LITERATURE & RESEARCH

Winning Strategies

by Holden, Beth Ann, Incentive, 10425195, Feb98, Vol. 172, Issue 2
Database: Business Source Premier

1. Tips for lightening up at the office:

A humor consultant says a few chuckles each day could increase your bottom line. During its recent downsizing, AT&T employees had a tough time coping. “We were going through a pretty tough transformation,” says Debbie Buckland, sales executive for AT&T’s Atlanta office. “People didn’t know what their jobs would be. We had a lot of sickness and absenteeism. We needed survival skills; a way to deal with everyday stress.”

So Buckland called in C.W. Metcalf, a humor consultant based in Colorado, who uses a system of workshops to teach employees to use humor as a coping mechanism. “When we called him in,” she says, “he had every single person, even the most discouraged staffers, doing silly things. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, but this year we haven’t had nearly as much absenteeism due to sickness.”

According to Metcalf, laughter is the best medicine for company ills. “Companies can’t offer security anymore, so they need to give employees a psychologically healthy working environment,” he says. “The idea is to create an atmosphere that says we are here and we care about you. Maybe we can’t offer you job security, but we can offer a fun place to work. Humor is a vital ingredient to the success of any company.”

And studies bear this theory out. Research shows that incorporating humor in the workplace increases productivity and morale. When David Abramis, a psychologist at California State University at Long Beach, conducted a survey of 382 people from diverse occupations, he found that “those who felt that their work was fun performed better and got along better with co-workers than did those who were satisfied with their jobs, but did not see them as fun.”

William Fry, a researcher at Stanford University, has found that laughing 100 times a day is equal to spending 10 minutes on a rowing machine. It increases oxygen intake, pumps air into the lungs and causes muscles to relax. For any company, a happy work-force translates into less absenteeism caused by stress-related illness, fewer employee turnover and reduced healthcare costs.

Metcalf has been teaching corporations how to lighten up with his humor workshops since 1983. He teaches humor as a survival skill and encourages employees to develop a sense of humor as a coping mechanism. He encourages what he refers to as “thinking out of the box.” In other words, put things in perspective: “You and the company you work for are not the center of the universe.” he says. “No matter how bad things may seem, it’s not the end of the world when something goes wrong.”

Metcalf encourages employees not to be afraid, to act silly and, in fact, gets boardrooms of new recruits and CEO’s alike to do his trademarked “Humoraerobics,” physical humor exercises such as “The Howl for Joy” and “The Shakin’ Face.” These exercises, however silly they may appear, help employees alleviate stress, find the value of fun and play, teach them to overcome fear of foolishness and failure and say it’s O.K. to take risks. The Digital Equipment Corp. reported that productivity jumped 15 percent and sick days fell by half during nine months of using Metcalf’s techniques.

Laughter may be the best medicine after all, and one thing’s for sure–it’s cheaper than therapy and that will cut your bottom line.
Tips for lightening up at the office:

Hold quarterly meetings with themes. For example, have a hoedown where everyone dresses in country-western garb.

Take a popular tune and rewrite the words to the song to honor an employee for a special occasion or their birthday.

Begin the week by having a team in your division or a department act out a skit, taking a humorous look at some aspects of your business. Whichever team puts on the skit, brings the donuts.

In the dead of winter, hold a summer party complete with key lime pie and margaritas to remind employees that summer’s on the way.

Stay away from negative business terms, like deadline, worst-case scenario, takeovers and slashing budgets. Use positive terms instead.

Buy every employee red, clown noses. Tell them to keep them in their desk and the next time a meeting or a project gets too intense, tell them to stick them on their noses. It’s hard to be serious when someone is wearing a clown nose.

Have a pancake breakfast and have senior level managers cook for lower-level employees. This is a way of honoring employees and bringing everyone together.

When you spot a co-worker who looks like they’re having a bad day, make a silly face at them. This will put a smile on their face instantly and alleviate stress.

Appoint someone to be on a joy gang or fun committee. The sole purpose should be to organize events for employees that are fun.

Throw a surprise treat day. Serve everyone coffee and donuts at their desk, rent a popcorn machine or an ice cream cart and deliver ice cream bars throughout the building.

Give an employee a surprise hour or day off. Once a week go to one of your employees and say, “I want you to have a bonus hour off. I’ll cover for you for this hour and I want you to do something for yourself during this time. Go to the park, take a walk or go shopping. You’ve been working hard and I appreciate it.”

