerves from the rest of

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63

the body. It could be that blood exerts pressure on the bodys arteries, which get
swollen as a result. The rest of the examples (5eg) conceptualize anger as loss
of control. Thus, anger in this case seems to be the outcome of pressure exerted
by 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-bqaa 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 maai n-taraqt.
[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 kak-u xaarja.
[I] find-PERF him foams his out.
I found his foams coming out.
He was foaming at the mouth.
(d) taraq-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.

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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 container being so full that even air has no room to move freely. This signals that the
angry person is about to explode as in (6b). In (6f), we have a bottle container as indicated by iT-Tabbu (the lid of the bottle), where the image-schematic structure
(UP) apparent in verb Talla3 signals the beginning of an explosion. Experientially, the body is conceived of as a closed bottle where heat exerts pressure on the
lid, making the whole container explode. Examples (6d) and (6e) witness the same
kind of explosion. However, such miniexplosions internal to the body conceptualize less intense anger because they are not visible. Obviously, when the container
explodes, 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 a
cause for behavioral occurrences, physical and psychological/mental. The following 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 yiTaH 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), TaHH (to dance), and so on.
The behavioral changes that anger causes to the body are not only physical but
can also be mental, occasioning interference with accurate perception as in the following 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 Muhammads 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 3aad nuf.
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.
He say-PERF to me that the word and the world darken-PERF in eyes my.
When he told me that word, the world darkened in my eyes.
Everything went black when he told me that.
In (8ab), accurate perception or sanity, the state in which the experiencer was
before anger, is conceptualized as a container that the experiencer leaves because of anger. This kind of conceptualization of anger in terms of leaving a

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container is in compliance with the primary metaphor, STATES ARE

LOCATIONS. In (8c), anger is captured in a presupposition triggered by kint
na3qal (I was in possession of my senses), whereby the past tense presupposes
that the experiencer is no longer in possession of his or her senses, which suggests the conceptual metaphor, BEING ANGRY IS NOT BEING ABLE TO
THINK. In (8d), the presupposition that the experiencer stopped seeing clearly
means that she or he is no more in control of her or his own perception, which
yields the conceptual metaphor, BEING ANGRY IS NOT BEING ABLE TO
SEE. In (8e), the presupposition is that before anger the world was bright(er)
in the experiencers eyes, which suggests the conceptual metaphor, BEING
ANGRY IS SEEING DARK.
Anger Expressions and Culturally Specific Embodiment
As has been demonstrated so far, physiological embodiment accounts for an important portion of the conceptualization of anger in TA. This kind of embodiment capitalizes on the body as a whole, the heart, and the nerves as containers
for 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 the
body that does not receive any physiological change as a result of anger. It could
be claimed that this kind of embodiment is motivated by a conventional cultural
correlation between a given emotion and a certain bodily state and will not be
understood by nonnatives of TA as expressing anger. This goes counter Lakoffs
(1987) claim that emotional concepts are embodied, in that the physiology corresponding to each emotion has a great deal to do with how the emotion is conceptualized (pp. 3839). In terms of physiological embodiment, the following
expressions would be unacceptable conceptualizations of anger, because the part
of the body involved does not actually show any physiological change when anger 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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67

(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 has
been made to give them an English gloss because of their culture specificity. However 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 their
early age. It is customary for Muslims to sacrifice a sheep every year at the occasion of pilgrims visiting Mecca (Saudi Arabia), known as 3iid l-?iDHa (the feast of
sacrifice). 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 of
emotional relation between child and animal), slaughtering the sheep (by the father
or a butcher), and butchering it (by the father or a butcher). One of the painful (psychological) sides of the event is when children build a sort of friendship with the
animal, and yet the animal has to be slaughtered. The other painful (physical) side
of the event is when things come to slaughtering and butchering the sheep. Although this is exceptional, many children may sob their heart out at the sight of the
slaughter, and some may even refuse to eat the sheeps meat. What I am calling the
butchering (i.e., cutting the animal into pieces) is the experiential domain that lies
at the heart of the foregoing conceptualizations of anger. Therefore, this event is
surrounded by feelings of psychological pain at the separation between child and
animal. More important, as a result of this exposure to butchering makes the child
internalize physical pain.
The only occasion we see bones broken into pieces is at the butchers or when
we witness the butchering of a sheep at home, which grounds the anger metaphor
in (9a) in a cultural ritual. Conceptualizing anger in broken-bone terms suggests
that we feel as a result of anger the same as a sheep cut into pieces. As having ones
bones broken into pieces is painful, anger conceptualized in broken-bone terms is
also 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 the
experiencer is a victim of a painful event. It should be noted, however, that no such
actual 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 ones bones
broken into little pieces) and an emotional state (being angry).
Equally evocative of violence against the body is (9b), which conceptualizes
anger as cutting the flesh into pieces or crumbs. This sensation is experientially

