Investigating Quranic anger conceptual metaphors based on basic emotion and conceptual act theories

Abstract

Abstract Some vast researches done in the past 50 years have largely convinced some researchers that fundamental emotions are natural and can be seen in all animals, this view is called the basic emotion theory. One of the recent meta-analysis of the human neuroimaging literature was interpreted as supportive of the basic emotion hypothesis (Vytal and Hamann, 2010), but in actuality, although there are some consistencies between limbic and non-limbic regions, some of non-specific regions become activated during anger, sadness, fear, disgust and happiness. Based on this point, each emotion category arises from an innate, specific brain module with homology to other animals. This basic emotion view has commonly loomed large in the science of emotion, and is broadly accepted by many researchers in this fields and it has become a general topic in the popular mainstream media, in spite of the fact that there is still a long way to perceive how the brain basis of emotion is functioning. All in all, some scientists think that certain emotions, such as anger, fear, sadness, happiness and disgust, are biologically basic. It means that these primary and fundamental emotions are natural and can be seen in all beings, that is why it is called the basic emotion theory. In contrast to the basic emotion theory, another approach to emotion, the ‘conceptual act theory of emotion’ supposes that an emotion such as anger, sadness, fear, disgust or happiness is a population of instances and the instances do not originate from their own. They come from different parts and sections of the brain and they are not specifically devoted to identified brain networks. In spite of that, some scientists believe that they are built from the combination of activities in domain-general, core brain systems that perform more basic psychological functions such as salience detection, memory, sensory perception, language and so on (Barrett, 2006, 2012; Lindquist and Barrett, 2012; Barrett and Satpute, 2013). On the other hand, many different parts of brain are involved in order to understand the concepts of emotions and act, react or take positions while they are being processed. the present study, which has a qualitative and descriptive-analytic character, wants to specify and discover the active parts of the cerebellum, when processing and understanding the concepts of power and movement in the form of conceptual metaphor for the concept of anger based on Quranic data. That is why the present research has focused on anger verses in the Holy Quran. To do so, 80 conceptual metaphors in the source domain of power and movement were gathered from the Holy Quran. For finding the appropriate metaphors, first the lexicon of anger terms was looked up in the Holy Quran thesaurus (Ghoreshi, 2007), then the verses containing those terms were extracted to discover the conceptual anger metaphors. After that, the derived metaphors were studied and analyzed by some Quran experts to ensure that they are accurate. To perform the present investigation, the following practical steps have been taken. First, metaphorical representations sought in the conceptual anger metaphors were considered as signs indicating the activation of the functional regions of the cortex. Second, the themes and evidences of any conceptual metaphor, in other words, the kind of Qur'anic look to anger in different verses, are identified, for example, an extracted metaphor in Quran says: anger is chewing the fingertips, based on precise divisions of cortical functions put forward by Brodmann (Judas, et al. 2012), this conceptual metaphor can be attested to by the activation of parts of motor, executive, attention, emotion functions of the cerebellum during processing anger in the mind. Third, in the same vein, then, given that the active regions of the brain are widespread during anger (Vytal & Hamann, 2010: 2880), it became clear that Quranic anger metaphors need some different parts of brain to be involved in processing anger. Finally, by matching and comparing the data of Vital and Haman (2012) with Bradman, adapted from Judas (2012), on the one hand, and analysis of the explanation of the concept of motion and power metaphors on the other hand, the analysis and representation of the data was done. Living experiences are the main sources by which emotions are conceptualized in the brain networks. Then, consequently, based on the previous experiences, these emotions start to be processed. It has been proved that by means of already – made concepts many possible connections of brain neurons happen in the brain, which have important impacts on our ultimate decisions and reactions while beings emotional (Vytal & Haman, 2010). Therefore, it shows that those situations that you experience while you get angry have strong influences on your future behavior. Based on the data analysis for metaphorical comprehension, the findings show that the sources domains of power and movement in the form of conceptual metaphors for the concept of anger are shown in the target domains such as: patience, charity, forgiveness, actions, denial, neglect, repentance, blasphemy, eulogy, hell, provocation, excitement, self-denial, curse and torment. It was also found that different areas of the cerebellum are active during the processing of anger through different responses. The findings also show that the concept of anger or when exposed to anger, rebounds and reactions are reflected from interactions between areas, networks and numerous neural networks, and ultimately, a conceptual action theory is confirmed. In addition, the results demonstrate that the conception of anger is transitional, transitory and context-based in the Holy Quran. Findings also indicate that while we are exposed to conceptual metaphors for the concept of anger, many different somatosensory feedbacks are observed. These are because of the interactions of brain networks and neuron connections. Results also show that the conceptual act theory of emotion is approved and anger is not only transitory but also context-based.