The Laughing Cure

By: Foltz-Gray, Dorothy, Goldstein, Laura, Prevention, 00328006, Oct98, Vol. 50, Issue 10
Database: Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre

Why this couple will never get sick!

Our immune systems are a bit like cars: When they’re new, they’re about as good as they’re going to get. Then life happens. We eat on the go, stay up too late, don’t exercise, lead stressful lives, and struggle with the blues. Toss in aging and a few genetic predispositions, and this perfect system works a little less perfectly. And that makes us vulnerable to diseases from colds to cancer, flu to heart disease.

Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do on your own-no doctor, no drugs-to strengthen your immune system. And more good news: One of the most powerful immune boosters is having fun. So here’s your prescription for laughter, laziness, and immune-boosting pleasure.

1. Sleep well. If you’re tired when you wake up in the morning, you’re not getting enough quality sleep or maybe not enough sleep, period. Either way, your immunity is probably compromised.

Most people need between 6 and 8 hours a night, though individual needs vary. So switch off Jay Leno and climb into bed.

But consider the quality of your sack time too. “Poor sleep is associated with lower [immune system] function and numbers of killer cells,” says Martica Hall, PhD, who has conducted research at the University of Pittsburgh on stress-related sleep disturbances. Killer cells are the part of the immune system that combats viruses or cells that divide too rapidly, as they do in cancer. “Lower their numbers,” says Dr. Hall, “and you may be at greater risk for illness.”

Although no single prescription guarantees sweet sleep, lowering stress levels will enhance snoozing. “Yoga, exercise, or talking to a friend may all help lower stress,” says Dr. Hall.

If you want to go herbal, before bed try taking 2 to 3 g of valerian, which is a safe and effective sleep promoter.

Also, watch out for the sleep robbers such as eating, drinking alcohol, smoking, or exercising right before bedtime.

2. Get friendlier. Going out with friends can boost your spirits and your defenses. A 1997 study of 276 people, conducted at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, found that those who had a variety of social relationships were better able to fend off colds and had 20% greater immune function than more introverted people.

Researchers speculate that social ties may help us cope with the stresses that lower immunity. “Immune cells have receptors that bind to stress hormones,” explains Bruce S. Rabin, MD, PhD, study coauthor and director of the Brain, Behavior, and Immunity Center at the University of Pittsburgh. “When this occurs, the immune cells don’t work as well.”

Turn your love of needlework or racewalking into an opportunity to make new friends by joining a quilting bee or a racewalking club. But if the hermit life suits you, stay solitary, says Dr. Rabin. Happy loners may find friends stressful.

3. Check out a Jim Carrey video. Laughter expert and neuroimmunologist Lee S. Berk, DHSc, and colleagues at Loma Linda University School of Medicine in California have found that the positive emotions associated with laughter decrease stress hormones and increase certain immune cells while activating others. In one of Dr. Berk’s recent studies, 10 healthy men who watched a funny video for an hour had significant increases in gamma interferon, a cytokine hormone of the immune system, which activates other components of the immune system.

Not the funny type? You can still cash in. One study found that when asked to narrate a stressful film in a humorous manner, people who typically didn’t cope using humor had equally positive benefits compared to people who tended to use humor as a coping strategy. Both groups had fewer physical signs of stress when they used humor than when they narrated the film seriously, reports the lead researcher Michelle Newman, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University in State College.

So how can you add a little humor to your life? “If you’re stuck in traffic, think about a funny TV show, or read the silly tabloid headlines when you’re waiting in a grocery line,” says Dr. Newman.

4. Get some culture. Next time your husband gets tickets to a ball game, go! One study in Sweden showed that those who frequented cultural events such as concerts, museum exhibits, even ball games, tended to live longer than their stay-at-home peers (British Medical Journal, Dec 21-28, 1996). The key factors could be increased social contact and reduced stress. But it could also be the music. Deforia Lane, PhD, certified music therapist and director of music therapy at the Ireland Cancer Center, University Hospitals of Cleveland, has found that people undergoing music therapy have significant increases in levels of immunoglobulin A (IgA)-antibodies in saliva that defend against infection and cancer.

Some studies suggest that music can lessen pain response and heighten relaxation, which could translate to better disease resistance. The listening rules are easy. Choose music you have a personal preference for, which can promote a positive physiological response, says Dr. Lane.