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grounded in the Tunisian culinary culture. The crumbs talked about here are not
the ones that come from slicing bread with a knife but come as bigger pieces deliberately cut from a whole bread either by hand or with a knife for special meals in
Tunisia. So, cutting bread into pieces for some meals suggests the deliberate fragmentation caused to the experiencer by the offender, which is not devoid of pain
and suffering. The conceptual metaphor governing (9b) is ANGER IS PHYSICAL
PAIN. This example is another case of the lack of fit between the physical state depicted (namely being fragmented) and the actual physiological change that is attested to the body in anger situations (as attested in cases described by Lakoff &
Kvecses).
Another piece of evidence for the cultural basis of metaphor arises with what
might be called the folk religious culture. Although ir-ruH (the soul) is not a part of
the 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 exploited in (9c) to talk about anger. When we die, our soul leaves our body forever
because it is intended by Allah (God) to be so. Consistent with the conception of
anger as pain and disease, this expression suggests the conceptual metaphor,
BEING ANGRY IS LEAVING LIFE. The soul metaphor for anger is an exemplar
of 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 is
also evidence that in this case the metaphor is culturally but not physiologically
embodied.
Real bursting of the stomach talked about in (9d) is witnessed when, in cleaning
the sheeps tripe, our mothers have to use a knife to burst the stomach open. The
bursting with the knife causes air to be released, thus reducing considerably the
size of the stomach. This description of anger is related to ANGER IS PHYSICAL
PAIN, where the sensation of anger exerts pressure against the stomach and makes
it burst out in the same way our mothers burst open tripe with a knife. Such a conceptualization of anger is not corroborated by evidence showing that the stomach
undergoes such a physiological change as a result of anger. Cross-cultural evidence from Japanese suggests that the stomach, though offering a far more elaborate 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 is
slaughtered, the first thing to do is inflate it for air to come between the skin and the
rest of the body, thus facilitating the skinning of it. Inflating makes everything bigger, including the sheep testicles. What is noticeable here is that under air pressure
the testicles burst out or literally explode, which is a sign that the skin of the sheep
is ready to come out. Apart from its ugliness, this operation must be very painful
for a sensitive organ such as testicles. The sensitivity of the organs and the pain that
is inflicted on them is mapped on anger, creating the conceptual metaphor,
ANGER IS PHYSICAL PAIN.

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69

Because physiological embodiment generally translates an actual change in the

physiology of the body part involved in anger, the expression of anger is thought to
correspond to physiological reality. However, because in culturally specific embodiment the conceptualization of anger is a function of conventional/motivated
correlation between anger itself and a body that is not the seat of this emotion, conceptualization combines metaphor with hyperbole as in all the examples in (9). Indeed, no bones are broken, no flesh is cut, no soul has left the body, no stomach has
been 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 hyperboles can be detected as a result of the discrepancy between the emotion of anger and
its form of expression.

Anger Expressions and Culturally Tainted Embodiment

So far, it has been demonstrated that anger expressions in TA come as physiological embodiment or culturally specific embodiment. In this section, it is demonstrated that TA also includes metaphoric and metonymic anger expressions that
can be subsumed under culturally tainted embodiment.
However, before investigating culturally tainted embodiment in TA, a look at
what Kvecses (2002) calls cultural variation is in good order. Kvecses characterized the cultural variations for metaphor and metonymy as follows:
1. Variation in the range of conceptual metaphors and metonymies for a given
target;
2. Variation in the particular elaborations of conceptual metaphors and
metonymies for a given target;
3. Variation in the emphasis on metaphor versus metonymy associated with a
given target, or the other way around.
These are indeed crucial variations that no cross-cultural study of metaphor and
metonymy can dispense with. However, they do not seem to exhaust all the types of
cultural variations. For instance, TA and Zulu (Taylor & Mbense, 1998) may use in
the conceptualization of anger words that pertain to what Nida (1964) called ecological (such as dust storm or other culture-specific ecological phenomena) or
material (such as culture-specific names for utensils or animals) culture. For
that, the list offered by Kvecses is in need of being extended by offering another
category to accommodate these culture-specific items:
4. Variation in the culture specificity of the basic-level category realizing conceptual metaphors and metonymies for a given target across cultures.

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This addition would render account of many anger expressions that use culture-specific names of animals and utensils and other cultural phenomena in TA
and other languages and cultures.
There is evidence in TA for anger expressions that neither describe physiological change to the body (i.e., physiological embodiment) nor use any part of the
body (culturally specific embodiment). Instead, these expressions capitalize on
culture-specific items, such as animals or cultural practices, and associate them
conventionally with a given emotion. The difference between culturally specific
embodiment and what I wish to call culturally tainted embodiment is that the former uses parts of the body that are not physiologically involved in anger, whereas
the latter uses instances of emotion that can be traced back to physiological embodiment that it taints culturally by using culture-specific lexical items. In this
sense, culturally tainted embodiment may be said to be a subclass of physiological
embodiment. However, culturally tainted embodiment will be studied as a separate
class 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 A
FEROCIOUS ANIMAL. The expression is built on a metaphtonymy, where anger
is conceptualized metaphorically as a bitch, which stands metonymically for loss
of control or near rabies. In this relation of transitivity, because anger is a bitch, and
a bitch stands for rabies, therefore anger is rabies, translating into violent behavior.
Bitches are known to become ferocious in defending their puppies immediately after their birth, or believed to be so when they are in heat. When bitch combines
with 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 Tunisian 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 character. Camels are known to remember any humiliation directed against them. When a
camel is angry, it makes a particular awesome noise accompanied by foaming at

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71

the mouth. As part of our cultural knowledge of camels, the most important thing
not to do when a camel is angry is get near it; it might charge like a bull or even
worse. All this knowledge is mapped onto an angry person, which gives rise to
AN ANGRY PERSON IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL. In this particular case, an
angry 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 fuming, the experiencer is letting out foam from the mouth like a camel.
Apart from animal behavior, TA conceptualizes anger as violent behavior as in
the 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 yitaqq.
[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 by
Lakoff and Kvecses (1987), who argue that people who can neither control nor
relieve the pressure of anger engage in violent frustrated behavior (p. 204). All of
the expressions are specialized, cultural metaphors.
The expression in (11a) is ambiguous between two readings. However, no native could tell me for sure what it actually means. The expression could mean (a) he
went into a dust storm, where anger is conceptualized as a stormy state (STATE
AS A CONTAINER IN SPACE), or (b) he came in accompanied by a dust storm. In
both cases, ANGER IS A NATURAL FORCE. What makes this expression of anger so cultural is the selection of 3ajaaja, a dusty and violent storm typical of the
ecological culture of many of the Arab countries. It is not unlikely that the appellation Desert Storm adopted during the 1991 Gulf War capitalized on this very meaning. 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