5. Tell your diary all about it. Doing so may rev up your ability to fend off germs, according to studies by James W. Pennebaker, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Pennebaker found that people who wrote about traumatic events for 20 minutes a day three to five times a week had about half as many doctor visits as people who didn’t write. Their antibody response to bacteria and viruses was more vigorous than the control group’s too.

Putting it all down on paper may help you see your problems as less stressful so your body doesn’t automatically produce stress hormones, such as cortisol. “There’s preliminary evidence that writing improves function in the parts of the brain that control cortisol secretion,” says Joshua Smyth, PhD, study project director at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, who headed 1998 research that found similar results among people with chronic illnesses.

6. Let those magic fingers do their magic. In a study conducted by Gail Ironson, MD, PhD, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, 20 men with immune systems weakened by HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) received 45-minute massages five days a week for a month. At the end of that time, they had less anxiety and several of their immune functions improved considerably.

For example, natural killer cells, important in knocking off viruses and tumors, became more efficient and multiplied. Cytotoxic T-cells, a type of suppressor T-cell, that help regulate immune response also increased. Dr. Ironson thinks that the relaxation effect of massage decreases stress hormones, in particular, cortisol.

“If I were concerned about my immune system being weakened, I would absolutely get massaged,” says Dr. Ironson.

7. Get on your knees. Faith may make you healthier. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, recently found that people who attended religious services once a week or more had lower levels of interleukin-6, an immune-system protein linked to some autoimmune diseases, cancer, and heart disease, than nonchurchgoers (International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, Oct 1997).

Their immune response may be related to increased social contact, which lowers stress. Or prayer may elicit what Herbert Benson, MD, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, calls the relaxation response. “The reaction is exactly opposite to the fight-or-flight response we have to stress,” says Dr. Benson.

8. Just say no to antibiotics. “People say, ‘I have a cold. I need antibiotics,’” says clinical immunologist Marianne Frieri, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine and pathology at SUNY at Stony Brook and director of allergy immunology at Nassau County Medical Center in East Meadow, NY. “But overuse of antibiotics can sometimes suppress the immune system.” Dr. Frieri and her colleagues found that certain patients taking antibiotics had reduced levels of cytokines, the hormone messengers of the immune system (Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, Jan 1998). “If you need antibiotics for a bacterial infection, fine,” says Dr. Frieri, “but they don’t work for viral infections or the common cold.” And they may just make you worse.

9. Attack back with herbs. Here are two herbs to put in your immunity arsenal. At least 32 studies suggest that echinacea (Echinacea spp.) may prevent colds. Prevention advisor Varro Tyler, PhD, ScD, professor emeritus of Purdue University’s School of Pharmacy in West Lafayette, IN, says echinacea may activate the white blood cells that then fight the cold virus. Dr. Tyler recommends taking the standardized herb in tablet or capsule form, as directed, at the first sign of a cold. If it hasn’t worked after a week, it won’t hurt to keep taking it, but it probably won’t help. (Caution: If you’re allergic to plants in the daisy family, echinacea may trigger similar reactions. Avoid using this herb if you have an autoimmune disease such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or Graves’ disease.)

Ginseng may add zing to your immune system too. Top-notch German herbal experts conclude the herb is a “tonic for invigoration and fortification in times of fatigue and debility.” Dr. Tyler recommends taking two 100 mg capsules daily of products containing 4% ginsenosides.

10. Dream on. Imagery, a relaxation technique that, like daydreaming, involves allowing images to drift through your mind, may heighten immune response to disease. “In some studies the subjects have increased T-cell and white blood cell count,” says Mary Ann Richardson, DrPH, assistant professor at the University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health. “In others, there was a rise in natural killer cell activity.”

In her own study of women who had completed treatment for breast cancer, the women who used imagery therapy didn’t have any significant changes in their immune function. But they reported less stress, more vigor, and an improved quality of life.

At the very least, imagery therapy sounds inviting. “Just relax and let images come to you,” says Dr. Richardson. “Or listen to tapes that invoke relaxation with the sound of ocean waves or of someone describing [the process of] relaxation. Take 5 minutes daily to breathe deeply and relax.”

11. Lighten up on the vino. A daily glass of wine may be great for lowering cholesterol, says Dr. Frieri, but more than that may threaten your defenses. “Alcohol can suppress the B cells that make antibodies, which can leave you more prone to bacterial infection,” she says.

12. Arm yourself with C. Studies have found a link between vitamin C and three things: greater production of interferon (which activates other parts of the immune system), souped-up T-cells (the system’s warriors), and increased natural killer cell activity, says Dr. Frieri. You probably need 200 to 500 mg daily to get the effect. But don’t overdose: 1,000 mg or more can cause kidney stones in susceptible people.

13. Be a cockeyed optimist. Having a positive outlook when under stress can make you and your immune system feel high. A 1998 study at the University of California at Los Angeles found that law students who began their first semester optimistic about the experience had more helper T-cells midsemester, which can amplify the immune response, and more powerful natural killer cells. The reason? They experience events such as their grueling first year as less stressful than their more pessimistic classmates.

Lead investigator on the study, Suzanne C. Segerstrom, PhD, says the research “establishes the possibility that a person’s outlook and mood when stressed might affect responses to common immune challenges such as exposure to cold viruses.”

14. Turn to the elixir of youth. Vitamin E may be the elixir of youth for aging immune systems, according to a 1997 clinical trial at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. Eighty-eight healthy men and women over age 65 took various doses of vitamin E for 235 days. “We measured a number of immune responses and most were improved,” says study coauthor Jeffrey B. Blumberg, PhD, chief of the antioxidants research laboratory. For example, when the subjects’ responses to certain infectious agents were measured, researchers saw a 50 to 70% improvement in immune response. Says Dr. Blumberg, “That’s the equivalent of 70 year olds responding more like 40 year olds.”

People in their 20s didn’t show as big a change. But, says Dr. Blumberg, “the age-related decline in their immunity wasn’t as great as in the elderly subjects.”

It’s tough to get enough E from diet alone, but you only need a supplement of 200 international units (IU) to get the benefit, says Dr. Blumberg.

15. Make tracks every day. Daily vigorous exercise such as a heart-pumping walk can bolster your disease resistance. David C. Nieman, DrPH, professor of health and exercise science at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, has shown in at least three separate studies that women who walked fast enough to boost their heart rate for 30 to 45 minutes five days a week for 12 weeks had an increased number of immune cells in their bodies for several hours afterward.

But don’t overdo it. “In high intensity exercise of more than an hour, hormones are secreted that can suppress the immune system for up to 24 hours,” says Dr. Nieman.

365 Simple Reminders

by Elaine St James

International best-selling author Elaine St. James offers up a new collection of simple tips to help you minimize life’s chaos. Her commonsense solutions will have you breathing a deep sigh of relief as you ask yourself, Why didn’t I think of that? A compilation of the best ideas from St. James’s previous five books, plus important new material, 365 Simple Reminders is a wonderful, witty guide that will lead you back to a less-complicated way of life. St. James’s advice includes:

- Sell the damn boat.
- Be selective about giving out your E-mail address.
- Make water your drink of choice.
- Never remodel.
- If you must remodel, don’t live in your home while it’s being remodeled.
- Get rid of all but one or two of your credit cards.
- Always sit down to eat.
- Beware of exercise equipment, fire your personal trainer, and go take a walk.
- If you can’t pay for it in full by the end of the month, don’t buy it.
- Slow down to the posted speed limit.
- Replace your lawn with low-maintenance, drought-tolerant ground cover.
- If it’s not working, stop doing it.
- Resign from any organization whose meetings you dread.
- Show your kids how to manage their own space and stuff.
- Never allow a ringing phone to interrupt a meal with your family.

Her thoughts are a straightforward and powerful recipe for getting rid of the unnecessary, life-cluttering tasks we find ourselves doing without pausing to ask why.

A Boy and a Turtle

Author: Lori Lite, Kimberly C. Fox
Publisher: LiteBooks.net LLC

Visualization is an effective technique widely used for achieving sports goals, creating success and attaining wellness. Now children can follow A Boy and a Turtle as they fill their bodies with the colors of the rainbow. Colorful imagery quiets the mind and relaxes the body. Parents as well as children enjoy falling asleep while playing in the field of colors.

Five Good Minutes at Work

Author: Jeffrey Brantley & Wendy Millstine
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications,U.S.