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described as entering in a dust storm, they tend to be violent and to have no control
over themselves. What makes the expression in (11a) a case of culturally tainted
embodiment is that it is very similar, for instance, to (7a) where the experiencer is
in a state of agitation, hopping mad. The expression taints this agitation with the
culture-specific lexical item 3ajaaja or dust storm. A similar cultural metaphor
was noted by Taylor and Mbense (1998) in Zulu, where anger is conceptualized as
Wa-bhenguza (Why did he blow a gale?; p. 213).
Expressions (11b) and (11c) are much similar in meaning; they actually tend to
be used interchangeably. If someone is described as doing either of (11b) or (11c),
they are unable to control themselves. This violent behavior is conceptualized with
a 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 metaphor, ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS AGGRESSIVE (ANIMAL) BEHAVIOR.
The last anger expression in (11d) depicts an angry person as on edge and on the
brink of explosion. This is captured in the fact that a grain of wheat is enough to
split him or her up into two halves. A grain of wheat has two sharp ends and can be
incisive, but not to the extent that it causes what it is described to do. It is interesting to note that if ever this would-be angry person externalizes his or her anger it
will not be directed against others but against his or her own self.
Similar to culturally specific cases of embodiment, culturally tainted embodiment uses hyperbolic reasoning to exaggerate the extent of anger. The hyperbolic
dimension in both types of embodiment is best seen as an overstatement, suggesting the as-if nature of their conceptualization. Interestingly, even those conceptualizations of anger classed as physiological embodiment include an element of
exaggeration, which stresses the interpenetration of body and culture in the expression of anger.

CONCLUSION
This study confirms embodiment as an important grounding for the metaphoric
conceptualization of anger in TA. Although it is not unique in showing this, TA
has been demonstrated to offer, apart from physiological embodiment, two important types of embodiment, which are thought to contribute to a broader conception of embodiment. The two types of embodiment have been called culturally specific embodiment, where the emotion establishes a conventional cultural
correlation between a body part and a certain conceptualization of anger, and
culturally tainted embodiment, where an essentially physiology-based anger expression is tainted with a culture-specific lexical item, fusing together physiology and culture. The two types of embodiment have been demonstrated to combine metaphor and hyperbole as a way of highlighting the discrepancies between
what is felt and its conceptualization.

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73

As a result of this typology of embodiment, there arises the tendency of a given

language either to use metaphor or metonymy. I believe that owing to the predominance of physiological embodiment in American English, for instance,
metonymies are more common than metaphors whereas metaphors are more common than metonymies in TA, owing to the existence of culturally specific embodiment and culturally tainted embodiment. Because metonymy seems to correlate
with more physiological embodiment, and metaphor with culturally specific embodiment and culturally tainted embodiment, metaphors of anger are more dominant than metonymies of anger in TA.
In culturally specific embodiment, what is described as happening to the
part of the body used in the conceptualization of anger is not the part of the
body known to actually show physiological change. In this connection, the conceptualization of anger in TA approximates conclusions reached by Lutz
(1987) about Ifaluks emotion concepts, where definitions of emotion terms
relatively rarely contain reference to the physiological feeling tone associated with a particular emotion (p. 292). Such a distribution of anger descriptions across parts of the body has imposed in TA an alternation between
metonymy as supported by a physiological change as in the sets of examples
(18), and metaphor as supported by absence of actual physiological change as
in (9). Deriving from these examples, the expression of anger in TA is physiology and culture bound. With very few exceptions, the anger expressions classified as cultural embodiment support Kvecses (2000b) insight that social
constructions are given bodily basis and bodily motivation is given social-cultural substance (p. 14).
What transpires from culturally tainted expressions of anger is that culture-specific categories such as bitch, camel, snake, hen, goat, storm, pan, grain
of wheat, and so on, are used. This type of embodiment confirms Kvecses
(1995) claim that the conceptualization of anger is influenced by both culture
and physiology (p. 195). The significance of this kind of embodiment is that it
does not consist in a reduction of our bodily interactions with environing conditions to the merely physiological (Fesmire, 1994, p. 32). It is embodiment
where the body as a physiology and the body as a cultural dimension interact
and even merge.
There is need to study languages and cultures other than the ones customarily
studied for this typology of embodiment to be ascertained as pervasive or
disconfirmed as specific to a few cultures. In other words, there is need for studies
like those of Yu (1998) for Chinese, Matsuki (1995) and Matsunaka and Shinohara
(2001) for Japanese, Kvecses (2002) for Hungarian, Taylor & Mbense (1998) for
Zulu, and so on. This contribution is an addition to this thrust for a theory of embodiment in a cross-cultural perspective. If similar studies to this one confirmed
the existence of this typology of embodiment across cultures, they would open
more windows in the structure of human cognition.

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