In less time than they would spend on a coffee break, readers can fill their workdays with peace, calm, and serenity. This collection of 100 mindfulness practices, the third in New Harbinger’s Five Good Minutes series, can help the uninspired, tired and stressed out transform a few precious minutes on the job into a revitalizing and invigorating experience. Each of these practices is designed to help readers relax, focus and reflect on what really matters to them. Whether sitting at a desk or ducking into the supply closet, anyone in any office or work environment can include these stress-relieving and centering activities into even the busiest schedule. Exercises help readers deal with difficult coworkers, tyrannical bosses, impossible deadlines and more. Just five minutes a day will reward readers with increased productivity, reduced workplace conflict and a sense of serenity that will start to spread to the rest of their lives.

The Goodnight Caterpillar

Author: Lori Lite & Kimberly C. Fox
Publisher: LiteBooks.net LLC

Children love to unwind and relax with this easy, gentle exercise known as muscular relaxation. This effective stress-management technique is widely accepted and used by both traditional and holistic communities. The technique focuses awareness on various muscle groups to create a complete resting of the mind and body. Muscular relaxation can have a positive impact on your child’s health and immune system. It can lower stress and anxiety levels. It can be used to decrease pain and anger. This encouraging story quiets the mind and relaxes the body so your child can fall asleep peacefully.

Kids Get Stressed Too

Author: Alister E. McGrath
Publisher: Resources for Christian Living, US

Children are facing extremely difficult and very stressful situations in their young lives in today’s society. Teachers are constantly looking for answers to help children handle the everyday stresses of growing up. Kids Get Stressed Too does not pretend to have the ultimate answers but is an attempt to share some useful and helpful information on stress management and suggest positive ways to help kids deal with their worlds.

Unspoken Accents
by Siri Carpenter

Scientific American Mind, 2007, Vol 18 Issue 4, p 13.

Unspoken Accents, an article by Siri Carpenter explains how language can also reveal our cultural origins. According to her research, these ‘non-verbal accents’ also provoke stereotyped perceptions of others’ personalities. Many researchers regard nonverbal behaviour as a universal language ¬– wherever you go a smile looks the same. Carpenter continues to argue that continuing research shows that the environment (where we are from) shapes both how we display emotion and how we perceive it in others.

In a recent study undertaken and reported, it was found that American volunteers could distinguish American from Australian faces when the faces were photographed smiling but not when they were photographed with neutral expressions. A study undertaken in Japan also revealed people from different cultures are attuned to different nonverbal cues. It was found that Americans tend to look to the mouth to interpret others’ ‘true feelings’, whereas Japanese tend to be more emotionally guarded, expressing through the eyes which are less controlled and obvious. “People can be sensitive to cultural cues that they are barely aware of and also that their own cultural norms can lead them astray.” (Carpenter, S. 2007).

In conclusion it is suggested that these misjudgements can have unintended consequences, especially in a world where unspoken communication breakdowns are evident and can lead to cross-cultural misunderstandings. “Improving awareness of these differences might go a long way toward improving cross-cultural interactions”. (Carpenter, S. 2007).

The Language Instinct
by Steven Pinker

Pinker, S, 1994, ‘Language Instinct’ William Morrow & Co. USA

An Instinct to Acquire an Art
Steven Pinker, author of ‘The Language Instinct’ theorises that language is not based on a cultural framework of evolution, but instead is a “distinct piece of biological makeup of our brains.” It is a complex, specialised skill which is developed from childhood subconsciously. Some Phychologists describe language as a ‘psychological faculty’, but Steven Pinker prefers the word “instinct”. “The idea that people know how to talk in more or less the sense that spiders know how to spin webs.” (Pinker, S. 1994 pp. 4-5).
“Language is no more a cultural invention that is upright posture.” (Pinker, S. 1994 p 5). He concludes is argument by revealing that the essence of language is not what many perceive it to be, commonly depicted as the “ineffable essence of human uniqueness”. Instead Pinker asserts that Language should be viewed as “a biological adaptation to communicate information” (Pinker, S. 1994, p. 5), therefore the idea of language being seen as a shaper of thought could be disregarded.

The Language of Mavens
Pinker states, “As educational standards decline and pop culture disseminates, we are turning into a nation of functional illiterates. English itself will steadily decay unless we start to respect our language again.” He continues to explain that in language there is a contradiction, as the ‘words rule’ grammatical and ungrammatical have different meanings to a scientist and to a layperson. The rules people learn (or more likely fail to learn) in school are ‘Prescriptive Rules’ prescribing how one ‘ought’ to talk. Scientists who study language propose ‘Descriptive Rules’ describing how people ‘do’ talk. (Pinker, S. 1994)

To a scientist, the fundamental fact of human language is its sheer improbability. (Pinker, S. 1994)

Where is the Gender in Gendered Language?
Rob Thomson, Tamar Murachver, and James Green.

American Psychological Society, Vol.12 No. 2 March 2001

• Purpose of research article was to look into how woman and men react and accommodate to gender preferential language (based on email messages).
• The results have implications for how people think about gendered behaviour, and highlight how gendered language is constructed in social interaction.
• This article challenges the idea that the existence of gender differences in language use is indelible in everyday contexts. The belief that women and men speak differently is common within both academic and popular psychology.
• Language is not only a framework of set features; it is an overall process whereby people adapt their language to fit the situation. The idea that people in a conversation both change the situation and are changed by it is fundamental to communication accommodation theory. (CAT; Coupland, Coupland, Gles, & Henwood, 1988)
• According to CAT, when individuals exchange friendly communication they will generally be motivated to accentuate their similarities. So for example, partners’ styles of communication will converge. Over time when ones speech behaviours become more and more alike as each conversational partner’s language use converges toward the language use of the other partner.
• Gender preferential language is most pronounced within same sex groups.
• Both men and women accommodate to the style of the other gender in mixed-sex conversation. So, as a result, mixed sex interactions can yield less extreme differences between the genders than same sex interactions do.
• Process of accommodation could partially explain the origins of gendered speech.
• It is recently demonstrated that girls and boys accommodate to the gender-preferential style used by other people. The phenomenon of gender-segregated playgroups in early childhood shows that this also contributes th the development of these styles. Girls and boys spend more time in same-sex groups than in mixed-sex groups, therefore they spend more time accommodating to the gender-referential style of their own group rather than that of the other gender.
• Speech accommodation by no means creates the initial impetus for gender-based language differentiation, but, through processes associated with stereotype development and social identity, speech accommodation might be one mechanism by which gendered language becomes more distinct over time.
• Gender differences in language are a reality. This doesn’t mean that gendered language is an inevitable, inherent feature of a person. Clearly, it is heavily based on the situation surrounding the dialogue.

Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture,
and Body in Human Feeling
By Zoltan Kovecses Cambridge University Press

Chapter 1. Language and Emotion Concepts

• Describes aspects of emotion language that are important in the study of emotion concepts.
• Most important of these concepts is the role of figurative language in the conceptualisation of emotion.
• Zoltan suggests that it is a serious consequence that metaphors and other figurative language play a large role in how we think about emotions. He asks the question, Do metaphors simply reflect a preexisting, literal reality, or do they actually create or constitute our emotional reality?
• Challenges some scholars view that assume that language simply consists of a dozen or so words, such as anger, fear, love, joy and so forth, by claiming that this is all a small fraction of our emotion language.
• Discuses general functions and organization of emotion-related vocabulary, and looks at a neglected group of emotional terms also.
• Breaks emotion words into two categories: Expressive words and Descriptive words.Expressive words examples include terms such as Shit! when you’re angry, or wow! when enthusiastic or impressed. Descriptive words – obviously describe the emotions they signify or that “they are about.” For example, anger and angry, joy and happy, sadness and depressed are assumed to be used in such a way.
• Further discusses Descriptive Emotion Words in more detail, as it is a much larger category of emotion terms. He organizes the emotion terms into superodinate level, middle level (basic) and thirdly subordinate level.
• Another sub group within Descriptive words are figurative terms and expressions, as they also describe emotions. These words denote various aspects of emotion concepts, such as intensity, cause, control and so forth. They can be metaphorical and metonymical.
• Conceptual metaphors bring two distant domains (concepts) into correspondence with each other. One is normally more physical or concrete while the other is more abstract. Example:Boiling with anger is a linguistic example of the conceptual metaphor anger is a hot fluid. Burning with love is an example of Love is fire.To be on cloud nine is an example of Happiness is up.These examples indicate an aspect of intensity of emotions to them.
• Many scholars hold the view that only literal expressions can be the bearers of truth and that figurative expressions have nothing to do with how our emotinional reality is constituted. Many other scholars do not agree.